Can a Country Be Too Rich? Norway Is Finding Out (bloomberg.com)
- Reference: 0178490766
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/07/28/1350217/can-a-country-be-too-rich-norway-is-finding-out
- Source link: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-07-25/can-a-country-be-too-rich-norway-is-finding-out-essay
Norway has recorded the slowest productivity growth among wealthy nations over the past two decades while Norwegians take 27.5 sick days annually, the highest rate in the OECD. Student test scores have declined since 2015 and now rank below the OECD average despite Norway spending $20,000 per student compared to the $14,000 OECD average. Fund withdrawals now cover 20% of the annual budget, up from less than 10% two decades ago.
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-07-25/can-a-country-be-too-rich-norway-is-finding-out-essay
Growth production (Score:2)
Growth is not production. If you grew in the past, you still have production. In fact, if you have overproduction, striving for growth is harmful. Striving for growth is not a good thing generally, as it naturally grows and shrinks with the amount of working people in a country.
Slashdot and characters (Score:2)
Sorry to follow up on my own post, but the original header had an "is not equal" sign, so "Growth != production".
If they have too much money (Score:2)
they can give some to me. I'll relieve them of the burden.
with apologies to Yogi Berra (Score:3)
Nobody's productive there anymore, they're too wealthy.
Re: (Score:3)
Yeah this is classic line go up. We need limitless productivity increases in order to keep the ruling class of billionaires satiate it because if we ever stop feeding their maw they will devour Us in an instant.
Nobody really likes to think about the cosmic horror that is the billionaire class and they are insatiable appetite for limitless wealth or how we are all mandated to keep feeding it.
Ever hear of Saudi Arabia? Or Qatar? (Score:2)
Be interesting to see this play out in a more western and liberalized culture.
I live in a US state that is poor but gets most of what it does from oil money. I applaud the transition to renewables but it don't see how the state government will get by.
Re: (Score:2)
1. Stop fossil fuel production.
2. Tax the rich.
They have lots of money.
They aren't paying their fair share.
Re: (Score:2)
Switzerland has had this problem for 80 years now.
From what I've read a couple of decades ago, Switzerland was a primary beneficiary from WW2. Quite apart from selling Oerlikon anti-aircraft guns to both sides, large sums had been deposited into bank accounts in that country by Jews who did not survive the war - and also by some Nazis later on. At least the Nazis were more likely to have immediate family members still living, unless they went for murder-suicides like Goebbels. It was allegedly policy for
Complacency (Score:2)
You know what middle eastern oil countries/companies aren't doing? Mining for lithium. You know what they should be doing? Mining for lithium. And selling solar panels. They have to know oil is finite, right? Absolutely idiotic and complacent. Norway should have TSMC ARM and x86 chip-making factory already, everything I just mentioned, and AI datacenters. What do they have? Lazy idiots who sit around and count their money while producing nothing and contributing to "financial products" which are middleman b
Re:Complacency -- an inertia (Score:3)
Yesterday a co worker was showing me pictures of his visit to Dubai. An amazing city that has absolutely no way to exist other than taking oil money and building financial empires. Beautiful buildings, clean, expansive and mostly empty highways (too hot) and like Phoenix sprawls out over dry, infertile land. Great entertainment, apparently.
So what happens when that money source dries up? It won't be pretty.
What's with the productivity fetish? (Score:2)
So Norwegians score low on productivity and take a lot of vacation days. Who the fuck cares? If Norwegians are happy (and the [1]data [worldpopul...review.com] indicates that they are) and have a satisfying lifestyle, good luck to them. Don't fetishize growth and productivity.
[1] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/happiest-countries-in-the-world
teachers (Score:2)
> Student test scores have declined since 2015
Sounds like they are due for a raise then. $20k per student, why not $50k? They have the money.
Line go up (Score:2)
We need to be reducing productivity not increasing it.
We are very much a society where if you don't work you don't eat.
Over the past 50 years we have eliminated 70% of middle class jobs using automation. Mostly high paying factory jobs but there's plenty others out there.
And we are about to do the AI apocalypse. It's basically a third industrial revolution that's about to hit.
One of the problems is people want to think black and white. Either ai and automation is going to replace all the job
The Resource Curse Strikes Again (Score:3)
This is a well-known issue. Most petro-states lag in productivity and development, "free money" from the well short-circuits it. Norway has done better than most at avoiding it, but apparently not completely. Spain had the same thing with endless gold and silver from their colonies back in the day, the only thing Spain ended up being good at was spending money.
Re: The Resource Curse Strikes Again (Score:1)
Certainly! Here's the expanded Slashdot-style reply, with more detail about Norway's sovereign wealth fund (the "Oil Fund") and the full timeline repeated:
Norway's actually been planning for a post-oil world for decades. They're in a pretty unique position: still producing oil, but investing heavily in a greener future and trying not to end up like other resource-cursed economies. Here's the rough breakdown:
1970sâ"90s: Norway strikes oil in the North Sea, but instead of spending like crazy, they set up
Re: The Resource Curse Strikes Again (Score:2)
if you ask chatgpt I think they will be fine
Luxury Beliefs (Score:2)
Right, so in Norway nobody is going hungry, dying from being too poor to afford medical treatment, being kept down by an inability to access education, having to go in to work when they're sick, or freezing to death on the streets because they're out of options?
"They've got a huge problem!"
So say people whose own countries have all those problems and spend more on worse outcomes.
The Norwegians' biggest risk is "good times make weak men" but at least one author I listen to on YouTube indicates that Viking Cu
Yet another example of... (Score:2)
...the myth that endless growth is not only possible, but necessary
The headline claims that "slowest productivity growth" is a problem
Endless growth is impossible
We need steady-state sustainability
The cause is rampant immigration driven by busines (Score:2)
Who headline is plan wrong. Every single problem stated is not because of the sovereign fund but rather because of idiotic immigration laws passed by businesses to lower wages. This is just billionaire gaslighting article to spend that shit on bullshit to destroy the social net.
Sandwalking Your Way to Wealth (Score:3, Insightful)
"We came from Caladan - a paradise world for our form of life. There existed no need on Caladan to build a physical paradise or a paradise of the mind - we could see the actuality all around us. And the price we paid was the price men have always paid for achieving a paradise in this life - we went soft, we lost our edge."
Re:Sandwalking Your Way to Wealth (Score:5, Insightful)
It's just a capitalist crying into his overpriced beer that Norway is doing capitalism wrong. His assumption is that because it's a sovereign wealth fund, a form of socialism, it must be bad. Starting from that assumption, he seeks justification for making it.
Norway is a nice play to live, citizens are looked after. I doubt they care if they could be more efficient by making life worse for themselves.
This is really troubling (Score:5, Insightful)
How can we exploit labor if they feel too secure.
Re: (Score:2)
> Norway is a nice play to live, citizens are looked after. I doubt they care if they could be more efficient by making life worse for themselves.
>> How can we exploit labor if they feel too secure.
Bernie Sanders has something to say about us.
Re:Sandwalking Your Way to Wealth (Score:4, Insightful)
> It's just a capitalist crying into his overpriced beer that Norway is doing capitalism wrong. His assumption is that because it's a sovereign wealth fund, a form of socialism, it must be bad. Starting from that assumption, he seeks justification for making it.
> Norway is a nice play to live, citizens are looked after. I doubt they care if they could be more efficient by making life worse for themselves.
This is an interesting perspective. Maybe the "problem" with Norway is more a problem with how the rest of us pick and choose which metrics represent our values. Productivity, work hours, student test scores. Why are these the goals? Why not happiness or contentment, however that might be measured? Or physical or mental health? Crime? It seems to me that productivity, work hours, and test scores are merely means to the real ends of happiness and well-being.
Re: (Score:2)
The North American metric is "Free time??? Clearly we haven't given you enough to do..."