Can a Country Be Too Rich? Norway Is Finding Out (bloomberg.com) 157
Norway's $2 trillion sovereign wealth fund, equivalent to $340,000 per citizen, may be undermining the country's economic health, according to a contentious new book. Martin Bech Holte's "The Country That Became Too Rich" argues that oil revenue has made Norway bloated and unproductive, with data supporting several concerns.
Norway has recorded the slowest productivity growth among wealthy nations over the past two decades while Norwegians take 27.5 sick days annually, the highest rate in the OECD. Student test scores have declined since 2015 and now rank below the OECD average despite Norway spending $20,000 per student compared to the $14,000 OECD average. Fund withdrawals now cover 20% of the annual budget, up from less than 10% two decades ago.
Norway has recorded the slowest productivity growth among wealthy nations over the past two decades while Norwegians take 27.5 sick days annually, the highest rate in the OECD. Student test scores have declined since 2015 and now rank below the OECD average despite Norway spending $20,000 per student compared to the $14,000 OECD average. Fund withdrawals now cover 20% of the annual budget, up from less than 10% two decades ago.
Growth production (Score:2)
Slashdot and characters (Score:2)
Re:Growth production (Score:4, Interesting)
This. The idea that a lack of constant compounding growth is a bad thing comes from capitalists who want to be able to turn their money into more money without doing any work. To do that they need growth. If you work for a living rather than owning for a living, you have no need for infinite growth in a finite world.
If they have too much money (Score:2)
they can give some to me. I'll relieve them of the burden.
with apologies to Yogi Berra (Score:3)
Nobody's productive there anymore, they're too wealthy.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Nobody really likes to think about the cosmic horror that is the billionaire class and they are insatiable appetite for limitless wealth or how we are all mandated to keep feeding it.
Re: (Score:2)
it sounds to me like Norway has determined that the mineral and oil wealth within its borders and territorial waters belongs to Norway first and foremost, and that while those who perform resource extraction get to profit handsomely off of that extraction, it's Norway that gets to profit first.
If my assumption is correct, then this sounds like a reasonable model, particularly given how for so long, resource extraction was structured to privatize the costs while leaving only the liabilities and demerits as a
Re: (Score:2)
This idea that the natural resources of a nation belong to all the residents of that nation is one reason I have found myself so drawn to Georgism [wikipedia.org]
As you said the companies tasked with the extraction and trade (economic rent) of the resources can and should profit nicely but that does not entail them to all of the profits and all of the wealth. The resources are shared and so should the revenues.
Re: (Score:3)
I agree. This means that all billionaires, and almost all millionaires, have zero productivity.
Right?
Re: (Score:2)
It's really hard to say how much a winner has 'produced' compared to the alternative future in which they didn't exist. Bezos worked long and hard, without profits for many years, to bring Amazon about. He succeeded and a lot of us choose to buy a lot of stuff from Amazon all the time. What if he had not. None of the other onl
Ever hear of Saudi Arabia? Or Qatar? (Score:2)
I live in a US state that is poor but gets most of what it does from oil money. I applaud the transition to renewables but it don't see how the state government will get by.
Re:Ever hear of Saudi Arabia? Or Qatar? (Score:5, Interesting)
1. Stop fossil fuel production.
2. Tax the rich.
They have lots of money.
They aren't paying their fair share.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not talking about normal rich people.
I'm talking about billionaires. They should be taxed at 90% on income and 10% on assets annually until they aren't billionaires anymore.
This would yield plenty of money to fund universal health care and education as well as social support programs.
(There are now 801 billionaires based in the United States with a combined wealth totaling $6.22 trillion, according to an Institute for Policy Studies analysis of the Forbes Real Time Billionaire List.)
Taxing them would on
Re: (Score:2)
Switzerland has had this problem for 80 years now.
From what I've read a couple of decades ago, Switzerland was a primary beneficiary from WW2. Quite apart from selling Oerlikon anti-aircraft guns to both sides, large sums had been deposited into bank accounts in that country by Jews who did not survive the war - and also by some Nazis later on. At least the Nazis were more likely to have immediate family members still living, unless they went for murder-suicides like Goebbels. It was allegedly policy for
Re: (Score:2)
Complacency (Score:2)
Re:Complacency -- an inertia (Score:4, Insightful)
Yesterday a co worker was showing me pictures of his visit to Dubai. An amazing city that has absolutely no way to exist other than taking oil money and building financial empires. Beautiful buildings, clean, expansive and mostly empty highways (too hot) and like Phoenix sprawls out over dry, infertile land. Great entertainment, apparently.
So what happens when that money source dries up? It won't be pretty.
Re: (Score:2)
The UAE's trillions are invested in everything across the globe. If the majority of money-making ventures in the world implode and they haven't shifted to non-imploding investments, then they'll have a big problem. They have all the resources of Blackrock making sure their fund continues growing.
Re: (Score:2)
A little nuclear power wouldn't hurt, either...
What's with the productivity fetish? (Score:5, Insightful)
So Norwegians score low on productivity and take a lot of vacation days. Who the fuck cares? If Norwegians are happy (and the data [worldpopul...review.com] indicates that they are) and have a satisfying lifestyle, good luck to them. Don't fetishize growth and productivity.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know what the long term effects of being generally happy and financially secure are. Could be trouble. People might get complacent and stop striving to achieve things.
Re: (Score:2)
If people are generally happy, why should they "strive to achieve things"?
Anyway, I think there will always be people who "strive to achieve things" in any society, but it's not as if that's necessarily the peak of morality.
Productivity (Score:2)
Because you need people to do things, like help sick people, fix roads, keep the power on, and ship food around.
If productivity is increasing or maintaining, and worker hours are decreasing, it doesn't matter. If productivity is decreasing, and worker hours are also decreasing, that's a problem.
An extreme example would be the economy of the Soviet Union. They didn't care about productivity at all, initially. After a few years of not being able to provide basic goods and services, they turned to forced labor
Re: (Score:2)
I think an advanced Western economy and democracy won't go the way of the Soviet Union.
teachers (Score:3)
Student test scores have declined since 2015
Sounds like they are due for a raise then. $20k per student, why not $50k? They have the money.
Line go up (Score:3, Interesting)
We are very much a society where if you don't work you don't eat.
Over the past 50 years we have eliminated 70% of middle class jobs using automation. Mostly high paying factory jobs but there's plenty others out there.
And we are about to do the AI apocalypse. It's basically a third industrial revolution that's about to hit.
One of the problems is people want to think black and white. Either ai and automation is going to replace all the jobs or it's going to replace none of the jobs.
The middle ground is scary though.
People do not automate extremely low-paying jobs. So yes you can still find a guy in India making satellite dishes by hand because he's paid just enough to buy today's food so he can do tomorrow's work.
The problem is we are going to automate the higher paying jobs first. Because of course we are.
Those high-paying jobs are what drive the economy. Go look up how much of the spending in America is from Rich boomers with good paying jobs the leftover from before wages started to collapse. Try taking those older workers on the old pay scale out of the average wages and see how little Americans actually make.
We have entire industries that will collapse because the high paying workers that maintain and support them with purchases aren't going to exist anymore.
You can't go be a plumber when there aren't any engineers to hire you to fix their pipes because they're busy working on engineering.
We could of course do the whole fully automated luxury gay space communism except we aren't fully automated yet.
We still need some people to work the real problem is we've got some people who are completely useless. We just don't need them to work anymore in anything that they are capable of doing. Not willing,, capable.
So if anything we need less productivity so that we can have more jobs and more make work to keep things going.
The problem is nobody wants to pay for that make work and everyone wants to hoard and grab all the money and power for themselves.
But only a few thousand people can get away with that. So like crabs in a bucket we are all going to be eating alive by those few thousand people.
Too long didn't read, you're going to lose your house in about 6 years to somebody that wants to be the first trillionaire. And human psychology will prevent you from doing anything about it
Re: (Score:2)
"The problem is nobody wants to pay for that make work"
When I was young we called those 'manufacturing jobs'. And they did pay for them...
Get it?
Re: (Score:2)
I don't understand how come you don't understand that those jobs don't exist anymore because they are done by machines.
I get that you're being flippant, but you don't seem to be doing a very good job of it so I can't actually tell what point you're trying to make.
You do have a old man yelling at cloud vibe though so there is that.
Re: Line go up (Score:2)
I'm not being flippant. Your argument has been made at least twice in my lifetime. First, when automation started taking those rote assembly jobs. Then when information systems started taking the paper filling and shuffling jobs. Accountants don't pore over bound ledgers any more, nor do they even fill in cells on spreadsheets, they work with the dashboards and apps to provide their insights and advice. Maybe. And those make work jobs at John Deere, for instance, so what is not possible for robots or automa
Just because it didn't affect you personally (Score:2)
Go look into what unemployment actually is if you include the gig economy workers who make sub-minimum wage and the people who just gave up looking. It's pushing 20% under those circumstances. Go look up the rise of working homeless.
This is before we take into account that a single income can no longer support two people let alone a family. Hell, we are at the point where dual incomes cannot support a family.
I'm guessing you blundered into a n
Re: Just because it didn't affect you personally (Score:2)
"'m guessing you blundered into a nice job "
Having been assessed as neither competent nor capable, you've set me in the category of merely fortunate. Fine. You're entitled to your opinion.
Re: Listen pretty soon we won't have access to (Score:2)
Forgot to change your sig. So weak.
Re: (Score:3)
And you should follow my link from my signature. It would do some good. Ignore the comments on that site but it's a good alternative news site.
The Resource Curse Strikes Again (Score:3)
Re: The Resource Curse Strikes Again (Score:4, Interesting)
Certainly! Here's the expanded Slashdot-style reply, with more detail about Norway's sovereign wealth fund (the "Oil Fund") and the full timeline repeated:
Norway's actually been planning for a post-oil world for decades. They're in a pretty unique position: still producing oil, but investing heavily in a greener future and trying not to end up like other resource-cursed economies. Here's the rough breakdown:
1970sâ"90s: Norway strikes oil in the North Sea, but instead of spending like crazy, they set up the Government Pension Fund Global (aka the "Oil Fund") in the 1990s.
Itâ(TM)s a sovereign wealth fund that invests oil revenues into global marketsâ"stocks, bonds, real estate, and increasingly green projects. Itâ(TM)s now worth over $1.6 trillion, and they only use ~3% of it annually in the national budget.
The idea? Donâ(TM)t let oil wreck your economy, and save for the day the oil runs out.
2000s: Started building the foundations of a low-carbon economy. Early EV tax incentives, hydropower upgrades, carbon capture research. The Oil Fund keeps growing like crazy.
2010s: Transition starts to get serious. EV sales explode thanks to strong subsidies and zero VAT. They start deploying electric ferries and buses, roll out offshore wind pilots, and develop large-scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects. Norway signs onto the Paris Agreement in 2015.
2020s: Full-blown green shift.
80â"90% of new cars sold are fully electric.
Big investments in green hydrogen, battery manufacturing, and maritime electrification.
The Oil Fund begins pulling out of some fossil fuel holdings.
Climate policy gets realâ"thereâ(TM)s a legally binding national action plan through 2030.
2030s (Projected): Managed oil production decline begins. Fossil fuel car sales are banned by 2025. A lot of oil workers retrain into jobs in offshore wind, CCS, and green tech. Norway becomes a major exporter of clean electricity. The economy slowly decouples from fossil revenue.
2040sâ"50s (Projected): Net-zero emissions reached. The oil sector is just a legacy piece. Economy is sustained by:
Returns from the massive Oil Fund
Clean energy exports (hydro, wind, maybe hydrogen)
High-tech manufacturing and digital services
Bottom line: Norway used oil wealth to build a future without oil. Not perfectâ"theyâ(TM)re still drillingâ"but theyâ(TM)ve probably done more than almost any other petro-state to prepare for the inevitable.
Re: The Resource Curse Strikes Again (Score:2)
if you ask chatgpt I think they will be fine
Luxury Beliefs (Score:2)
Right, so in Norway nobody is going hungry, dying from being too poor to afford medical treatment, being kept down by an inability to access education, having to go in to work when they're sick, or freezing to death on the streets because they're out of options?
"They've got a huge problem!"
So say people whose own countries have all those problems and spend more on worse outcomes.
The Norwegians' biggest risk is "good times make weak men" but at least one author I listen to on YouTube indicates that Viking Cu
Re: (Score:2)
If anyone is interested in an actual historian tackling (lengthily) the meme of "good times make weak men" and how it really is just a quote from a novelist and little historical bearing on events, he calls it the "Fremen Mirage".
Collections: The Fremen Mirage, Part I: War at the Dawn of Civilization [acoup.blog]
In Part I and II of this series, we put this idea to the test, trying to see if it actually served as an accurate description of historical processes. And by and large, we found thatno, it did not. Far from bein
Yet another example of... (Score:5, Insightful)
...the myth that endless growth is not only possible, but necessary
The headline claims that "slowest productivity growth" is a problem
Endless growth is impossible
We need steady-state sustainability
Re: (Score:2)
If you say the numerical representation of wealth can endlessly grow, sure, that's just a number. There's no such thing as objective, true numerical value, so if you have a system that is predicated on "line always goes up", you can make that system function even under static constraints by somehow changing how the numbers map to reality.
To his credit, he points to non-money indicators, like ability to succeed on tests.
It is fair to say that we can't consume exponentially more resources or create exponenti
you want more (Score:2)
...the myth that endless growth is not only possible, but necessary
And yet if I ask you, you would admit to wanting more. More healthcare and mental health for the poor, more money for vaccines for people in Africa, more research for cancer and heart disease. I'm sure you want a bigger house, more vacation time... We all want more, some of just admit it.
All western governments are pyramid schemes. We have promised our elderly retirements that they didn't have to save for, we have promised healthcare for aging populations. We can't do that unless then next generati
What a load of horseshit (Score:2)
How dare a country with a lot of wealth enjoy that wealth.
Re: (Score:2)
Needs moar red light districts.
Isn't that the point? (Score:4, Insightful)
Isn't that the whole point of being wealthy? Sure, if your hobby is making line go up you do you; but for most people money is a means to an end, not an end in itself, so if you've already got the money why would you keep grinding away when you could be pursuing your ends instead?
Re: (Score:2)
Depends.
Is it the case that everyone can stop working hard, or that some people get to do that while others get to work even harder to support that working hard?
If Norway gets to slack off and have a fantastic lifestyle, but only because they can import just tons of crap from more exploitative countries, that wouldn't be good.
If everyone around the world gets to slack off and still sustain a great lifestyle, then fantastic. This is in fact the goal, we should be thinking not of "can I get enough work" and m
It's only for the government and welfare tourists (Score:5, Interesting)
As a Norwegian living in Norway I don't get to see any of this "wealth". The roads outside everywhere I have lived have been nothing above developing countries' standards, meanwhile the government keeps embezzling billions of NOK and spending over 70% of our country's welfare budget on foreigners. Meanwhile they tax me over 50% for working in the provate sector, and I have to fight for the bare minimum of fairness. What am I paying taxes for? (Yes, I will be downvoted for this because I don't benefit from this and because I go against the cool-aid drinkers.)
GDP Growth (Score:2)
How have we been tricked into believing that GDP growth is the only way to measure success?
Saudi Arabia? (Score:2)
What makes Norway any more special than all the other wealthy countries that have so much excess oil/gas they amass wealth faster than they spend it?
Re: (Score:2)
A few things for sure. Ostensibly, Norway has a diversified economy, but the dominant driver for soverign wealth really is oil. They have insanely high taxes-- a beer is $15 at a bar or $7 in the government monopoly liquor store. They do a good job with housing though, keeping costs quite affordable.
They import a lot of workers who end up paying additional taxes to fund the government and growth, but hard to really tell how sustainable that is.
Oh, come on, this is 100% politics, 0% tech! (Score:2)
msmash, you suck as an editor.
So? (Score:2)
"....Norwegians take 27.5 sick days annually, the highest rate in the OECD. "
Finland, the next one on the list has 0.9 day less, so no GASP!
It's COLD outside.
The Economist's Fallacy. (Score:3)
Put some fish in a small aquarium and tell me how that works out.
Let me get this straight (Score:2)
They have a sovereign wealth fund, and because of it they're not forced to try to achieve constant unsustainable growth. And that's a bad thing.
Ok...?
Re:Sandwalking Your Way to Wealth (Score:5, Insightful)
It's just a capitalist crying into his overpriced beer that Norway is doing capitalism wrong. His assumption is that because it's a sovereign wealth fund, a form of socialism, it must be bad. Starting from that assumption, he seeks justification for making it.
Norway is a nice play to live, citizens are looked after. I doubt they care if they could be more efficient by making life worse for themselves.
This is really troubling (Score:5, Insightful)
How can we exploit labor if they feel too secure.
Re: (Score:2)
Norway is a nice play to live, citizens are looked after. I doubt they care if they could be more efficient by making life worse for themselves.
How can we exploit labor if they feel too secure.
Bernie Sanders has something to say about us.
Re: (Score:2)
How can we exploit labor if they feel too secure.
You find something else to exploit, like vast petroleum reserves. Oil and gas exports are at the heart of Norway's social justice.
Re:Sandwalking Your Way to Wealth (Score:5, Insightful)
It's just a capitalist crying into his overpriced beer that Norway is doing capitalism wrong. His assumption is that because it's a sovereign wealth fund, a form of socialism, it must be bad. Starting from that assumption, he seeks justification for making it.
Norway is a nice play to live, citizens are looked after. I doubt they care if they could be more efficient by making life worse for themselves.
This is an interesting perspective. Maybe the "problem" with Norway is more a problem with how the rest of us pick and choose which metrics represent our values. Productivity, work hours, student test scores. Why are these the goals? Why not happiness or contentment, however that might be measured? Or physical or mental health? Crime? It seems to me that productivity, work hours, and test scores are merely means to the real ends of happiness and well-being.
Re: (Score:2)
The North American metric is "Free time??? Clearly we haven't given you enough to do..."
Re: (Score:2)
You misspelled "The USA metric".
In Canada, "free time" is called "beer time". In Mexico, it's called "sombrero time".
Re: (Score:2)
In Canada? All this time I thought it was called "Hockey Night In Canada". Huh.
Re: (Score:2)
"Maple Syrup Night at the Hockey game sponsored by Tim Horton's, sorry to all you Molson beer lovers, but your night will be next week."
Oil and Gas pay for the values and lifestyle (Score:3)
It's just a capitalist crying into his overpriced beer that Norway is doing capitalism wrong. His assumption is that because it's a sovereign wealth fund, a form of socialism, it must be bad. Starting from that assumption, he seeks justification for making it.
Norway is a nice play to live, citizens are looked after. I doubt they care if they could be more efficient by making life worse for themselves.
This is an interesting perspective. Maybe the "problem" with Norway is more a problem with how the rest of us pick and choose which metrics represent our values.
Norway is somewhat unique, we can't just replicate their way of doing things elsewhere. At the heart their social justice and happiness is great wealth from oil and gas exports. Most nations lack such a blessing, a convenient way to pay for the lifestyle and values, at least for the foreseeable future. A global transition away from petroleum could upset their system.
Re: (Score:3)
It doesn't matter where the wealth comes from; in other countries it comes from the entrepreneurship and hard labor from its workers.
The trick is then to distribute the products of that wealth among all the people, instead of concentrating more than half of it on the hands of a very small privileged class that then gets to decide how it's spent.
Re: (Score:2)
It doesn't matter where the wealth comes from ...
It matters when you are living on top of a "gold mine." That gives you more options, options not available to most others.
The trick is then to distribute the products of that wealth among all the people ...
And that trick is far easier to perform when you have that "gold mine." That's all I am saying here. That virtuous beliefs alone are rarely enough.
Re: Oil and Gas pay for the values and lifestyle (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
In this context, it doesn't matter where the wealth comes from. Wealth is wealth. Also, you completely missed what he meant. Why would the wealth be any different if you were a beverly hillbilly or sam walton?
Because there is an erroneous implication that it's a matter of beliefs. Beliefs are secondary. The wealth is primary. And winning the geographic lottery is not a trivial thing to be blown off. Many other nations are far less fortunate, and work much harder for far less wealth. As a result they do not have the same options.
Kudos for Norway for choosing good options along the way. But lets not pretend winning the geographic lottery is not the fundamental pillar of what we see today.
Re: (Score:2)
winning the geographic lottery is not the fundamental pillar of what we see today.
Again, are you a real person? What are you talking about? That is capitalism. Capitalism is just as much luck as it is anything else. Most corporations today survive by buying up everything and just making money off of a core product or service.
Re: (Score:2)
That is how society works, being the owner of a landfill is different than having control of oil.
That's my point. It's not a level field. Winning the lottery can be a blessing if one makes good decisions.
winning the geographic lottery is not the fundamental pillar of what we see today.
Again, are you a real person?
I think there is an editing typo in there. My argument is really winning the geographic lottery IS the fundamental pillar of what we see today. That poor farmer with good intentions can't manifest much good until he misses that rabbit and up comes the bubbling crude.
Capitalism is just as much luck as it is anything else
That's my point, again, apologies for the spurious "not".
Re: (Score:2)
It doesn't matter where the wealth comes from ...
It matters when you are living on top of a "gold mine." That gives you more options, options not available to most others.
The trick is then to distribute the products of that wealth among all the people ...
And that trick is far easier to perform when you have that "gold mine." That's all I am saying here. That virtuous beliefs alone are rarely enough.
Both are needed. The wealth to distribute and the actual distribution, whether through the government or through the default economy. While virtuous beliefs alone are insufficient, wealth alone is also insufficient. There are many instances of wealth clustered in the hands of a few with no virtuous beliefs. In contrast, virtuous beliefs are harder to detect in the absence of wealth.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Nah, it's really more about who's getting the lion's share of the wealth the country is generating. The same few families/companies, or the average person? Most nations are producing quite a lot of value, it's just where the profits end up over 5-10 years that varies.
When you are the 5th leading exporter of oil, and 3rd of natural gas, in the world; you acquire wealth far faster and with far less effort than many other nations. They won the geographic lottery and had a "gold mine" beneath them.
Again, they deserve praise for making good decisions over the decades. But let's not pretend they did not have a unique advantage from the start.
Re: (Score:2)
This is an interesting perspective. Maybe the "problem" with Norway is more a problem with how the rest of us pick and choose which metrics represent our values. Productivity, work hours, student test scores. Why are these the goals? Why not happiness or contentment, however that might be measured? Or physical or mental health? Crime? It seems to me that productivity, work hours, and test scores are merely means to the real ends of happiness and well-being.
Be careful, you may be up to discover the European way of thinking where "productivity" and "net worth" and "concentrating all the political power in a few lobbies that control the government"* are not synonyms with economic health but rather "safety net" and "well-being" do.
*We tried the last one in the times of the Roman Empire and decided that it's not a good model to live with.
Re: (Score:2)
But they are apparently sick as hell, needing to take off almost 8% of the year as a result.
Norway is a major Petroleum Exporter ... (Score:2)
It's just a capitalist crying into his overpriced beer that Norway is doing capitalism wrong. His assumption is that because it's a sovereign wealth fund, a form of socialism, it must be bad. Starting from that assumption, he seeks justification for making it.
Norway is a nice play to live, citizens are looked after. I doubt they care if they could be more efficient by making life worse for themselves.
It's just a capitalist crying into his overpriced beer that Norway is doing capitalism wrong.
Short version: Countries can't just "be like Norway" unless they have vast petroleum reserves to export.
Long version:
It's not that simple. Norway is a major Petroleum Exporter, 20% of GDP; 5th in oil, and 3rd in natural gas globally. However, the key to Norway's success is that it is not a Kleptocracy. They actually use their massive wealth from oil and gas, in part, for public benefit.
Yes, that is certainly one way of doing capitalism correctly. However let's not forget that it is only possible du
Re: Sandwalking Your Way to Wealth (Score:2)
Re:Sandwalking Your Way to Wealth (Score:4, Insightful)
I tend to agree given the source material, but having worked in Norway for several months, there's still an underlying warning: even socialist societies need capable leadership. Even more so since so much is delegated to the state. if you start producing a mass of, well, spoiled brats, you won't be able to successfully replace your leadership, or potentially fall into a technocratic oligopoly.
Re: (Score:3)
Another aspect of socialism is distributed power through democracy. Rather than concentrating it at the top or in a few people, e.g. a president, it is distributed as widely as possible from local councils up.
The Nordics do that fairly well, having representative democracy and many levels to it, with no individual having too much power and everything needing to be a compromise or negotiation between interested parties.
Potential long term problem (Score:2)
I think the worrying part is if this trend continues as if their productivity gets too low that could cause significant problems for them. Especially when oil goes away and all they have is the interest from their investments they might find it hard to support their current level of benefits if their economy is unproductive.
As you get at in your post, making money isn't the end all be all of a country but it helps A LOT. Ask any third worlder.
Re: (Score:2)
It's worse than that. When anyone talks "productivity growth" they are literally talking output per capita. There's a few ways this can look bad while completely ignoring how great it can be for the people. Imagine me and you (no don't start singing Happy Together).
We both work 40 hours weeks. You suddenly decide to work 5 hours on Saturday. BAM I experienced low productivity growth compared to you.
We both work full time jobs. The government decides to up minimum holidays from 4 weeks to 5 weeks for me but
Re: (Score:2)
Productivity metrics, GDP, all this other capitalist bullshit is the stuff of people who believe that only money can buy happiness.
On the contrary, as a leftist I value all of those things quite a bit. They pay for everything I think government should be doing.
I mean, what's a country with poor productivity and a bad gdp? It's a third world country and living in one of those isn't all that great.
Re: (Score:2)
No, labor productivity is output per person-hour worked.
Re:Sandwalking Your Way to Wealth (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean economic migrants, highly motivated people that are often far more productive than the people who live there, whilst simultaneously being the targets of moronic bigots.
Re: There are bigots among immigrants too ... (Score:3)
Those people are the vast minority, and even when they do Balkanize a neighborhood, over time that usually drifts away, as their children and their childrenâ(TM)s children see the value of assimilation and leave.
Look at the Balkanized Amish areas - would you say they have been a danger to progress of the rest of America? Or did the world move on without them, as their kids have been embracing the modern lifestyle of their neighbors?
Most minority groups do integrate, and bring along their culture to mix
Historic US melting pots ... (Score:2)
Those people are the vast minority, ...
Of course, but their effect is outsized compared to their numbers.
And being a vast minority would imply proper vetting would not harm immigration.
.... and even when they do Balkanize a neighborhood, over time that usually drifts away, as their children and their childrenâ(TM)s children see the value of assimilation and leave.
There is a different between the historic melting pot neighborhoods of the US and the more balkanized modern neighborhoods in the EU. Having less of the American style melting pot is causing difficulties. In the EU we are see more 2nd generation radicals. Where some have moderate parents but were radicalized by "the neighborhood".
Re: (Score:2)
The Amish absolutely are actually a great example of the type of immigration no nation should want.
Granted they are not as harmful as some groups but what generally happens is:
The Amish move into a somewhat rural area. They start buying up a lot of property usually zoned agriculture and such so that they don't have to comply with construction standards and building codes that require things like hot water and flush toilets. They keep buying essentially gentrifying they area pushing out the locals which bre
Re: There are bigots among immigrants too ... (Score:5, Informative)
The Amish absolutely are actually a great example of the type of immigration no nation should want.
but... what does happen as soon as someone in their community is seriously ill or whatever they are at the local hospital, and its usually indigent care because they don't believe in medical insurance.. When they have structure fire, they call the local brigade to help them put it out but none of them join or become members.
I think you need to be pretty careful about painting with this broad of a brush. In cluding a lot of your other comments about not participating in the economy. Amish communities vary GREATLY by their leadership. Some of the Amish I deal with run a buinding supply store. They have computers, cell phones, CNC stamping machines, propane and diesel fork lifts, etc. All the kids working there have fire pages hanging off their belts from the local volunteer fire department. Some of them even drive.
All of that end when the get home, except the fire pages. Those are the only things that come in, after being charged at work. Cell phones stay in a box at the edge of the property by the mailbox.
So as you can see, some of these communities have found way to integrate that still carries on the traditions and customs of their home life. Also, they are far from broke and socialize paying for outside medical care when necessary.
Re: There are bigots among immigrants too ... (Score:2)
TL;DR - Amish make libertarians look like posers and boy do they hate it.
Re: (Score:3)
I dunno....when I see all these protests in the US, these assholes are all waving other countries' flags....I'd actually be a bit more at ease and listen if they were waving the American flag...
People waving flags of other countries while rioting and being violent....strike me as invaders from a foreign land that need to be defended against, you know?
Re:Then how come... (Score:5, Interesting)
The Romans exiled most of the Jews from Palestine after the failed Jewish uprisings between 64 and 132 CE (encompassing multiple revolts). After that, even before the Edict of Milan in 313CE, the region became a major Christian center, but after the Christianization of the Roman Empire it was overwhelmingly Christian. When the Muslims invaded the region in the 7th century CE, there weren't a lot of Jews in the region, and it was majority Christian.
And just to tell you who the real enemies of the Jews were, when the First Crusade made its way to the Holy Land, the capture of Jerusalem in 1099 led to the savage butchery of Jews and Muslims in the city. After the loss of the Crusader kingdoms in the region, it was Turkish territory, and while the Ottomans weren't always terribly nice to Jews, they were a helluva lot better than the Christians, and there was a steady flow of Jews back into the area during the Ottoman period.
And there were most certainly people living in Palestine, as there was resistance to Jews who began building settlements. It was not, as later claims would have it, an empty land. Most of the owners of the land were absentee landlords, but that is not the same thing at all.
But no, the Muslims did not displace the Jews, that was the Romans, some 1700 or 1800 years before Jews began returning in significant numbers.
Re: (Score:2)
It's amazing the fictions that people believe when it comes to Israel. The idea that Jews had any claim on modern day Israel when they hadn't lived there (in meaningfully large numbers) in a couple thousand years is ridiculous.
Re: (Score:2)
so how long, exactly, do you have to be excluded from your homeland before you lose your claim to it?
No Idea. A couple thousand years probably does it though.
asking for some native american friends
Ha, yeah. If Israel has claims on the land Palestinians live on then what does that mean about the rights of Native Americans and the land the rest of us Americans live on as their claim on American land is based on far more recent history than that of the modern Israeli's.
Re: (Score:2)
give me a number, dogg. what's the cutoff.
mind you, the jews never really actually left. they didn't come back in large numbers because well, second class citizenship and all doesn't exactly encourage immigration.
>>Ha, yeah. If Israel has claims on the land Palestinians live on then what does that mean about the rights of Native Americans and the land the rest of us Americans live on as their claim on American land is based on far more recent history than that of the modern Israeli
it means they have a
Re: (Score:2)
>> while the Ottomans weren't always terribly nice to Jews, they were a helluva lot better than the Christians
that ain't sayin much
Re: Sandwalking Your Way to Wealth (Score:2)
How thankful is the environment and our fellow non-human mortals, if we go soft and stop producing so much violence?
Re: (Score:2)
There's basically two angles to this story.
First, the younger generation in Norway has collectively decided to not go to work, and live on govt money playing video games and eating frozen pizza, of which Norway is the top consumer in the world. This means all labour will have to be imported, and considering the reproduction rate of comfortable nolifers versus immigrants, Norwegians are going to die out and the imported workers are going to inherit the country.
Second, Norway already some time ago took the ne
Re: (Score:2)
First, the younger generation in Norway has collectively decided to not go to work, and live on govt money playing video games and eating frozen pizza, of which Norway is the top consumer in the world. This means all labour will have to be imported, and considering the reproduction rate of comfortable nolifers versus immigrants, Norwegians are going to die out and the imported workers are going to inherit the country.
Why does a dip in productivity equal no one doing any work at all? Why is your entire post "all or nothing" when that's now how this works at all?
Re: (Score:2)
I was talking about bigger things than that dip, and so did TFA mostly. But I can bite.
First, productivity only measures the amount of automation per worker in an economy. In that sense it doesn't have anything to do with people choosing to work at all or not. An economy with one worker, 10 robots and 2 computers has exactly the same productivity as an economy with 1M workers, 10M robots, and 2M coputers, the work and process being the same.
But an economy with a falling productivity either means 1) it's giv
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think you even understand my critique...
Re: (Score:2)
thanks!