Posted on 01/09/2014 11:01:00 AM PST by posterchild
OSLO (Reuters) - Everyone in Norway became a theoretical crown millionaire on Wednesday in a milestone for the world's biggest sovereign wealth fund that has ballooned thanks to high oil and gas prices.
Set up in 1990, the fund owns around 1 percent of the world's stocks, as well as bonds and real estate from London to Boston, making the Nordic nation an exception when others are struggling under a mountain of debts.
A preliminary counter on the website of 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.
It was the first time it reached the equivalent of a million crowns each, central bank spokesman Thomas Sevang said.
[ ]
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 in the Arctic.
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.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
The cost of living in Norway makes those millionaires look like paupers. $15 Happy Meals at Oslo McDonalds
SHUT DOWN MUSLIM IMMIGRATION.
One of the most financially stable countries in the world today.
No net national debt
One of strongest banking systems
One of the strongest central banks
Good currency.
You left out...
Relatively small population.
Norway is not a multi-cultural society.
Not complaining though. State taxes don't exist in Alaska due to the oil wealth. We don't even have property taxes along the Yukon; now imagine that?
It figures. My family was run out of Norway years ago. A male ancestor got caught giving the herring to a Norwegian Princess. We’re a poor, but extremely good-looking and slippery, family.
Does Norway give 50% (or more or less) to the residents or keep it all for the government? Alaskans may have gotten the better deal if Norwegians only fund the government and not the individual people.
I'm wondering how they going to keep that referendum off the ballot this year? It might reverse all of Parnel's efforts?
Who needs McDonald’s when they can eat Lutefisk?
Was the herring raw, pickled, or smoked?
Family legend has it that it was a veritable herring smorgasbord.
Except Norwegians don’t get a yearly refund check like Alaskans.
the usa should do this
Ha! Nice
I miss it. I’ve got girls, not boys but they still like to shoot. My middle one started Barrel Racing, that takes nearly all our time. At least it gets us off our behinds and out of the house.
Norway (and Alaska) can do it because the government claims the mineral rights underneath privately owned property.
So no, the US government should not take the privately owned mineral rights and claim it for themselves.
Point being they have gotten 800 billion in the bank for their oil, Alaska 40 billion; same amount of oil produced I read somewhere. The oil industry has always bought off all the politicians in Alaska, no joke. Parnell gave oil industry 4-5 billion in tax relief promising future investment, more oil in the pipeline. Fine with me if it occurs, but I hope to see the investment. The Feds do away with all tax relief, why doesn't Oil Industry buy Obama off? I'm sure "O" has a price. Supposed to be a referendum this year reversing Parnell's tax relief. Oil better not let that come to pass; many Alaskans are cynical.
Eventually Oil Industry will get it for free or we'll have to pay them to get that dirty oil outta the ground. Eventually, our politicals will get their greedy hands on that 40 billion too; but we Alaskans will sure have a good time keeping it away from them for as long as possible. ha.
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