Comments by "Luredreier" (@Luredreier) on "Why Norway is Becoming the World's Richest Country" video.

  1. ​​​​​ @dendrien  You're mixing up Norway and I'm guessing Denmark? The invasion of Norway during WW2 started on the 8th of April 1940, the approval for the allied retreat from Norway came on the 24th of May, Norway was informed on the 1st of June that our allies would abandon us, on the 7th it was decided to evacuate our king and government and setting up a government in exile as continuing the fight without allied supplies would become untenable. Allied forces finished their evacuation on the 8th, while Norwegian ones maintained rearguard actions for another two days before the capitulation of Norway on the 10th of June. After two months and two days of fighting. Continued fighting would absolutely have been possible if the allied forces hadn't decided to withdraw, something they did because of the news of the invasion of France. Given how the defence of France failed and with the power of hindsight those forces would probably have been better used remaining in Norway threatening Germanys supply of iron during the winter and depriving them of bases they used to attack convoys between the allies and the Soviet Union. That said, France was a far more important ally to the UK at the time then Norway was. With a bigger population to commit to the fight and a larger navy to support the vital blockade of Germany. And with the fall of Norway our merchant fleet ended up supplying the UK, at pne point supplying half their oil I believe, and a significant portion of their food etc... Our merchant fleet ended up keeping the UK in the war long enough for US shipbuilding to make a difference. Without us they would have been forced to start negotiating a peace deal, allowing Germany to get vital supplies they lacked for their war on the eastern front as well as freeing up troops from the west. Norway was anything but easy to invade despite intentionally keeping military spending low for a long time in order to not provoke a certain Austrian...
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  2. ​​ @manniking233  Norway borders Russia and about 18% of our population is either foreign born or has a foreign born parent (we don't register ethnicity or race, only citizenship, and place of birth of inhabitants and their parents)
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  3. ​ @dendrien  Mountains are useful when defending a country, Norway has them, Denmark did not.
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  4. ​ @inspectorvoid  Greenhouses still need light to make sense, light isn't available during the winter in Norway. As for the soil, most of it has been scraped away by glaciers, leaving only areas that was underwater when the ice age glaciers melted actually with quality soil, that thankfully slowly became available for farming as the land rose, no longer compacted by the weight of all of the ice. The cold is also a issue. All of these things compounds to increase the cost of farming both inside lighthouses and outside them quite significantly, compared to just importing food. Especially if you include the cost of Norwegian labour. If we hadn't voted no to joining the EU allowing us to have tarrifs on agricultural products we probably wouldn't have had any competitive agricultural products produced in Norway. As is we're specializing. We have some fjords suitable for things like Norwegian apples etc. Since our products grow slower they're often quite nutritious compared to areas where plants grow faster and also tastier. Our crops can be finished in between the harvests in other countries where they might have two harvests pr season, we only get one, but it's with less competition and often of higher quality. Likewise, we can't grow large areas of grasses like wheat, but our mountains and islands still support sheep and goats grazing there, even if they're rocky. You can't do just anything here and make it work. You need a viable market and a viable strategy that's competitive in said market. Other producers in other countries will be cheaper. So you need to find other ways to compete. Greenhouses are absolutely a part of the mix here, but they can't do the bulk production, they can do niche products that's sold at a higher price due to being locally produced, but that's only viable for a certain amount of market share. And Norwegian greenhouses had to cut production due to high energy prices when we where exporting power to Europe after the start of the war in Ukraine too, just like the continental ones did. Greenhouses can't solve every problem.
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  5. ​ @YDdraigGoch43  It's not cheap to get things from the EU. Part of why we haven't joined is in order to make their products expensive enough to make our own viable despite their high costs. Locally grown products are never going to be as cheap here as something produced in a more suitable environment.
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  6. ​ @inspectorvoid  We border Russia, supplying Europe with energy is vitally important for our independence. Europe depends on us, they're our biggest market, pissing off your customers are usually a bad idea, especially if you buy a lot of stuff from them too... The alternative is coal power, causing more climate change, that's even more noticable up here in the north, meaning that sending them our power is cheaper then investing in even more climate change mitigations against things like the storms that has been ravaging the country recently... And furthermore, sometimes we depend on power from the continent too. If precipitation drops we have to buy more power from the EU. Especially if we get two or three years in a row with low precipitation as well as little wind... Selling our power isn't a thoughtless choice, it's calculated and deemed essential.
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  7. ​ @baardhaveland  Well said. ;-)
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  8. ​ @waynegnarlie1  The US isn't entirely doomed. At a federal level it's a really dysfunctional country. But it's still possible to get independent candidates elected at both a state and federal level. And with some luck you might one day manage to put a end to the first past the post electoral system. If you do and manage to switch to something more proportional and perhaps some form of parliamentarianism you could actually fix your democracy. But even failing that, there's genuinely people trying to fix the country. It might take decades, but there are actually good measures working its way through the system right now in the US that with time will improve the country.
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  9. ​What do you mean? The Norse culture and even the Nordic bronze age culture developed in southern Norway as well as Denmark, southern Sweden and northern Germany.
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  10. ​ @FaerieDragonZook  We do. Nothing technical about it, we absolutely do.
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  11. ​ @KABLAMMATS  Oh, wow. I'm guessing that you're joking? If not, may I ask where you're from?
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