Norway's oil money story is one of the weirdest. Are there any examples in history where a country has saved up such a big stash? Are they planning to retire young, as a nation?
I'm not says one is better than the other - Norway looks great right now, but didn't when I visited ~10 years ago and my Subway "value" meal cost over $25 CDN - just an interesting counterpoint.
I keep waiting for that manufacturing "bump" from Eastern Canada we were promised from a sinking dollar...
Careful with such examples. Local prices are first of all adjusted for local wages, and second of all the NOK exchange rate is just nasty.
i think they want to avoid the resource curse/paradox of plenty by taking the oil money out of circulation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse
Countries that rely on income from natural resources are worse off because they tend to neglect everything else that might generate wealth; also with these countries a small elite tends to get hold of the oil well, this leads to authoritarian rule and other goodies.
A windfall from oil often turns out to have many toxic side effects, so it was a very wise decision to stash it far away, as far as possible.
What an amusing thought. One big problem is that, one part of the idea of retirement is that you eventually die. I hope Norwegians aren't planning doing that, as a nation...
Maybe the term we are looking after is "living on the interest", as old middle class ladies plan to do in the 19th century novels.