1. Huge oil and gas resources
2. Huge hydropower resources. 96 per cent of all electric power generation comes from hydropower.
3. Gigantic phosphate deposits.
4. Sensibility to avoid resource curse and invest excess money.
5. Fjords designed by Slartibartfast
Political campaign contributions is the perfect euphemism for corruption.
Corporations aren't allowed to make direct campaign contributions in Norway; political campaigns are paid for by the public.
(I've been an expat for over two decades, please correct me if anything has significantly changed - of course the companies still have political influence through choices of where to invest etc, but at least it's nowhere as blatant).
One might say it would be a waste of taxpayer money to do the same in Australia, but in the end we would be far better off by cutting off the direct corporate influence.
We might not have gotten an EV tax instead of incentives if we had politicians not directly receiving money from big petrol.
And we might just be able to raise corporate mining taxes to a far better level, clearly state that if you don't like it then just pack up and leave - and let someone else who is willing come profit instead.
https://slimemoldtimemold.com/2022/05/17/norway-the-once-and... https://progressandpoverty.substack.com/p/norways-sovereign-...
(Update: This is not to detract from his achievement, but to harp on the fact that Georgism is one of the most useful, underrated tools in the economic toolboxt)
What Norway deserves huge credit for is the way they manage their natural resources, and how they designed their sovereign wealth fund.
> "Oil production generally takes place in an economic enclave, meaning it has few direct effects on the rest of the economy."
Venezuela is just one of many examples.
[1] https://apnews.com/article/venezuela-guyana-territorial-disp...
[2] https://apnews.com/article/guyana-oil-discovery-money-14c23a...
I picked a random city from wikipedia, not attached to Berlin.
What matters more in my opinion is what you can expect to taste most of the time. If you go to the supermarket or an average restaurant in a medium sized city for example.
As a pedantic Frenchman immigrant living in Norway, I would say that Norway isn’t the best about food but also not that bad. They have good stuff and terrible stuff like most countries and once you know what to eat you can live happy.
If there's something quite fun to do in Norway and Denmark in just about any type of weather, it's shore fishing and eating fish.
Then some live laugh love travel girls and guy come to "list cuisines".
What a stupid list. I could as well just have pull something out of my arse by vacation photos posted here by HN contributors. If you think that list is in anyway meaningful or sophisticated I have a whole highway to sell you
Well sure.
But then they also have Lutefisk [1] and one of the world's most annoying population of mosquitoes.
You can't have it all good.
Sure, you get used to being full of red spots, you stop scratching them, but occasionally you run some part of your skin against something and all hell breaks loose.
Then you come back to sanity and realize freedom has many shapes, and being able to dress as you like in summer is definitely one of them.
Along with not immediately blowing the petro money on a national level, Norway taxes petroleum products more heavily for local consumption than even its high tax neighbors - for a long time, gasoline was cheaper in Germany than in Norway, and Germany has high fuel taxes like pretty much every other European country (EU and non).
I mean cost of living is higher in cities but so is income. Usually. Sometimes.
sunrise 04:03
sunset 22:39
It's the non-summer months that kill you.
I obviously don't think that, hence what I wrote. I think they were in many cases fought for and the strong got the best land for the most part. There was no collective decision making. And I'm hinting that maybe the current situation doesn't make much sense for team humans.
That's an incredibly simplistic way to see History. Lands are not ranked from best to worse. How a modern population ended up where is a long and complicated process of migration and moved back and forth several times. Great lands have been scorched and abandoned and changing technology, trade and population patterns change drastically what is great land from one generation to another.
Not to mention until very, very recently, Norway was very poor land. The people who ended up being there for the oil boom in the 70s were not, by any means, some very strong people who fought their way into prime land.
[1]: https://www.norgeshistorie.no/industrialisering-og-demokrati...
I'm pretty sure the Sámi would disagree on that one.
The current Sami people may have been first in the northern parts of Norway. The actual time line is difficult to establish (politically charged). What we can say is that the current Sami people were first in the northern parts of Norway compared to the "germanic" group living in the south.
Most discussions end up in agreeing that there were two main groups in Norway. One started from the south of Norway and spread north, while the Sami people started from the north and spread south. Finding out who occupied a certain area first is very difficult, and have a tendency to be based more on politics and patriotism, than scientific facts. (on both sides)
Both groups have been in Norway for thousands of years, so there is actually not much point in debating who was first in Norway. What they can agree on is to make sure that the rights of all are protected. That was not the case historically, where the Sami people were not treated well.
A certified 4 dimensional big brain achronal chess move us puny mortals are incapable of comprehending.