CITIZENS of Norway are worth ONE MILLION each and continue to make more during the recession
The central bank, which manages the fund, rose to 5.11 trillion crowns ($828.66 billion), fractionally more than a million times Norway's most recent official population estimate of 5,096,300 people, ergo each Norway citizen is worth one million EACH.
It was the first time it reached the equivalent of a million crowns allotted to each person who is a norwegian citizen.
Not that Norwegians will be able to access or spend the million that is set aside for them. The money is squirreled away for a rainy day.
They feel the wealth through their socialized government of free higher education, free medical care, government paid yearly vacations with stipend, maternity and paternity paid sick leave, prescribed vacation with pay if you feel run down, free home repair etc ... doesn't leave much left to "buy" with what you earn, except a home, utilities and food. Norway takes good care of their citizens, complete with luxury prisons that are NICER accomodations than most hotels or college dorm rooms, and complete with private bath and a personal trainer to "rehab" their people back to being the good people Norway believes every person is.
Norway has resisted the temptation to splurge all the windfall since striking oil in the North Sea in 1969.
Finance Minister Siv Jensen told Reuters the fund, called the Government Pension Fund Global, had helped iron out big, unpredictable swings in oil and gas prices. Norway is the world's number seven oil exporter.
"Many countries have found that temporary large revenues from natural resource exploitation produce relatively short-lived booms that are followed by difficult adjustments," she said in an email.
The fund, equivalent to 183 percent of 2013 gross domestic product, is expected to peak at 220 percent around 2030.
"The fund is a success in the sense that parliament has managed to put aside money for the future. There are many examples of countries that have mot managed that," said Oeystein Doerum, chief economist at DNB Markets.
Norway has sought to avoid the boom and bust cycle by investing the cash abroad, rather than at home. Governments can spend 4 percent of the fund in Norway each year, slightly more than the annual return on investment.
Still, in Norway, oil wealth may have made the state reluctant to make reforms or cut subsidies unthinkable elsewhere. Farm subsidies allow farmers, for instance, to keep dairy cows in heated barns during cold weather.
It may also have made some Norwegians reluctant to work. "One in five people of working age receives some kind of social insurance instead of working," Doerum said, despite an official unemployment rate of 3.3 percent.
It was the first time it reached the equivalent of a million crowns allotted to each person who is a norwegian citizen.
Not that Norwegians will be able to access or spend the million that is set aside for them. The money is squirreled away for a rainy day.
They feel the wealth through their socialized government of free higher education, free medical care, government paid yearly vacations with stipend, maternity and paternity paid sick leave, prescribed vacation with pay if you feel run down, free home repair etc ... doesn't leave much left to "buy" with what you earn, except a home, utilities and food. Norway takes good care of their citizens, complete with luxury prisons that are NICER accomodations than most hotels or college dorm rooms, and complete with private bath and a personal trainer to "rehab" their people back to being the good people Norway believes every person is.
Norway has resisted the temptation to splurge all the windfall since striking oil in the North Sea in 1969.
Finance Minister Siv Jensen told Reuters the fund, called the Government Pension Fund Global, had helped iron out big, unpredictable swings in oil and gas prices. Norway is the world's number seven oil exporter.
"Many countries have found that temporary large revenues from natural resource exploitation produce relatively short-lived booms that are followed by difficult adjustments," she said in an email.
The fund, equivalent to 183 percent of 2013 gross domestic product, is expected to peak at 220 percent around 2030.
"The fund is a success in the sense that parliament has managed to put aside money for the future. There are many examples of countries that have mot managed that," said Oeystein Doerum, chief economist at DNB Markets.
Norway has sought to avoid the boom and bust cycle by investing the cash abroad, rather than at home. Governments can spend 4 percent of the fund in Norway each year, slightly more than the annual return on investment.
Still, in Norway, oil wealth may have made the state reluctant to make reforms or cut subsidies unthinkable elsewhere. Farm subsidies allow farmers, for instance, to keep dairy cows in heated barns during cold weather.
It may also have made some Norwegians reluctant to work. "One in five people of working age receives some kind of social insurance instead of working," Doerum said, despite an official unemployment rate of 3.3 percent.
Replies
That was really interesting.
Wouldn\'t that be great if America was the same way? I don\'t see it happening in my life time, for sure.