Norway? No way!

Hutchinson News ^ | 10/12/11 | KENNETH K. EBMEIER

[kathsua]

Ever been to Norway? We visited it this summer. Clean cities and towns, lots of hills and fjords, very green foliage, a really pretty place. Summertime temperatures were just perfect (winters hit 35 below).

As "nanny states" go, Norway is just about the top of the heap. Supposedly, Norwegians are some of the happiest people on earth. They seem to just send most if not all their money to the government and they are taken care of pretty much cradle to grave.

We did notice some things about Norway, though, that don't immediately meet the eye; that's because they aren't there. Does Norway have any factories? Make any cars? Washers or dryers? Refrigerators? Airplanes? No, no, no and not so much. There is activity in the mining industry and some ship building, but consumer products are not Norway's strong suit.

The cost of living is very, very high there. Wanna buy a car? Sure. Buy one, pay for two. That's right. The motor vehicle sales tax is 100 percent. Those who can afford it keep a small apartment in Sweden so they can register their car in Sweden and avoid most of that tax. Gasoline is $12 a gallon. Anyone familiar with the commodities market knows that the gas is less than $3 and the other $9 is taxes. Everything is heavily taxed.

Apparently, this nanny state has moved on from just "taxing the rich" to the necessity of having to tax everybody. This should give us pause as we creep down the nanny-state trail.

One more thing, we took a bus tour that happened to go through the Oslo business district, and we passed the U.S. Embassy. The tour guide advised us there was a plan to move the embassy to another part of town, because the "appearance" of the embassy was not to their liking. This didn't seem to make a lot of sense. Even if the U.S. embassy were moved elsewhere, the building would still be there and still look the same. It has finally dawned on me why they wanted to move the U.S. Embassy out of the main business district. The objectionable "appearance" was their fellow Norwegians, day after day, lining up out the door, down the street and around the corner, applying for visas to leave Norway and come to the United States.

[3Fingas]

Norway is a beautiful country whose people like Americans very much. I did cold weather training there while I was in the military. It was one of nicest places I have ever visited.

The Norwegians have a very a high standard of living due to their North Sea Oil revenues, small and highly educated population, and a very homogenous and reasonably harmonious culture. There's certainly a lot more communalism and high taxation there. This is a part of their culture and would not work very well in the U.S. with our very different ethnic make-up and long-standing belief in individual liberties. So, in short Norwegians do Norway very well, but Americans would not do Norway well at all.

Oh, and their woman are gorgeous.

[Winstons Julia]

The drive from Stord Island to Bergen to Oslo was epic.

[workerbee]

Exactly right -— as the saying goes, “socialism works in Sweden because everyone there is Swedish.”

My father used to travel to Norway often when he was working, and we had his Norwegian contemporaries in our home many times as guests. They were extremely people (no one could top Norway for food, skiing, scenary, tourism, etc.) Nice gentlemen, but very, very nationalistic.

[workerbee]

Ooops — that should read, “They were extremely PROUD people”

[hinckley buzzard]

It would be a mistake to lump these three together. They have significant differences. Sweden for example does build all of those things this author believes Norway does not.,/P>

Norway, otoh, has a huge legacy of mining, forestry and oil wealth which they have managed for the good of all, much like Alaska has. You can call it "socialism," but you can't call it stupid, because all Norwegians benefit equally.

The Netherlands is not Scandinavian and doesn't fit in this conversation.

[muawiyah]

You mean "Canadian Immigration" is down ~ not "immigration" in general. That's still up.

At any one moment there are enough folks filing for or thinking about filing for immigration into the US that if everybody here died we could have them replaced in a few months.

At the other end of the spectrum there are countries where if everyone died nobody would even notice.

[riri]

A McDonald’s value meal is about $16 in Oslo. A pair of name brand jeans? About $150.

[3Fingas]

My wife is Swedish, but culturally very American — highly individualistic and politically somewhat conservative. So when she decided to emigrate to the states, she felt more at home here than there. So people eventually have to find a home that fits there personality. She did retain her native beauty though. That was a plus for me.

[LRoggy]

No it doesn't. I visited the country when I had a Norwegian girlfriend and there a few things that you didn't touch on.

Back then there were only 4 million people living in a pretty large area. You could drive for hours and not see anyone. It's not the type of country that will make a lot of manufactured goods. Electricity is incredibly cheap because it is almost entirely driven by hydro power. Her mother wondered why I would bother turning off the bathroom lights at night.

The country has some of the most breathtaking scenery on the entire planet. But I found most Norwegians didn't really appreciate it; maybe they just took it for granted.

Just like any country, some of the people were outgoing and friendly to foreigners and some where reactionary in-breds that looked at you like you were a Martian.

Food was expensive except for the shellfish and fresh fish. Very little of the country was farm-able so most food was imported. Red meat was outrageously expensive. Shrimp was as cheap as the electricity. The diet was pretty high calorie and the people were pretty big. I'm 5’ 10” and when we went into a disco in Oslo half the women were as tall as me.

The oil revenue was so large that the country built a huge reserve that is still growing. The tax system was probably similar to what we had in the 70’s. The people are used to a nanny state compared to what we know and have, but it isn't the same as the way you put it. When you only have 4,000,000 people and you have that much wealth you are not going to develop your youth to be hungry entrepreneurs.

Sweden, Denmark and Finland are very different from Norway. Don't paint them with the same brush.

[muawiyah]

Norway managed to avoid killing off more of its Sa'ami than did the other Scandinavian countries, although much of the Sa'ami migration to America occurred voluntarily after the age of forced slavery (which probably ended about the middle of the 1700s).

(The Sa'ami were the indigenous people in the Fenno Scandian Peninsula who'd been there about 14,000 years ~ alone, unloved, unknown, untouched by the less civilized hordes in Europe. Then they got discovered. )

[Aevery_Freeman]

Maybe Ron Paul had a point about the border fence after all.

Oh, for crying out loud, I'm not a Paulastinian. Can't a guy notice a true statement without getting flamed?

Just getting my licks in before the Paul-haters attack.

[muawiyah]

That’ll keep down the tourists.

[muawiyah]

Most of the Norwegians of an individualist bent left Norway long ago for the United States.

They managed to assimilate fairly well ~ guy in Minnesota does Prairie Home Companion ~ I don't think he's assimilated at all but he does tell some interesting stories about others of Norwegian ancestry.

The old noble classes and their servants took over the country ~ hence the paternalism ~ it's the same sort of thing you'll get from any group that are dominated by a single family (albeit an invisible one). Think Saudi Arabia without the Islam ~ and no tans.

[rawcatslyentist]

>"The objectionable "appearance" was their fellow Norwegians, day after day, lining up out the door, down the street and around the corner, applying for visas to leave Norway and come to the United States."

No problemo. Buy some quick tan, and learn Spanglish.

[Arnnie Sodeman]

Actually Norway is 36th in world at 11.5/100k, the USA is 39th at 11/100k, Lithuana and South Korea are 1st and 2rd at 31.5 and 31 respectively.

[the OlLine Rebel]

So are their men. I’ll never forget that hunk at EPCOT way back in ‘88.

[Erasmus]

Grampa & Gramma got out (separately) ca. 1910.

[Erasmus]

Swedish, but with a complex of interlocking holding companies that is currently headquartered in Holland.

(The Swedes and the Norskies do like to rib each other pretty hard. Sorta like UT and A&M.)

[Erasmus]

They make Gamalost, which Grampa used to pronounce like "Goomaloast."

[Erasmus]

Let's see now. I'll take the one on the right, and the one on the left, who looks like Jessica Biel. But, one at a time, of course.

≤}B^)