Comments by "Luredreier" (@Luredreier) on "How Norway Got Rich and Stayed Rich" video.

"they quickly surrendered" Considering our population we lasted quite a while. Denmark has about the same population and didn't last long at all. If Germany hadn't invaded France leading to France and Britain pulling their troops out to help defend France we'd probably be able to keep fighting in northern Norway. But since they did pull out we kept fighting till they had managed to pull out, then surrendered.
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@DiegoMonroyF The government wouldn't hurt much at all if the oil vanished. The private economy would hurt, but it would hardly be a death blow for us. Many oil workers already have other jobs too. Not to make money, but simply to have something to do and contribute to our society. If the oil vanished they could focus on those jobs instead. Our economy would contract when the oil vanished, but with a separate currency we'd also become far more competitive fast as our currency would fall in value. We have a quite flexible economy everything considered. We provide components and services for space agencies like NASA, we sell fish (being the biggest exporter of salmon in the world) we still got quite a bit of industry making use of our high amounts of renewable energy, and our economy still follows the nordic model of a mostly nonadversarial relationship between employers, employees and the state where the government and the population communicate their needs and find pragmatic solutions to the issues that pop up. I doubt that we'd take long to adapt to a reality without oil every bit as much as Sweden.
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@samsabruskongen Why are you assuming that we'd return to selling raw materials for export? We're a completely different economy now then we used to be. We provide components, designs and services for the likes of NASA and ESA, for ARM and a whole host of other companies. We have a well educated workforce. And once the oil is gone our currency will drop rapidly in value increasing our competitiveness. We'd be perfectly fine without the oil. Our shipbuilding industry would increase its competitiveness. And it's already able to compete with nations with far lower wages then us. We also produce all sort of other things. Just like countries like Denmark, Sweden and Germany we'd simply find new niches to fill. And we'd most likely use very little of the sovereign wealth fund in the process. Yes, we'd probably have to exceed the interests for a little while during the adjustment time. But we're more adaptable then you're giving us credit for. Both in Norway in particular and the nordic region in general.
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@samsabruskongen No, we do not use 4% at all. We use 3% despite the average dividend being 4%. And the oil industry isn't even close to being as important as you think. The Norwegian statistics bureau estimates half a percentage weaker economy if we just stop granting new search areas while existing fields are allowed to continue as before. While they estimate a reduction in our economy of 2% compared to reference and 1% higher unemployment if we start taxing the oil industry more in order to also deincentivize exploitation of existing fields compared to reference. With reference in this case including future growth. In other words, we would be just fine unless you'd like to claim that the statisticians employed by the government organization responsible for keeping our politicians informed about the consequences of their policies are incompetent.
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@samsabruskongen I presented two scenarios, only one of them involved the fields already explored continuing as normal. The other involved speeding up the shut down of those fields leaving a significant portion of their resources in the ground. The EU still needs some gas at least short term so we can't stop production overnight even from a environmental point of view as it's going to take time to replace the continental fossile power sources with green ones and the alternative sadly is coal. But increasing the cost to favour green power sources is definitely a option. The EU would still have the option of paying extra for the gas when the situation is dire enough, like right now. But during a normal situation our gas industry will be less competitive even in existing fields and naturally slow down production faster than just with a stop in exploration. That's basically the scenario that seems the most realistic to the environmentalists in the parliament. And like the SSB mentioned, that's something that we as a economy can handle just fine. However if you don't trust the SSB then we don't really have much to talk about. Especially since the report I'm referring to was created in 2020, during a conservative lead cabinet coalition. So, your arguments about a left wing goverment somehow making the SSB create a bogus report just doesn't hold water. And there's plenty of independent research backing SSB up, no left or right side affiliation involved. Yes, closing down the oil industry would have consequences. Especially in some areas like Stavanger. And the national economy would be 2% weaker then it would have been with the oil. But we as a country would be fine. It's just not the doomsday scenario that people seem to imagine. We really can't use much more than 3-4% of the wealth fund regardless of the oil and pensioners. Simply because our economy wouldn't be able to handle it. The money being used would lose all value and the wealth would be eaten by the financial system, not help the country as such. Spain had similar problems during their colonial era due to gold from the Americas and the Netherlands had it when they discovered oil. You just don't want too much value added to the economy from any one source. Hence why the oil money is being funneled out where it can be saved for long term use. With the wave of pensioners and the loss of oil income we'll probably dip a little bit into the funds actual money instead of just relying on the dividend despite that being inefficient and bad for the economy. But honestly it's likely that we'll keep that limited. And if anything we'll cut spending elsewhere as needed. We've done that before. You might not remember it but we had a financial crisis just before the oil started making us a profit. Back in the late eighties and early nineties was when we had that crisis. And we had to tighten our government budgets 3 years in a row during the nineties. It was tough but we did it. We got through that just fine. And we'll get through the post oil era just fine too. As for the idea that the green shift can't produce amprofit for us... Yeah, you're just wrong there. Europe is the strongest market for environmentally friendly products. And we're selling to them. Without a artificially high value of the NoK caused by the oil we'd be able to export way more than we currently do, and we're already exporting a lot of things and making a profit. Europe is energy starved. Norway is among the countries in Europe with the most energy potential. We can sell not just electricity, but also hydrogen (since Germany has decided to go with gas power plants capable of burning hydrogen as their compromise solution) We'll already have gas pipes to the continent, so we can presumably just shift to use those for hydrogen instead as the gas's production falls. We can produce the hydrogen when we have excess power during wet years. Another option is to build energy storage. For instance starting to pump water up feom lower reservoirs to higher ones using cheap wind energy from the continent and the Norwegian coast when it's windy and discharge that as the energy is needed here or on the continent etc. We're good at energy. With so much energy potential and with rising energy prices on the continent our power demanding industry will end up being more competitive. Dutch greenhouses are closing down due to energy costs, metal forges all over Europe is reducing their activities etc. Opportunities always present themselves. And we have the money to invest.
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