Hacker News Reader

Comment by squigs25 | Hacker News Reader

Meanwhile, Norway has 1MM per capita in assets. Their net debt as a percent of GDP is -165% while the US is +88%

The lesson here is... The US should discover a really, really, really large amount of oil?

I mean, I don't take Booth's takedown of the Nordic countries very seriously, but the reason that Norway is in such great shape financially is that they have an enormous amount of oil that they sell. It's not exactly a reproducible strategy for nation-building.

To put things in context. The oil industry is producing 20% of the total GDP of Norway and 50% of all exports. It's very important and it will be painful when it ends, but Norway will not be much worse than other European countries when the oil runs out.

The lesson here is how can you reasonably bash their economy?

For the record, I think the US economy is just fine, but I also think that things in scandinavia are A-O.K.

The US holds ~$250 trillion in total assets in its economy.

Household wealth alone is now ~$80 trillion per the latest Fed numbers.

That private wealth is what the US Government's liabilities actually rest against. Whether we're talking using inflation to pay the bills, in which case what's actually happening is existing dollar denominated assets are being eaten to pay the bills, or direct taxation is used.

Apple alone is sitting on $142 billion in cash. Norway's sovereign fund, which is the big reference point, is ~$800 billion. I can probably put together a list of 50 US companies that together have that much cash (not total assets, just cash).

http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/Current/

http://www.businessinsider.com/america-is-not-drowning-in-de...

http://rutledgecapital.com/2009/05/24/total-assets-of-the-us...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com