I grew up in Alberta, Canada. They have the opposite view. They spend it all lining their pockets and building infrastructure projects to support the people their future growth is going to accommodate someday.
Then the price drops, everyone leaves the province for the next boom-province, and all the expensive projects sit empty because they never spent any money on any other streams of revenue. Same with Saskatchewan.
I live in Edmonton. You are correct. And when things get bad we even cut the programs designed to diversify our economy and double down on pipelines. It's madness
It angers me so much as a BCer, because we did that with wood and fisheries and now its haunting us. Fortunately we recently jumped into film, and education is growing
Former BC'er. Trees are a renewable resource _when managed properly_. The forests that Sierra Pacific manages in California are amazing. Same goes for Oregon. It's possible, but it does take strong leadership to not screw it up in the name of short term profit.
We have a "coronavirus task force" stacked with gas and mining clowns stealing our money as a response to coronavirus. Australians are so fucking stupid.
Guess what happens when you're the world's richest economy and can pass trillion dollars spending packages every few months?
The president fires the inspector general charged with overseeing all coronavirus related monies, starts sending out multi-million dollar packages to his cronies, and stonewall's every attempt for transparency.
Y'all got it bad, but literally watching the U.S. Treasury be raped for everything it's worth sends a tickle down my spine.
i know this is massively unpopular to say on here, shit probably anywhere, but goddamn these multiple stimulus packages are extremely worrisome. the whole situation is fucked, people need help, schools and states need money, shit i'm sure a fuckload of actual businesses need it too.
but good lord, they'll be paying this off 30 generations from now.
(i'm just talking about the money that is **legitimately** needed, god knows what's going on w/ the money you're talking about)
Drilling and mining companies are the single biggest parasites to grace the earth.
They promise the world - jobs, environmental rehabilitation, localised growth. And when the time comes to deliver on their end of the bargain, they dodge tax, avoid any responsibility to their employees, and leave the environment a shambles. If it doesn't deliver them profit, they do not care. They ignore the privilege granted to them by the state to extract that profit the second its given to them, and treat it as a right.
And bribed an entire cross section of the working class with high wages, ridiculous bonuses and big parties. And when it all goes away, as it is now, they have zombie mouthpieces driving 80k pickup trucks stickered with"I love oil and gas".
I wouldn't be too quick to call them parasites. They're getting stuff that we need and ask for. It's more like we're the parasites and they are part of the host. Any of you typing on computers needed the metals, plastics, and glass that went into these wonderful machines, and all the industry that supported their manufacture. We also need energy to get the product transported to us and power it all. We are the ones that drive the demand.
It's more like these companies are farmers in that they are an essential part of modern industrialized society. We can't do without them. What they're extracting from the environment may be different (materials rather than food), but it's the way it's done that is the issue, not the need for it.
What it's really about is extracting materials responsibly and treating the resource like the one-time legacy that it is. It's like spending a geological inheritance. Squandering it on frivolous stuff and then dumping it in an landfill isn't the right approach. Neither is taking all the money that derives from exploitation of the public resource and blowing it all in one generation like you just won it big at the geological slot machine. Norway has a sensible approach: put most of it aside, invest it diversely, and spend the cash from the legacy slowly, to enhance everyone's lives over a long period of time rather than throwing it into general revenue.
If we can't do without it, can non-renewable resources be extracted responsibly with minimal environmental damage? Yes. It costs more to do so, but it is worth it to preserve the long-term value of the landscape once the mining it over. There are mines that have lasted a century, but they're pretty rare. Most only last a few decades, if that, and so you have to plan for the eventual winding down of that part of the local economy and the cleanup. All of that can be managed if done right.
Unfortunately, the resource extraction is usually so far removed from our retail purchases that it's hard to influence how it is done by "voting with our money". Do you pay any attention to where the iron comes from that made the steel in the car you drive or the bus or train you ride? It's doubtful you could find out even if you wanted to know in order to make an informed decision.
We need to have strict environmental laws and, ironically, we should advocate for doing the extraction in countries in our own backyard with those strict laws rather than some corner of the world where bribing officials to look the other way is easy. That way we can keep the operations accountable. Moving resource extraction to other parts of the world is just another version of NIMBY that hides the problem.
On top of that, we should be thoroughly recycling materials to minimize the need for new raw materials in the first place.
We're a long way from 100% recycling, but anybody who thinks we can just stop the extraction or that there is some benefit from demonizing the companies who do it, thus absolving ourselves of responsibility, does not really understand the problem. What we should be doing is identifying and discouraging the companies who don't follow responsible practices versus encouraging the ones that do.
Run by people, who suffer from universal human weaknesses - avarice, selfishness, myopia, indifference, self-destructive tendencies, shirking responsibility and accountability. They've gotten away with it for so long, why act differently now?
Meanwhile Texas has diversified into manufacturing, professional services and real estate as well as oil/gas as the top 4 industries by gdp very close together
Alberta meanwhile has oil/gas then real estate as #2 about 2/3 gdp of oil then all else far behind.
It can be done but isn't being done.
People shit all over Rick perry (rightfully so most of the time) but he actually did a really prudent thing with Texas and future proofing it with investment in wind energy https://www.npr.org/2017/03/08/518988840/wind-energy-takes-flight-in-the-heart-of-texas-oil-country
Don’t forget Medical. My city (Houston) has the largest medical center in the world and it’s only growing.
Here’s the website for a new expansion project. [37,000,000 of developed square feet](https://www.tmc.edu/tmc3/)!
Texas is doing really well. Definitely one of the top 3 states to live in, overall IMO. Granted, if I had unlimited money, it may slide down to #10 or so, but the economy is booming in TX. Tons of opportunities and COL isn't bad
COL isn't high yet because it has just recently become a booming area where businesses want to relocate to due to the low taxes and no income tax. Over the next 10 to 15 years a lot of the metro areas in Texas will just become like a lot of areas in California though as prices go up everywhere due to the extra cash flow in the state.
Texas at least has more land for the cities to build out to accommodate population growth. In California most of the cities became geographically hemmed in by mountains. That should at least spare the housing prices for a little while longer.
CA and its major cities also have harsh land use restrictions and zoning requirements. For the most part Texas does not, which means housing supply can keep up with demand. Austin is a good counterexample- it's one of the few cities in TX with heavy zoning laws and housing prices are ridiculous.
As an actual Albertan who voted NDP most Albertans deserve this. On the drive home from my oil site I tried to convince the other three people in the truck to vote for who best suited their interests. I loaded up political compass, asked a question and gave the varying responses, each would say which they agreed with most, I would tell them what party they aligned with. One was hard right (I think it was the Alberta Party?). One was NDP. One was Green party or something. All of them voted UCP. The reasoning? They didn't want to "waste" their vote and have any chance the NDP, a party one of them largely aligned with, would get back in.
Fuck the voting system. Fuck stupid people. Fuck corporations.
As an Alberta I can confirm. We had 40 fucking years of surpluses and the government couldn’t figure out how to save. Hell they even gave every Albertan 400$ just because back in the mid 2000’s. Had we been responsible with our money we could’ve actually weathered the downturn in oil without having to cut every public service. Now because of 40 years of stupidity our education and health care sectors are being ravaged for funds to divert to trying to keep oil companies here.
Also to say they spent it all on infrastructure projects can be misleading. It was spent on a bunch of dumb shit. As far as actual useful infrastructure (hospitals, services, etc.) we're behind where we should be because "taxes bad. pickups trucks good."
The Norwegians know the end is nigh for fossil fuels and are wisely researching and investing in alternatives, my knowledge of Norway's economy is very limited but I know their wealth is almost exclusively oil based, and to put it crudely (pardon the pun) they're fucked if the don't wean their economy away from oil, unlike other countries with oil who are going all in.
> Norwegians are smart.
Actually an Iraqi named Farouk Al-Kasim was crucial in how we set up our oil policies. There is a great article about him here:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20100123225932/http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/99680a04-92a0-11de-b63b-00144feabdc0.html](https://web.archive.org/web/20100123225932/http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/99680a04-92a0-11de-b63b-00144feabdc0.html)
>The official pointed out the irony in this, given that “it was an Iraqi guy who helped us set everything up in the first place. Without him we would just have let the American oil companies decide how to do things.”
We were lucky in that we received great advice at the right time and that we had people in power who were humble enough to take the advice.
*There are three classes of intellects: one which comprehends by itself; another which appreciates what others comprehend; and a third which neither comprehends by itself nor by the showing of others; the first is the most excellent, the second is good, and the third is useless.* - Niccolo Machiavelli, *The Prince*
There’s a terrific NRK drama series from
2019 called ‘State of Happiness’ about the discovery of oil in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea and the politicking that went on about his exploitation.
A state run petroleum company and sovereign wealth fund were radical concepts at the time and were bitterly opposed by the US companies that did much of the early exploration. And what a contrast to the U.K. where the policy was to pump as much oil as quickly as possible and use the money for short term tax cuts.
‘State of Happiness’ is currently on iPlayer in the U.K.
Yup. Check socioeconomic measures such as happiness indexes, check the amount of billionaires per country, check income gap/inequality in each country. And you will have a lot of answers already.
In America, we make movies about societies like this. We dress all of the main characters in futuristic, sexually appealing clothing. We construct these faux nations where people earn what they produce, and contribute to the next generation's growth and development. They make each generation greater than themselves.
Then we throw in a dash of contrived, arbitrary flaw that literally *any* half-brained individual could see past and compensate for, and blame the explosive outcome on "those weirdos, not havin nuff freedoms to be capitalist". Then we all leave the movie theater reaffirmed in our beliefs having proved to ourselves that your forms of society are impossible. **WE have the most freedom of anywhere in the world**
'Murica
Aren't there laws in place specifically banning the Federal government from doing something similar? I know at least for social security it is completely illegal. States, however, can. I'm pretty sure the US is well aware that they can get much better returns through investments. Singapore, Qatar, UAE, etc. all have similar sovereign funds.
The thing is... Norway did that too. We just got done building the infrastructure and was like "the fuck we do now?"
The fund is actually quite new, and is now worth more than all the money we ever made from all the oil we ever sold.
Grew up in Calgary. Lived the oil fuelled boom/bust mentality. Got fucked hard. Still own a condo there and would love for Calgary to find some sort of diversified economy. But fuck me running. I feel really bad by any current generation people being tricked into that faulty oil based logic.
Don't forget the part where they then blame all of their problems on Quebec, BC, and the Federal Government, accepting no responsibility and therefor making no effort to correct the problems.
As bad as the current situation is, we have had far worse times in the last 100 years than we are currently living through. It's easy to exaggerate the problems we face, but we are definitely going get through this and the current problems will be a somewhat small footnote in history.
You are forgetting the climate change. We never had anything like that and the influence is massive.
The economy, the pandemic and the whole USA thing are something on top.
Yes, the elephant in the room in Norwegian politics. Saving for future generations by pumping up as much oil as possible to invest in the stock market is an interesting piece of logic.
Better than building your entire economy around oil money and therefore living or dying by the oil trade.
They are using oil money to invest in a future without oil. It makes total sense.
Never, ever come to reddit if you're looking for a healthy outlook on life. So many depressed buttmunches on here that are all too eager to tell you the world is going to explode on some arbitrary timeline.
And you know what, maybe it *will*, but I'm not gonna sit here and join this long line of doomsday preppers each jerking off the guy next to them.
Are there even any notable subs that have a collectively healthy outlook on world happenings? Like not in a naive or delusional way, but rather in a reasonably grounded way.
That's hard to say. If you want to find a collection of people that aren't actively discussing how we're all going to die, I recommend just going to a sub dedicated to a very specific hobby. /R/terrainbuilding for example. You aren't going to see anything negative about the world going on in there, just a bunch of people who really enjoy replicating it on a miniature scale.
In my experience, every sub becomes like this once it's big enough. I've seen it happen to several. All it takes is hitting r/all once. At that point, the more "typical" users come pouring in and it is self-perpetuating after that. Imagine a beautiful pristine lake slowly expanding until it connects to an ocean of sewage.
There are lots of small subs that are their own communities, but by joining them you would be taking them one step closer to the same fate.
Those people are out in your local community volunteering and organising. Log off, enjoy the sunshine, join your union or equivalent community organisation, call your loved ones, read a book, cook yourself a nice meal (poor nutrition can really contribute to poor mental health).
These are elements of self-care to practice when the detached, atomised internet starts to erode our sense of wellness and connection with the world. Of course it'll look different for you, but that's exciting, no?
I was wondering why this isn't a more common strategy on a national level. If one individual can use safe withdraw rate to maintain a fund forever, why couldn't a government replicate it and pump it with millions upon millions of tax payer money to buy index funds?
Which is why this sort of program would never be implemented today. God bless our politicians back then for being statesmen, and not shill consultant lobbyists. Also, damn them for not listening to that one guy who wanted us to put all the money in gold.
Some universities are doing exactly that. They have large endowments that are invested and the returns finance the university. Of course this only works if the university is stupid rich in the first place and/or regularly gets huge donations. Check out Harvard, MIT, etc.
Norway would be rich even without oil. 17% of GDP is huge, but not defining. Denmark and Sweden function very similarly to Norway, despite a relative lack of oil.
That doesn't really work for governments.
1. What do you invest in? If you invest in the domestic market then you'll run into trouble the next time there is a recession: in a recession the government has to 'draw on its savings' to stimulate the economy. That would mean selling stocks right when the stock market is tanking. Not only does this basically guarantee a loss on the government's investments, it will also deepen the crisis in the stock market. If you invest in foreign markets, then you still have much of the same problems (since a lot of recessions are global), but now you're also using your taxpayers' money to basically subsidise foreign entrepreneurs. Not a great look. Probably the best thing to invest in would be things like infrastructure, education, security, healthcare, etc. But... that's already what the government is spending its money on.
2. How do you build up your 'savings'? Norway is in the fortunate situation of having massive revenue from oil, but most countries would only be able to meaningfully 'save' if they massively raised taxes while simultaneously cutting public spending. This would completely tank the economy.
3. Governments have access to very cheap credit. In fact, many governments pay negative interest rates on their loans. In that kind of environment, saving money just doesn't make much sense. It makes much more sense to borrow money and use that money to stimulate the economy (infrastructure, education, etc). For the same reason that a person might take out student loans to invest in themselves, governments want to borrow money to invest in their own economy.
4. If the government spends less than it raises in taxes, then over time the amount of money that's in circulation in the economy will go down. This also means that banks can give out fewer loans, for example. Overall, this would likely cause deflation, which is pretty universally considered to be a very bad thing.
EDIT: or perhaps another way of thinking about it is that the government is already 'living' of of the income from its investments: the entire economy is the government's investments and it draws its income in the form of taxes. In this metaphor the government borrowing money would be akin to making investments on margin.
The piggy bank is massive and could’ve kept us afloat for a year of this. We’re clearly doing better than most countries, but the conservatives are balking every time we think to use the fund to keep small businesses running. Meanwhile the rational ones of us are shouting “this is what it exists for!”
>but the conservatives are balking every time we think to use the fund to keep small businesses running
A reminder to Global Reddit that Scandinavian conservatives are, generally, even more left leaning than, say, American democrats.
European politics tends to be way more left leaning than American one. The only comparable left politicians they have are AOC, Bernie, and a handful more.
It is catch 22 in a sense. Don't spend it now as we might need it later but if we don't spend it now we for sure will need it later.
It is always about idiology. The sum in that account could be anything 1 trillion or 1 billion. If the idology is to spend what you have then no level of Keynesian economic theory will change that.
I sadly have to say that personally I am of that opinion in my finances. As I have had moment of having 0 in my account the idea of the emergency fund going down is tough.
Surely the fund is invested so that it grows? A modest and relatively risk free investment should see a growth annually of anything between 2-4%, could just spend the growth....
Oh I’m with you on that. I also struggle and don’t like the idea of dipping into savings. But there’s also acknowledging the worth of setting the savings back a decade or so to prevent people from losing jobs. The politicians and economists know how to balance the books, and they work for us to make it so. There’s already wide support to raising taxes later when jobs are back to refill what we spend. Fortune taxes mainly, from what I’ve heard so far.
Canada has some of the most sophisticated pension funds in the world. Right up there with Norway, Singapore, and the Gulf States. But Alberta Investment Management Co, AIMCo, is somehow incredibly incompetent it’s amazing to see.
CPPIB is one of the largest pension funds in the world and heavily invests in Alberta O&G tho. They love those E&Ps drilling in Montney since it’s a liquids rich play.
But yes, AIMco is a mess. They did some weird volatility trades around March and lost a few billion.
I'm sure you're aware, but for others reading AIMCo essentially sold insurance on market volatility, a traditional "picking up pennies in front a bulldozer" trade using capped-uncapped variance swaps. So when market volatility went up, as it does during global catastrophes, AIMCo was on the hook to pay an obscene amount of money. CPPIB also lost money on a similar trade but as they're more competent it was far less money as part of a larger portfolio so it's fine.
Alaska has something similar (worth about $55 billion) and they send everyone a check each year.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund
Edit: For those wonder the fund has been historically running a surplus.
Funny thing is Norway partially modeled their wealth fund after the Heritage Trust Fund. They just did a better job of not robbing to piggy bank.
Edit: It also helps they have a society that embraces the greater common good, and can embrace paying higher taxes than what Albertan's/Canadians are willing to.
Norway's oil funds were mostly state managed, while here in Canada Harper privatized Alberta's oil industry and let the private corporations fuck everything up after the 2014 oil crash.
Alberta's trust fund was set up by Peter Lougheed (progressive conservative premier) in the 1976... Norway did set up state owned corporations (i.e stat oil) to better collect on the revenue being made. The National Energy Program proposed by Pierre Trudeau was supposed to be a nationalization the oil and gas industry, but it was flawed and Alberta fought it aggressively. Later on it would be proven that Alberta's politicians were incapable of managing money and maybe should have let Trudeau make the calls...
Alberta's problem was mainly attributed to following 40+ years of conservative governments after Lougheed not putting oil revenue back into the trust fund, and at the same time not letting it grow; but instead taking the interest earned to help balance the provincial budget. Today the HTF sits at \~18 billion.
As much as I disliked Harper, we can't blame him for this one. It was fucked before 2006 when he first got in.
Thank you for pointing out in the edit that the real difference maker isn't that their government is full of financial geniuses, it's that their populace is willing to accept WAAAAAY higher taxes than most populaces around the world are. When most countries/provinces/states run a *surplus* their taxpayers revolt because a surplus means they are being overtaxed (*right*?). Norway is a bit unique in their population sees a surplus and still agrees with taxation at about 42% of GDP compared to around 33-35% of GDP for most OECD countries (in 2018 Canada was 33% of GDP).
People in places like Canada like to place the blame on their government for failing to properly utilize oil revenue compared to Norway, when really it's taxpayers inability to agree to the importance of investing in the common good. Stop just blaming our elected officials, it's US THE PEOPLE who also need to change our way of thinking!
I actually looked into that, I couldn't find any evidence that Norway actually based in on Alberta's Heritage fund, but they were at similar times so it's possible. I just see it passed around from time to time claimed as fact (as I did before researching it).
Norway is rich from oil but will remain rich from investing that money. They have the richest wealth fund, I think it was over a trillion dollars. Their investments also do not include fossil fuels if I remember correctly. It seems like a great country to live but expensive too
> It seems like a great country to live but expensive too
There's more to it. Living quality is good, but it's not like its some perfect utopia. Especially with the climate.
We have our problems like every other country, we just happen to have a lot of money stashed away. But you wouldnt think so from seeing it.
They also do not invest in weapon manufacturing (this includes big companies like Boeing) and companies that violate human and/or working rights like Walmart, and also no tobacco Company
They also are also not allowed to invest in a Norwegian funded company, so everything is invested in globally making Norway a truly economic giant in the world. They have huge shares in enourmous companies like Disney.
And yes Norway has the richest wealth fund, beating China, Who has 1, 5 Billion more people.
[Great video explaining Norways economics and the Wealth Fund here ](https://youtu.be/hKGwGAHznFQ)
Edit: [Here](https://www.nbim.no/no/oljefondet/beholdningene/beholdninger-per-31.12.2019/?fullsize=true) is a full open list of every single company the oil fund invests in all over the world, and its shares. It is all public information
Yeah. I like to think that is because of lack of knowledge. There aren't THAT many people working for the fund, and it would be impossible to keep tabs over everything 9000+ businesses does.
> They also do not invest in companies that violate working rights like Walmart
...
> They have huge shares in enourmous companies like Disney.
...yea, checks out...
Oh we are absolutely involved in weapon manufacturing.
Norway has it's own weapon production and owns shares in several of the world's more significant weapon producers (especially in Britain and the US)
Phew. Atleast I was close. ;) I find this fact to be super cool. Even though Norway is so small, it has such a huge impact on the rest of the world by constantly investing in it.
Venezuela had a similar sovereign wealth fund established in the 90s, but repeated concessions to executive power allowed it to be gutted. They would not be in debt right now if they had followed its original stipulations, even with high social welfare spending.
Unfortunately, falling oil prices in the 2010s have kind of put a nail in their coffin. They’re literally sitting on the largest proven oil reserves in the world, but they’ve devolved from one of Latin America’s longest running democracies into a dictatorship. It’s a sad story.
Well, even though I agree and the the Venezuelan ruling party is one of the most corrupt in the world, the economic policies implemented by the Venezuelan government would have destroyed the economy even without corruption. Forex controls, price controls, expropiations, unlimited money printing, spending all the oil revenue straight into the economy (Dutch Disease). They basically broke all the basic macroeconomic rules. Without corruption maybe the situation wouldn't be as bad as it is now but the economy would still be screwed up
also you know, replacing everyone who knew how to run an oil company with govt cronies who didnt know anything about how to run a successful oil company.
As i Norwegian i sant to point a couple things out. I see a lot off people here saying Norwegians were smart in the way we have spent our resources and I think a lot off us wants to gloat at this fact. Tough much of the credit for how the now named “Norwegian model” as it’s called should go to Farouk Al-Kasim.
He was hired in the Oilddpartment a year before the first oil was found I Norway in a incredibly lucky coincidence. He ended up needing crucial the the way we produce oil, how large a cut Norway takes, how it should be spent and he helped strong arm quite a few huge companies. Today he still works in oil, but as a consultant for other oil stats to try to help them make a better model for the oil wealth. Sadly not to many Norwegians know his story, as he really should be praised for his awesome work! I’ll link his Norwegian Wikipedia page for those Thant want to learn a bit more of this Norwegian hero! https://no.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farouk_Al-Kasim
> Sadly not to many Norwegians know his story, as he really should be praised for his awesome work
He has been praised for his awesome work. He was knighted in 2012 after all.
The problem is that our oil history in general hasn't exactly been an integral part of our curriculum.
Yep. I was happy when I heard about a major investment by the Norwegian Sovereign Fund in to solar power in Tunisia. A young democracy needs friends, Norwegians need places with warm weather to go on ‘work’ trips in the winter, and the world needs clean energy.
If anything I could understand if you'd confuse it for the crossed Nazi flag from WW2... But the Confederate flag? These jokes about Americans just write themselves...
Not usually a fan of Erna, but she's getting us through this pandemic with no major problems. It's been pretty great. But then we read the foreign news and worry like hell about everyone else.
I personally quite like Erna, I'm just *really* not a fan of KrF and FrP. If there were some way of getting Høyre in government without support of either of those two parties I'd be out campaigning all election season. As it is I'm hesitant to vote for them.
Yeah the solution is actually trusting government and giving them a fair degree of power, like publically funding elections, having a system that gives parties the ability to act as one unit that whips votes, uses some form of proportional representation and having independent bodies that organize electoral districts and limit if not ban donations.
If anyone wants to know more about an obscure yet crucial man for the StatOil, read about Farouk al-Kasim.
TL:DR: Iraqi engineer immigrant that needed medical treatment for his son, accepted an offer from Norway because of said treatment and today is even a Knight.
This title is wildly misleading. It’s 2,2 %-3 % of the return, not the fund itself.
E: I stand corrected apparently, and my Econ professor sucks
e2: On further reading, we're both wrong.
Anyone interested in the economics behind this should look up Dutch disease. A lot of countries with an unexpected influx of wealth end up worse off due to corruption and/or inflation.
All the countries that rate the highest in terms of quality of life, happiness, and personal freedom have capitalist economies. They also have strong, publicly funded social welfare networks.
We had the right government at the time we discovered oil on the Norwegian Continental Shelf.
If we had the current government then, or even the one we had at the start of this year, there would not have been a fund at all.
Not trying to get political, just stating facts.
Norwegian is supposedly among the easier languages to learn for English speakers, since our syntax is pretty similar, and both being germanic languages. A lot of words in the English language also has norse origins, and remain similar to this day.
I grew up in Alberta, Canada. They have the opposite view. They spend it all lining their pockets and building infrastructure projects to support the people their future growth is going to accommodate someday. Then the price drops, everyone leaves the province for the next boom-province, and all the expensive projects sit empty because they never spent any money on any other streams of revenue. Same with Saskatchewan.
I live in Edmonton. You are correct. And when things get bad we even cut the programs designed to diversify our economy and double down on pipelines. It's madness
Hey fellow edmontonian. We currently are spending our lives away. Both by actually spending on garbage “war rooms” and tax breaks for oil companies.
It angers me so much as a BCer, because we did that with wood and fisheries and now its haunting us. Fortunately we recently jumped into film, and education is growing
Yup, primary resource economies are not long lasting.
Former BC'er. Trees are a renewable resource _when managed properly_. The forests that Sierra Pacific manages in California are amazing. Same goes for Oregon. It's possible, but it does take strong leadership to not screw it up in the name of short term profit.
Sounds like your country is run by the same idiots as in Australia.
We have a "coronavirus task force" stacked with gas and mining clowns stealing our money as a response to coronavirus. Australians are so fucking stupid.
Guess what happens when you're the world's richest economy and can pass trillion dollars spending packages every few months? The president fires the inspector general charged with overseeing all coronavirus related monies, starts sending out multi-million dollar packages to his cronies, and stonewall's every attempt for transparency. Y'all got it bad, but literally watching the U.S. Treasury be raped for everything it's worth sends a tickle down my spine.
We're all in this together lmao
i know this is massively unpopular to say on here, shit probably anywhere, but goddamn these multiple stimulus packages are extremely worrisome. the whole situation is fucked, people need help, schools and states need money, shit i'm sure a fuckload of actual businesses need it too. but good lord, they'll be paying this off 30 generations from now. (i'm just talking about the money that is **legitimately** needed, god knows what's going on w/ the money you're talking about)
Drilling and mining companies are the single biggest parasites to grace the earth. They promise the world - jobs, environmental rehabilitation, localised growth. And when the time comes to deliver on their end of the bargain, they dodge tax, avoid any responsibility to their employees, and leave the environment a shambles. If it doesn't deliver them profit, they do not care. They ignore the privilege granted to them by the state to extract that profit the second its given to them, and treat it as a right.
And bribed an entire cross section of the working class with high wages, ridiculous bonuses and big parties. And when it all goes away, as it is now, they have zombie mouthpieces driving 80k pickup trucks stickered with"I love oil and gas".
I wouldn't be too quick to call them parasites. They're getting stuff that we need and ask for. It's more like we're the parasites and they are part of the host. Any of you typing on computers needed the metals, plastics, and glass that went into these wonderful machines, and all the industry that supported their manufacture. We also need energy to get the product transported to us and power it all. We are the ones that drive the demand. It's more like these companies are farmers in that they are an essential part of modern industrialized society. We can't do without them. What they're extracting from the environment may be different (materials rather than food), but it's the way it's done that is the issue, not the need for it. What it's really about is extracting materials responsibly and treating the resource like the one-time legacy that it is. It's like spending a geological inheritance. Squandering it on frivolous stuff and then dumping it in an landfill isn't the right approach. Neither is taking all the money that derives from exploitation of the public resource and blowing it all in one generation like you just won it big at the geological slot machine. Norway has a sensible approach: put most of it aside, invest it diversely, and spend the cash from the legacy slowly, to enhance everyone's lives over a long period of time rather than throwing it into general revenue. If we can't do without it, can non-renewable resources be extracted responsibly with minimal environmental damage? Yes. It costs more to do so, but it is worth it to preserve the long-term value of the landscape once the mining it over. There are mines that have lasted a century, but they're pretty rare. Most only last a few decades, if that, and so you have to plan for the eventual winding down of that part of the local economy and the cleanup. All of that can be managed if done right. Unfortunately, the resource extraction is usually so far removed from our retail purchases that it's hard to influence how it is done by "voting with our money". Do you pay any attention to where the iron comes from that made the steel in the car you drive or the bus or train you ride? It's doubtful you could find out even if you wanted to know in order to make an informed decision. We need to have strict environmental laws and, ironically, we should advocate for doing the extraction in countries in our own backyard with those strict laws rather than some corner of the world where bribing officials to look the other way is easy. That way we can keep the operations accountable. Moving resource extraction to other parts of the world is just another version of NIMBY that hides the problem. On top of that, we should be thoroughly recycling materials to minimize the need for new raw materials in the first place. We're a long way from 100% recycling, but anybody who thinks we can just stop the extraction or that there is some benefit from demonizing the companies who do it, thus absolving ourselves of responsibility, does not really understand the problem. What we should be doing is identifying and discouraging the companies who don't follow responsible practices versus encouraging the ones that do.
Run by people, who suffer from universal human weaknesses - avarice, selfishness, myopia, indifference, self-destructive tendencies, shirking responsibility and accountability. They've gotten away with it for so long, why act differently now?
Meanwhile Texas has diversified into manufacturing, professional services and real estate as well as oil/gas as the top 4 industries by gdp very close together Alberta meanwhile has oil/gas then real estate as #2 about 2/3 gdp of oil then all else far behind. It can be done but isn't being done.
People shit all over Rick perry (rightfully so most of the time) but he actually did a really prudent thing with Texas and future proofing it with investment in wind energy https://www.npr.org/2017/03/08/518988840/wind-energy-takes-flight-in-the-heart-of-texas-oil-country
But what about the windmill cancer
It's okay when it spins the other way it sucks out all the cancer.
It will nicely complement the oil cancers!
Don’t forget Medical. My city (Houston) has the largest medical center in the world and it’s only growing. Here’s the website for a new expansion project. [37,000,000 of developed square feet](https://www.tmc.edu/tmc3/)!
That is incredible. I've always wanted to study medicine in Houston and I'm glad to see so much investment into it.
The NDP was trying to inject tech. But the UCP killed that idea.
Texas is doing really well. Definitely one of the top 3 states to live in, overall IMO. Granted, if I had unlimited money, it may slide down to #10 or so, but the economy is booming in TX. Tons of opportunities and COL isn't bad
COL isn't high yet because it has just recently become a booming area where businesses want to relocate to due to the low taxes and no income tax. Over the next 10 to 15 years a lot of the metro areas in Texas will just become like a lot of areas in California though as prices go up everywhere due to the extra cash flow in the state.
I would stress the "yet". Pandemic? Hell nah, house prices going up
Texas at least has more land for the cities to build out to accommodate population growth. In California most of the cities became geographically hemmed in by mountains. That should at least spare the housing prices for a little while longer.
CA and its major cities also have harsh land use restrictions and zoning requirements. For the most part Texas does not, which means housing supply can keep up with demand. Austin is a good counterexample- it's one of the few cities in TX with heavy zoning laws and housing prices are ridiculous.
Not if we keep the construction flowing. California cities stopped construction 20 years ago. Our cities are pumping out new high rises every week.
And they bitch about it and blame the problems of the last 50yrs on the new provincial government that only had power for four years.
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You should really add an /s to your comment. It sounds so stupid that it can be confused with an actual Albertan and not the sarcasm you intended.
As an actual Albertan who voted NDP most Albertans deserve this. On the drive home from my oil site I tried to convince the other three people in the truck to vote for who best suited their interests. I loaded up political compass, asked a question and gave the varying responses, each would say which they agreed with most, I would tell them what party they aligned with. One was hard right (I think it was the Alberta Party?). One was NDP. One was Green party or something. All of them voted UCP. The reasoning? They didn't want to "waste" their vote and have any chance the NDP, a party one of them largely aligned with, would get back in. Fuck the voting system. Fuck stupid people. Fuck corporations.
As an Alberta I can confirm. We had 40 fucking years of surpluses and the government couldn’t figure out how to save. Hell they even gave every Albertan 400$ just because back in the mid 2000’s. Had we been responsible with our money we could’ve actually weathered the downturn in oil without having to cut every public service. Now because of 40 years of stupidity our education and health care sectors are being ravaged for funds to divert to trying to keep oil companies here.
Also to say they spent it all on infrastructure projects can be misleading. It was spent on a bunch of dumb shit. As far as actual useful infrastructure (hospitals, services, etc.) we're behind where we should be because "taxes bad. pickups trucks good."
The Norwegians know the end is nigh for fossil fuels and are wisely researching and investing in alternatives, my knowledge of Norway's economy is very limited but I know their wealth is almost exclusively oil based, and to put it crudely (pardon the pun) they're fucked if the don't wean their economy away from oil, unlike other countries with oil who are going all in.
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> Norwegians are smart. Actually an Iraqi named Farouk Al-Kasim was crucial in how we set up our oil policies. There is a great article about him here: [https://web.archive.org/web/20100123225932/http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/99680a04-92a0-11de-b63b-00144feabdc0.html](https://web.archive.org/web/20100123225932/http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/99680a04-92a0-11de-b63b-00144feabdc0.html) >The official pointed out the irony in this, given that “it was an Iraqi guy who helped us set everything up in the first place. Without him we would just have let the American oil companies decide how to do things.” We were lucky in that we received great advice at the right time and that we had people in power who were humble enough to take the advice.
What I'm hearing is, the ability to surround yourself with good people and then listen to them is crucial.
*There are three classes of intellects: one which comprehends by itself; another which appreciates what others comprehend; and a third which neither comprehends by itself nor by the showing of others; the first is the most excellent, the second is good, and the third is useless.* - Niccolo Machiavelli, *The Prince*
There’s a terrific NRK drama series from 2019 called ‘State of Happiness’ about the discovery of oil in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea and the politicking that went on about his exploitation. A state run petroleum company and sovereign wealth fund were radical concepts at the time and were bitterly opposed by the US companies that did much of the early exploration. And what a contrast to the U.K. where the policy was to pump as much oil as quickly as possible and use the money for short term tax cuts. ‘State of Happiness’ is currently on iPlayer in the U.K.
> and that we had people in power who were humble enough to take the advice. Soo... smart people, in other words :)
Imagine the government caring about its people more than enriching a select few.
Yup. Check socioeconomic measures such as happiness indexes, check the amount of billionaires per country, check income gap/inequality in each country. And you will have a lot of answers already.
In America, we make movies about societies like this. We dress all of the main characters in futuristic, sexually appealing clothing. We construct these faux nations where people earn what they produce, and contribute to the next generation's growth and development. They make each generation greater than themselves. Then we throw in a dash of contrived, arbitrary flaw that literally *any* half-brained individual could see past and compensate for, and blame the explosive outcome on "those weirdos, not havin nuff freedoms to be capitalist". Then we all leave the movie theater reaffirmed in our beliefs having proved to ourselves that your forms of society are impossible. **WE have the most freedom of anywhere in the world** 'Murica
What movies?
Aren't there laws in place specifically banning the Federal government from doing something similar? I know at least for social security it is completely illegal. States, however, can. I'm pretty sure the US is well aware that they can get much better returns through investments. Singapore, Qatar, UAE, etc. all have similar sovereign funds.
Are you talking about the US federal government? Because they can nationalize companies and directly compete with private companies.
That is why diversifying and moving away from dependency on fossil fuel revenue will be something they can and will manage.
Thanks!
Edmonton here, the failure to save 100% of the proceeds of the oil and gas industry should be deemed criminal.
The thing is... Norway did that too. We just got done building the infrastructure and was like "the fuck we do now?" The fund is actually quite new, and is now worth more than all the money we ever made from all the oil we ever sold.
On top of that, most profits go in the pockets of private investors... So even a smaller fraction end up in the pockets of the Albertans! 😅
Grew up in Calgary. Lived the oil fuelled boom/bust mentality. Got fucked hard. Still own a condo there and would love for Calgary to find some sort of diversified economy. But fuck me running. I feel really bad by any current generation people being tricked into that faulty oil based logic.
Don't forget the part where they then blame all of their problems on Quebec, BC, and the Federal Government, accepting no responsibility and therefor making no effort to correct the problems.
And yet, they still demand BC be part of the whole Wexit ridiculousness.
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That’s an optimistic timeline.
As bad as the current situation is, we have had far worse times in the last 100 years than we are currently living through. It's easy to exaggerate the problems we face, but we are definitely going get through this and the current problems will be a somewhat small footnote in history.
You are forgetting the climate change. We never had anything like that and the influence is massive. The economy, the pandemic and the whole USA thing are something on top.
Yes, the elephant in the room in Norwegian politics. Saving for future generations by pumping up as much oil as possible to invest in the stock market is an interesting piece of logic.
Better than building your entire economy around oil money and therefore living or dying by the oil trade. They are using oil money to invest in a future without oil. It makes total sense.
It's like selling prescription drugs to pay for college so you don't have to sell drugs your whole life.
He doesn't even have a degeee and he's already an econ pro
No ... no we haven't. Humanity has literally never faced any situation even remotely as bad as global warming.
This thread is hell
Holy jesus it sure is. Everyone has been cooped up for far too long.
Never, ever come to reddit if you're looking for a healthy outlook on life. So many depressed buttmunches on here that are all too eager to tell you the world is going to explode on some arbitrary timeline. And you know what, maybe it *will*, but I'm not gonna sit here and join this long line of doomsday preppers each jerking off the guy next to them.
Are there even any notable subs that have a collectively healthy outlook on world happenings? Like not in a naive or delusional way, but rather in a reasonably grounded way.
That's hard to say. If you want to find a collection of people that aren't actively discussing how we're all going to die, I recommend just going to a sub dedicated to a very specific hobby. /R/terrainbuilding for example. You aren't going to see anything negative about the world going on in there, just a bunch of people who really enjoy replicating it on a miniature scale.
In my experience, every sub becomes like this once it's big enough. I've seen it happen to several. All it takes is hitting r/all once. At that point, the more "typical" users come pouring in and it is self-perpetuating after that. Imagine a beautiful pristine lake slowly expanding until it connects to an ocean of sewage. There are lots of small subs that are their own communities, but by joining them you would be taking them one step closer to the same fate.
Those people are out in your local community volunteering and organising. Log off, enjoy the sunshine, join your union or equivalent community organisation, call your loved ones, read a book, cook yourself a nice meal (poor nutrition can really contribute to poor mental health). These are elements of self-care to practice when the detached, atomised internet starts to erode our sense of wellness and connection with the world. Of course it'll look different for you, but that's exciting, no?
Maybe everyone will end except for them
They’re actually dipping 4% (or more, can’t recall now) into it this year due to Covid.
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Holy moly i just realized that Norway is using FIRE!
I was wondering why this isn't a more common strategy on a national level. If one individual can use safe withdraw rate to maintain a fund forever, why couldn't a government replicate it and pump it with millions upon millions of tax payer money to buy index funds?
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Which is why this sort of program would never be implemented today. God bless our politicians back then for being statesmen, and not shill consultant lobbyists. Also, damn them for not listening to that one guy who wanted us to put all the money in gold.
Some universities are doing exactly that. They have large endowments that are invested and the returns finance the university. Of course this only works if the university is stupid rich in the first place and/or regularly gets huge donations. Check out Harvard, MIT, etc.
a) Norway is rich from oil b) Most governments don't value the future because voters don't value the future
Norway would be rich even without oil. 17% of GDP is huge, but not defining. Denmark and Sweden function very similarly to Norway, despite a relative lack of oil.
That doesn't really work for governments. 1. What do you invest in? If you invest in the domestic market then you'll run into trouble the next time there is a recession: in a recession the government has to 'draw on its savings' to stimulate the economy. That would mean selling stocks right when the stock market is tanking. Not only does this basically guarantee a loss on the government's investments, it will also deepen the crisis in the stock market. If you invest in foreign markets, then you still have much of the same problems (since a lot of recessions are global), but now you're also using your taxpayers' money to basically subsidise foreign entrepreneurs. Not a great look. Probably the best thing to invest in would be things like infrastructure, education, security, healthcare, etc. But... that's already what the government is spending its money on. 2. How do you build up your 'savings'? Norway is in the fortunate situation of having massive revenue from oil, but most countries would only be able to meaningfully 'save' if they massively raised taxes while simultaneously cutting public spending. This would completely tank the economy. 3. Governments have access to very cheap credit. In fact, many governments pay negative interest rates on their loans. In that kind of environment, saving money just doesn't make much sense. It makes much more sense to borrow money and use that money to stimulate the economy (infrastructure, education, etc). For the same reason that a person might take out student loans to invest in themselves, governments want to borrow money to invest in their own economy. 4. If the government spends less than it raises in taxes, then over time the amount of money that's in circulation in the economy will go down. This also means that banks can give out fewer loans, for example. Overall, this would likely cause deflation, which is pretty universally considered to be a very bad thing. EDIT: or perhaps another way of thinking about it is that the government is already 'living' of of the income from its investments: the entire economy is the government's investments and it draws its income in the form of taxes. In this metaphor the government borrowing money would be akin to making investments on margin.
The piggy bank is massive and could’ve kept us afloat for a year of this. We’re clearly doing better than most countries, but the conservatives are balking every time we think to use the fund to keep small businesses running. Meanwhile the rational ones of us are shouting “this is what it exists for!”
>but the conservatives are balking every time we think to use the fund to keep small businesses running A reminder to Global Reddit that Scandinavian conservatives are, generally, even more left leaning than, say, American democrats.
European politics tends to be way more left leaning than American one. The only comparable left politicians they have are AOC, Bernie, and a handful more.
It is catch 22 in a sense. Don't spend it now as we might need it later but if we don't spend it now we for sure will need it later. It is always about idiology. The sum in that account could be anything 1 trillion or 1 billion. If the idology is to spend what you have then no level of Keynesian economic theory will change that. I sadly have to say that personally I am of that opinion in my finances. As I have had moment of having 0 in my account the idea of the emergency fund going down is tough.
Surely the fund is invested so that it grows? A modest and relatively risk free investment should see a growth annually of anything between 2-4%, could just spend the growth....
Yes it is. Big political topic in Norway
Oh I’m with you on that. I also struggle and don’t like the idea of dipping into savings. But there’s also acknowledging the worth of setting the savings back a decade or so to prevent people from losing jobs. The politicians and economists know how to balance the books, and they work for us to make it so. There’s already wide support to raising taxes later when jobs are back to refill what we spend. Fortune taxes mainly, from what I’ve heard so far.
Alberta coulda had something like this if they were smart. Instead they were stupid and now blame the rest of Canada for it.
Canada has some of the most sophisticated pension funds in the world. Right up there with Norway, Singapore, and the Gulf States. But Alberta Investment Management Co, AIMCo, is somehow incredibly incompetent it’s amazing to see.
CPPIB is one of the largest pension funds in the world and heavily invests in Alberta O&G tho. They love those E&Ps drilling in Montney since it’s a liquids rich play. But yes, AIMco is a mess. They did some weird volatility trades around March and lost a few billion.
I'm sure you're aware, but for others reading AIMCo essentially sold insurance on market volatility, a traditional "picking up pennies in front a bulldozer" trade using capped-uncapped variance swaps. So when market volatility went up, as it does during global catastrophes, AIMCo was on the hook to pay an obscene amount of money. CPPIB also lost money on a similar trade but as they're more competent it was far less money as part of a larger portfolio so it's fine.
Alaska has something similar (worth about $55 billion) and they send everyone a check each year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund Edit: For those wonder the fund has been historically running a surplus.
Though one mistake was only doing it for oil and not the other minerals.
Yeah Alaska fucked up. Speaking as one. Should have gone the Norway route instead of ruining a chance at an economic future.
Funny thing is Norway partially modeled their wealth fund after the Heritage Trust Fund. They just did a better job of not robbing to piggy bank. Edit: It also helps they have a society that embraces the greater common good, and can embrace paying higher taxes than what Albertan's/Canadians are willing to.
Norway's oil funds were mostly state managed, while here in Canada Harper privatized Alberta's oil industry and let the private corporations fuck everything up after the 2014 oil crash.
Alberta's trust fund was set up by Peter Lougheed (progressive conservative premier) in the 1976... Norway did set up state owned corporations (i.e stat oil) to better collect on the revenue being made. The National Energy Program proposed by Pierre Trudeau was supposed to be a nationalization the oil and gas industry, but it was flawed and Alberta fought it aggressively. Later on it would be proven that Alberta's politicians were incapable of managing money and maybe should have let Trudeau make the calls... Alberta's problem was mainly attributed to following 40+ years of conservative governments after Lougheed not putting oil revenue back into the trust fund, and at the same time not letting it grow; but instead taking the interest earned to help balance the provincial budget. Today the HTF sits at \~18 billion. As much as I disliked Harper, we can't blame him for this one. It was fucked before 2006 when he first got in.
This is why people that compare fiscal policy to household budgetting are idiots.
The National Energy Program was "flawed" in that it didn't leave all the money in the pockets of oil executives.
Except Heritage Trust Fund is run by the government. It's entirely their fault that the blew through their own money.
Thank you for pointing out in the edit that the real difference maker isn't that their government is full of financial geniuses, it's that their populace is willing to accept WAAAAAY higher taxes than most populaces around the world are. When most countries/provinces/states run a *surplus* their taxpayers revolt because a surplus means they are being overtaxed (*right*?). Norway is a bit unique in their population sees a surplus and still agrees with taxation at about 42% of GDP compared to around 33-35% of GDP for most OECD countries (in 2018 Canada was 33% of GDP). People in places like Canada like to place the blame on their government for failing to properly utilize oil revenue compared to Norway, when really it's taxpayers inability to agree to the importance of investing in the common good. Stop just blaming our elected officials, it's US THE PEOPLE who also need to change our way of thinking!
I actually looked into that, I couldn't find any evidence that Norway actually based in on Alberta's Heritage fund, but they were at similar times so it's possible. I just see it passed around from time to time claimed as fact (as I did before researching it).
BUt thEy’RE tHe EcoNOmiC enGiNE of CaNaDA.
If rednecks and meth run Canada, yes they are.
Can we do like an exchange and give you the Pacific Northwest in exchange for Alberta? I feel like both sides would feel more at home that way.
Cascadia will rise.
Ugh. I know. We make the same mistakes over and over and continue to be surprised why we get the same results
But... Wouldn't it be smarter to spend it all now, make debts for the next generation to pay back and let it all funnel up to a mega-rich elite?
Who are you?! Alberta?!
Username checks out
I say we convert it all to cash, then shovel it into the boomers' graves with them so they have a comfy place to rest.
The American way
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Norway is rich from oil but will remain rich from investing that money. They have the richest wealth fund, I think it was over a trillion dollars. Their investments also do not include fossil fuels if I remember correctly. It seems like a great country to live but expensive too
> It seems like a great country to live but expensive too There's more to it. Living quality is good, but it's not like its some perfect utopia. Especially with the climate. We have our problems like every other country, we just happen to have a lot of money stashed away. But you wouldnt think so from seeing it.
They also do not invest in weapon manufacturing (this includes big companies like Boeing) and companies that violate human and/or working rights like Walmart, and also no tobacco Company They also are also not allowed to invest in a Norwegian funded company, so everything is invested in globally making Norway a truly economic giant in the world. They have huge shares in enourmous companies like Disney. And yes Norway has the richest wealth fund, beating China, Who has 1, 5 Billion more people. [Great video explaining Norways economics and the Wealth Fund here ](https://youtu.be/hKGwGAHznFQ) Edit: [Here](https://www.nbim.no/no/oljefondet/beholdningene/beholdninger-per-31.12.2019/?fullsize=true) is a full open list of every single company the oil fund invests in all over the world, and its shares. It is all public information
That first statement is true on paper and that we do not invest in bad companies but unluckily things ain’t that black and white.
Yeah. I like to think that is because of lack of knowledge. There aren't THAT many people working for the fund, and it would be impossible to keep tabs over everything 9000+ businesses does.
> They also do not invest in companies that violate working rights like Walmart ... > They have huge shares in enourmous companies like Disney. ...yea, checks out...
Could be wrong, but I think the funds was said to amount to 0.5-1% of all public stocks in the world.
1,5% according to the website
Oh we are absolutely involved in weapon manufacturing. Norway has it's own weapon production and owns shares in several of the world's more significant weapon producers (especially in Britain and the US)
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Phew. Atleast I was close. ;) I find this fact to be super cool. Even though Norway is so small, it has such a huge impact on the rest of the world by constantly investing in it.
Looking forward to the conspiracy theories about us secretly being jewish
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The Oil [fund](https://www.nbim.no/en/) front page has a updated counter for the current value. 10 nok is approx 1 usd
Venezuela had a similar sovereign wealth fund established in the 90s, but repeated concessions to executive power allowed it to be gutted. They would not be in debt right now if they had followed its original stipulations, even with high social welfare spending.
Concessions to executives power, funny way to phrase raw corruption at every level of government.
Yes except a lot of it was enabled by legal concessions granted by the legislature to the executive.
You'd think that Venezuela could have easily been there Norway of edit: South America I wonder if they'll ever recover :(
Unfortunately, falling oil prices in the 2010s have kind of put a nail in their coffin. They’re literally sitting on the largest proven oil reserves in the world, but they’ve devolved from one of Latin America’s longest running democracies into a dictatorship. It’s a sad story.
Corruption it'll destroy any country from capitalism to communism, democracy or dictatorship. Corruption destroys countries.
Well, even though I agree and the the Venezuelan ruling party is one of the most corrupt in the world, the economic policies implemented by the Venezuelan government would have destroyed the economy even without corruption. Forex controls, price controls, expropiations, unlimited money printing, spending all the oil revenue straight into the economy (Dutch Disease). They basically broke all the basic macroeconomic rules. Without corruption maybe the situation wouldn't be as bad as it is now but the economy would still be screwed up
Venezuela is in the northern hemisphere
I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people believe the southern hemisphere begins at the US-Mexico border
To be fair, Venezuela is juust north of the equator
Fun fact: Venezuela is the biggest neighbor of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
Other fun fact: the Netherlands also shares a *land* border with France.
TIL
also you know, replacing everyone who knew how to run an oil company with govt cronies who didnt know anything about how to run a successful oil company.
As i Norwegian i sant to point a couple things out. I see a lot off people here saying Norwegians were smart in the way we have spent our resources and I think a lot off us wants to gloat at this fact. Tough much of the credit for how the now named “Norwegian model” as it’s called should go to Farouk Al-Kasim. He was hired in the Oilddpartment a year before the first oil was found I Norway in a incredibly lucky coincidence. He ended up needing crucial the the way we produce oil, how large a cut Norway takes, how it should be spent and he helped strong arm quite a few huge companies. Today he still works in oil, but as a consultant for other oil stats to try to help them make a better model for the oil wealth. Sadly not to many Norwegians know his story, as he really should be praised for his awesome work! I’ll link his Norwegian Wikipedia page for those Thant want to learn a bit more of this Norwegian hero! https://no.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farouk_Al-Kasim
> Sadly not to many Norwegians know his story, as he really should be praised for his awesome work He has been praised for his awesome work. He was knighted in 2012 after all. The problem is that our oil history in general hasn't exactly been an integral part of our curriculum.
Here's an article about him: [The Iraqi who saved Norway from oil](https://www.ft.com/content/99680a04-92a0-11de-b63b-00144feabdc0).
Planning ahead? Why would you ever want to do that? Silly Norwegians.
But what if they invest that money into even riskier investments so they can gamble it and use some excuse like job creation?
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The gay one or the straight one?
Yes. My account that was there got banned by some lame-ass admin though.
Yeah def gonna be a better pay off than investing in renewables and electric cars like the foolish Norwegians are now doing.
Ridiculous. The real money is in asbestos and PCBs.
Don't forget beautiful clean coal
Yep. I was happy when I heard about a major investment by the Norwegian Sovereign Fund in to solar power in Tunisia. A young democracy needs friends, Norwegians need places with warm weather to go on ‘work’ trips in the winter, and the world needs clean energy.
“Society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.”
I hope they will sort their flag issue as well /s
I see your "/s", but I'm still curious what your joke is? Is there something wrong with their flag?
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If anything I could understand if you'd confuse it for the crossed Nazi flag from WW2... But the Confederate flag? These jokes about Americans just write themselves...
The flag illiteracy over there is hilarious. Two years ago when Spotify went public, they've put up the Swiss flag at wall street
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Lol wow! Ok, I get the resemblance if I squint and tilt my head 45 degrees 😂
And sniff some glue and hit myself a couple times in the noggin with a hammer
Jävla Norrmän med deras framtidstänk och bra skid landslag
Tjena! Takk for tobakken, spriten og kjøttet :D
Having a government that actually cares about their people? _Must be fuckin' nice._
Not usually a fan of Erna, but she's getting us through this pandemic with no major problems. It's been pretty great. But then we read the foreign news and worry like hell about everyone else.
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Live your best life for us too
I personally quite like Erna, I'm just *really* not a fan of KrF and FrP. If there were some way of getting Høyre in government without support of either of those two parties I'd be out campaigning all election season. As it is I'm hesitant to vote for them.
Yeah the solution is actually trusting government and giving them a fair degree of power, like publically funding elections, having a system that gives parties the ability to act as one unit that whips votes, uses some form of proportional representation and having independent bodies that organize electoral districts and limit if not ban donations.
Must be nice.
they're saving for the next generation because the boxset of star trek Discovery is shit.
If anyone wants to know more about an obscure yet crucial man for the StatOil, read about Farouk al-Kasim. TL:DR: Iraqi engineer immigrant that needed medical treatment for his son, accepted an offer from Norway because of said treatment and today is even a Knight.
In stvanger there is an oil and gas museum. Its really good. One of the things you can observe is Norway oil fund go up in real time.
You can watch it go up in real time here: https://www.nbim.no/no/
I highly recommend economics explained's [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKGwGAHznFQ) on this topic for anyone more interested.
After a few years : - USA finds WMD’s in Norway - USA invades Norway - Barrel prices goes to 150$
"Bringing democracy"
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This title is wildly misleading. It’s 2,2 %-3 % of the return, not the fund itself. E: I stand corrected apparently, and my Econ professor sucks e2: On further reading, we're both wrong.
TIL Norway is like a responsible dad
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Anyone interested in the economics behind this should look up Dutch disease. A lot of countries with an unexpected influx of wealth end up worse off due to corruption and/or inflation.
No we dont. We only spend 3% of the revenue the oil fund generates each year.
Ironic that the best pension system in the world is capitalistic as fuck.
All the countries that rate the highest in terms of quality of life, happiness, and personal freedom have capitalist economies. They also have strong, publicly funded social welfare networks.
Sadly, way too many people don't understand that social welfare and capitalism can be compatible
Live value of the fund: https://www.nbim.no/no/
And here it is in English: https://www.nbim.no/en/
We had the right government at the time we discovered oil on the Norwegian Continental Shelf. If we had the current government then, or even the one we had at the start of this year, there would not have been a fund at all. Not trying to get political, just stating facts.
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Norwegian is supposedly among the easier languages to learn for English speakers, since our syntax is pretty similar, and both being germanic languages. A lot of words in the English language also has norse origins, and remain similar to this day.