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Comment by Barrin92 | Hacker News Reader

Norway's state oil&gas revenue pays and subsidizes pensions, tuition free education and healthcare while actually growing rather than shrinking most of the time. Unless your definition of feeling rich is the government buying you a lambo I'd feel very rich in Norway based on services provided at no or little cost alone.

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Do you have more than me?

Then you're rich and I'm not.

This is how almost every single human being alive right now or alive in the past thinks. I have a lifelong friend who through a combination of luck, hard work, and being a legitimate genius is now wealthy ($10,000,000+ net worth and climbing).

However, he and his wife insist they are not 'rich'.

If you own a penthouse in a 30 story condominium and a lake house on the Great Lakes and haven't flown less than first / business class in the past 10 years, you're rich by any nation's standard.

I can see how getting a bunch of stuff without working for it appeals to a certain segment of the populace. Venezuela (and Libya) also had oil-backed welfare for their populace. Best not to get too used to it.

Yes I know Venezuela is not Norway.

Ah the old patronizing saw "you just want free stuff"... no sir, I don't. I'm just playing another Game with a different equilibrium. One where everyone doesn't get to die for lack of health-care, like animals in the wilderness. One where my neighbor's education is not considered a threat to the small place under the sun I've managed to rip out of their hands, like predators quarreling for some spoils.

Hey who doesn't like free stuff. I like free stuff. Just pointing out not to get too used to it. History hasn't been kind to those who become too dependent on oil revenue, including in the form of distributions from the state.

>"you just want free stuff"

Ah the old patronizing "I invent a quote the person didn't say, and then I straw man against it like they did."

There is a difference between paying for things directly with oil money and buying a diversified portfolio with oil money and using the profits from that portfolio to buy things.

It’s not a straw-man, at worst it’s a paraphrase. Quote: “I can see how getting a bunch of stuff without working”

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31758991

Yeah, Elon really worked super-hard for those $200B. Man clearly outworked every other person in world history except Bezos, who has a team that photoshops him into vacation scenes practically every other week to keep Amazon employees to from understanding what a tremendous strain he puts himself under.

Oh, wait. He was born rich, continues to suckle the teat of the US government, and will generally make money if all he does is sit there and do nothing, because money is power, and power has a gravitational pull of its own.

Also, the reason that wealthy people with families who have hundreds of years of wealth are so stingy is because they don't want to work for it.

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