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 ...
You are not comparing Apples to Apples. What percentage does each put in the bank?
You left out...
Relatively small population.
Norway is not a multi-cultural society.
.........................................
I didn’t touch on either because my point was simply that Norway is currently one of the financially strongest nations in the world. It is a great place to stash some emergency money in a strong currency and the fiat asset seizures in America.
Both points you make are true. They just weren’t the focus of my point.
Yes..somewhere on the net (I have it saved somewhere as well) is an interesting study comparing standards of living between Europe and the US. The conclusion of the study was that European living standards are basically on par with those in Mississippi.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.