Norway: an Eden with wifi

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/5749fbb8-100d-11e1-a468-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1e9fRYOFZ

by implmentor • 15 years ago

161 100 15 years ago

vetler6• 15 years ago

We still complain.

About the high prices. How short the summer is. The cold. The rain. The snow. All the people on welfare. That we can't buy beer after 18:00 om weekdays and 20:00 on Saturdays (and not at all on Sundays).

Norway might not be very exciting, though. After all, we're only 5 million people, which is like half of Paris.

Although I don't work there anymore, Opera is hiring[0], and it has a multinational workforce and English is the working language.

Other benefits not mentioned in the article is 5 weeks paid vacation and Norwegian management style[1].

[0] http://www.opera.com/company/jobs/ [1]: http://www.worldbusinessculture.com/Norwegian-Management-Sty...

karipatila• 15 years ago

All of your negative points remind me of Finland. Perhaps all of us Nordic folk suffer from some von Trier-ish ailment, where we focus on what's wrong instead of how good we have it here.

_delirium3• 15 years ago

Oddly, from what I can tell, von Trier's native Denmark doesn't seem to suffer from it: it seems to always top lists of people happy with their country's situation, and talking in person to Danes, it is nearly impossible to get anyone to admit that there's anything non-great about Denmark...

EiZei• 15 years ago

Honestly I have never failed to meet people complaining about prices anywhere and as far as weather goes even the Russians and Lithuanians seem to do that.

That being said I wish I was a Finnish taxi driver in Norway instead of a Finnish taxi driver in Finland. ;(

tikhonj• 15 years ago

Hah, I've even heard people complaining about the weather here in the Silicon Valley. That and real estate prices, but the latter complaints are warranted.

iaskwhy4• 15 years ago

Slightly (or completely) off-topic but you really are a taxi driver? I'm curious why you read HN and how you found it.

waqf• 15 years ago

Are you expressing surprise that Russians complain about Russian weather, that Russians complain about Finnish weather or that Russians complain about Norwegian weather?

None of those seems surprising since all those countries are, at least in part, cold, gloomy and snowy.

afterburner• 15 years ago

You're probably justified in your complaints about prices; Norway has higher prices than almost anywhere in Europe.

Rastafarian3• 15 years ago

Only Europe?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Mac_Index#Figures

vetler6• 15 years ago

Norway, and Oslo in particular, is one of the most expensive places in the world, and prices are often discussed in the media. However, I read recently that although we like to complain about food prices, they are not very high when compared to our income.

Of course, the Big Mac index clearly shows that food can be very expensive. In general, all fast food is expensive. This is probably in part because there's no such thing as cheap labor here.

duck• 15 years ago

I have to ask, how hard would it be for an American to get a job in Norway (lets say at Opera) and move their family there?

hmottestad2• 15 years ago

Probably not that hard. However you'd probably be going down a lot in salary, the top 95th percentile for people with masters in technical subjects is around 800 000 NOK or 138 000 usd, but the average is around 550 000.

Considering a cheap apartment with 2 bedrooms costs minimum 2 000 000 nok.

A bus ticket starts at 28 nok about 5 usd.

vetler6• 15 years ago

Opera does have a few Americans working there, including at least one who moved his entire family there (even his dogs, I believe).

Yes, you'd might go down in salary, as hmottestad mentions, so there are pros and cons. People do live fine here on their salaries, so I don't think it would be a problem.

tallanvor2• 15 years ago

IT workers are in demand in Norway, so if you're skilled, it's generally not too hard to get a job here. And the pay is decent - sure you might find some jobs that pay more in the States, but you're not going to starve here. My pay actually jumped by about 50% when I moved here.

Things are more expensive here, of course, but not everything is a lot more expensive - renting an apartment here is similar to prices you'd expect in New York. I've never had a problem with healthcare, but off hand I don't know any company that provides dental coverage or vision plans.

The hardest part is the language. --Everyone can speak English here, but, like anywhere, the more of the local language you speak, the easier it is.

winter_blue2• 15 years ago

Why do you complain about people in welfare?

(I think it's a good thing that a country provides welfare to its people like Norway does.)

latch• 15 years ago

I've lived in a country with good social services and one with less good social services. They both have their ups and downs. The problem with social services as a system, is the same problem as with any system: people game it.

I assume in Norway it's no different. Employed feel that the [some] of the unemployed are lazy and taking advantage of the system.

vetler6• 15 years ago

Some people take advantage of it. People who don't use it might feel like they're paying for lazy bums. Personally I like to think most people aren't on welfare voluntarily.

I recently read somewhere that Norwegians are some of the most gullible people in the world though. YMMV.

swah2• 15 years ago

The bad behaviours it encourages: having another child to receive state support, don't look for jobs if you expect to be paid less than the what the govt pays unemployed folks, etc.

sigvef• 15 years ago

Though not important to the essence of your post, I would like to point out that beer is sold until 20:00 on weekdays and 18:00 on Saturdays, not the other way around.

barredo• 15 years ago

> “We’ve become spoiled,” one Norwegian told me. “Lazy,” said another. “Petroholics,” diagnosed a third."

Does the Norwegian society as a whole feel this way? What about other oil-prosperous small countries such as the Emirates or Kuwait? Are the cases comparables?

What are the Norwegian govt plans for the long-time future when their oil is over? (it's long for that, i know).

iaskwhy4• 15 years ago

To start, they seem to have invested heavily in renewable energy sources. Citing Wikipedia: "Electricity generation in Norway is almost entirely from hydroelectric power plants."

I believe that's more than you can say for any other country and it's one of the best ways to invest oil money I'd say.

TobbenTM• 15 years ago

That's mostly because we have the opportunity to run hydroelectric plants very easily, with all our mountains and water.

lemming• 15 years ago

New Zealand is similar - the majority of electricity generation is hydro. We're similar in that we have a lot of mountains and a small population.

wilhelm• 15 years ago

That predates the discovery of oil. A significant portion of the major hydroelectric power plants were built around 1910. We didn't have much coal, but our country looks like this:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/98/Odda_frå_...

The town on the picture (Odda, Hordaland) was a major center of industry, thanks to the cheap power.

roschdal• 15 years ago

That's a good question. I don't think most Norwegians think of themselves as spoiled. A lot of people here wonder what we'll do after all the oil has been extracted. There are some concerns that Norway has "Dutch disease", but the government tries to prevent it. The government has given free education a very high priority, so there is a hope that investing in people's education will be part of the answer.

However, everything is very expensive here, and starting tech startups is difficult at the moment.

borism• 15 years ago

What are the Norwegian govt plans for the long-time future when their oil is over?

second largest sovereign fund in the world: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_wealth_fund#Largest_s...

plus all the investments into its' own people like mentioned in the article.

(it's long for that, i know).

not at all, Norway's oil is pretty much gone http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-03/norway-drillers-hit...

What about other oil-prosperous small countries such as the Emirates or Kuwait? Are the cases comparables?

Totally different. You know, in UAE they build skyscrapers just because they can. In Manhattan they built skyscrapers because there was no more land available to build on...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse

Norway is probably only country in the world that was able to dodge Dutch disease.

henrikgs• 15 years ago

Actually Statoil (biggest Norwegian oil company, partly Government own, mentioned in the Bloomberg article above) just found a major oil reserve in the North Sea this autumn. The forecast is 0.9 to 1.5 billion barrels, and is the largest found in the North Sea ever

MoreMoschops2• 15 years ago

"What about other oil-prosperous small countries such as the Emirates or Kuwait?"

For a long time, when a country became rich through oil, there were two paths. One was a fascist socialism in which the population was bought off with the proceeds, non-jobs flourished and foreigners did all the actual work (many of who were effectively slave labour). This is most of the oil-rich middle-east.

The other model is, horrifyingly, even less admirable. A handful at the top take everything, sell their souls to foreign oil giants, and everyone else is screwed over. This is Nigeria and chums.

Norway is the third option. Norway ploughs the money into a sovereign wealth fund, with long term plans. They've become world experts in getting "difficult" oil out of the wells which will see their services increasingly in demand around the world. Norway is a charming country to live in, despite being cursed with oil.

arethuza3• 15 years ago

One of the leaders of the new Libyan government was interviewed on BBC Radio 4 and he was asked what country he would like Libya to be like in the future - his answer was Norway.

[Note - both countries have populations of about 5 million]

gizzlon• 15 years ago

"Norway is the third option. Norway ploughs the money into a sovereign wealth fund"

The older I get the more impressed I become with how this was, and is, handled. Especially when you see how it could have tourned out ..

ticks3• 15 years ago

There's a fourth option, where the country gorges on the short term flood of cash and easy access to oil and gas, which keeps taxes artificially low. The UK enjoyed the same benefits as Norway but went down this route instead - to a point where natural gas is now being shipped from South America to boost the reducing North Sea output.

WildUtah• 15 years ago

Alaska is model one. Texas is model two.

patrickk• 15 years ago

Remarkable story of an Iraqi geologist who helped Norway spread the oil wealth around:

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/99680a04-92a0-11de-b63b-00144...

zacharypinter• 15 years ago

And the related planet money podcast:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/08/26/139972557/the-frid...

Zirro• 15 years ago

"From Norway, even Sweden now looks gritty and hardscrabble, like something out of a Stieg Larsson novel."

Now, this is a case of national pride of course, but it really sounds like the author has heard just one side of a story here. My impression is that Sweden and Norway (like the other Scandinavian countries) are about equal in most aspects. That's not wrong, is it?

Rastafarian3• 15 years ago

I'd say it's wrong. There are more than 200K Swedes currently residing and working in Norway. Not only young people working no-skill jobs for $140 a day, but also many scientists, IT pros/developers, managers, entrepreneurs.

I've lived and worked in both countries and while Sweden feels like one of the rich US states or parts of EU, Norway has out of this world standard of living. Can give you countless examples.

A neighbour of mine was a single father of three children, the government (NAV) was paying his rent, bills, other expenses, vacation(!), etc. for almost a year. That was social help not based on previous taxes or income.

Most Norwegians (IMH experience) who are serious about gaming would work one year and live the next year on the extremely generous unemployment benefits provided by NAV.

vetler6• 15 years ago

200K swedes? Do you have a reference for that number? I've heard lower numbers. Here's an article (in Norwegian) from 2009 saying it's just under 80 000: http://www.hegnar.no/personlig_okonomi/article391433.ece

geon2• 15 years ago

Right. (Swede here)

Norway and Sweden are virtually identical as far as I can tell. Though I haven't lived there, I work with norwegians and visit a few times a year since 2008.

Standard of living might be a bit higher, but not drastically.

Naturally, Salaries are a lot lower in Sweden, but so are the prices. Food prices in Norway are often double, rarely less than 150%.

One interesting detail is infrastructure. Due to all the mountains and fjords, building highways in Norway is super expensive. Lots of tunnels. Smaller roads tend to follow the natural, winding shape of the land, making them slow and long.

danteembermage• 15 years ago

From the GDP per capita adjusted by PPP you're right, there's not that huge a difference betweeen them (52k vs. 38k):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_...

Whereas the nominal GDP per capita is huge (84k vs. 49k in Sweden and 47k in the US)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomin...

So yes, $84,000 is nice, but it's much much nicer in Sweden than in Norway in terms of what you can buy with it

mbesto2• 15 years ago

I've got tons of Swedish friends, some of who live in Oslo. They basically say that you can speak Swedish in Oslo nowadays because of how many Swedes have immigrated there. Why? Because there are better jobs and they pay more.

lobster_johnson2• 15 years ago

Whereas Norway was able to build its wealth on oil, Sweden -- having only a tiny, tiny bit of oil -- had to build their country the hard way, with industry and commerce.

And they are very, very good at it. As a result, Sweden seems comparatively more active, in terms of industry and business in general. They have a lively entrepreneurial spirit, and a lively Internet startup scene. Norway is still lagging in this area, perhaps as a result of having become docile by not having to fight for its economy.

In terms of living standards, Norway and Sweden are on the same level, and at roughly the same gini index. Sweden's GDP is about 30% higher, but Norway's is 45% higher per capita.

_delirium3• 15 years ago

While it's true that Sweden doesn't have oil, it does have considerable natural resources: mining, forestry, and hydroelectric-power account for about 30% of its exports (about 350 billion SEK = US $50 billion). It's the 2nd-largest producer of wood and paper products after Canada, I believe, and mining's traditionally been a huge part of the economy, though it's less important now than it was some decades ago.

masklinn• 15 years ago

> As a result, Sweden seems comparatively more active, in terms of industry and business in general. They have a lively entrepreneurial spirit, and a lively Internet startup scene.

You can definitely see that in the indie gaming scene: quite a few well known (and good) Swedish studios (Mojang of course, but also Arrowhead, developers of Magicka or Frictional, developers of the Penumbra series and Amnesia). Meanwhile I could not tell you of any Norwegian indie game dev, I don't know any (I'm sure they exist, but I don't know them)

zvrba• 15 years ago

(A foreigner living in Norway here.) You can relatively often hear Norwegians joking about Swedes, and vice-versa. So I asked a friend of mine (he's Norwegian) about this "friendly hostility", to which he replied: "Norway has oil, Sweden has industry."

Another, probably little-known fact, [I can't dig out a historical reference -- I remember conversations with people] is that Norway offered Sweden to jointly engage in oil extraction in the early days, which Sweden declined.

Selvik• 15 years ago

Nope, that "we could buy sweden" stuff is just embarrassingly boorish nationalism, or a joke at the expense of boorish nationalists. Everything being equal (and it pretty much is) Norwegians will be marginally richer than swedes and danes as long as the oil money lasts. Marginally being the operative word. (I'm Norwegian)

winter_blue2• 15 years ago

"Still, there are worse places in the world."

Really?

(Are there truly places more wealthy/luxurious than this?)

umarmung• 15 years ago

He meant the opposite.

But to answer your question: Liechtenstein and Luxembourg?

So, for all intents and purposes, no... At least, not for anyone who is not already ridiculously rich already and therefore you could live anywhere anyway.

andreash2• 15 years ago

I've lived most of my 24 years in Norway, but the lack of a proper startup eco-system (successful entrepreneurs, VCs and companies etc.) motivates me to move to Silicon Valley in a few years. Am I stupid, or just adventurous? :p

gindevine• 15 years ago

I have the opposite opinion. I've never experienced the system first-hand myself, but I know of a few who have. To me, it seems that as long as you have a business idea and actually check if it's possible to maintain, there's a lot of governmental and non-governmental organizations who'll support you financially.

I think Silicon Valley would be harder to start in, if not only for the (seemingly) fierce competition for VCs' money and because you might have to pay for the health insurance of your employees.

amac2• 15 years ago

At one time, I had similar thoughts e.g you have to move to another place (usually a large city) to be successful in business. Then, I figured out that by whatever billionaire list or financial metric you choose to look at e.g Forbes, FT - nearly all entrepreneurs started out in the city/country they were born in. Travel is obviously good to broaden your experiences in life, but it appears that starting your business in the place you're from is more often the best way to succeed.

andreash2• 15 years ago

what do you think is the reason for this?

My goals is not to become a billionaire, but to build something great, and have fun while doing it. I believe the chances for that are bigger in Silicon Valley than Norway. If I fail, I'll move back and enjoy the wealth and rain.

gahahaha• 15 years ago

Living in Norway has its benefits even for startups: (from HN a while back) "In Norway, Start-ups Say Ja to Socialism" http://www.inc.com/magazine/20110201/in-norway-start-ups-say...

But looking out at a foggy and dreary Oslo right now, I'd say the time to be adventurous is when you are 24. Time to go.

guruz• 15 years ago

I lived and worked in Oslo, Norway for the three last years. It was nice, but eventually got boring. And the dark winters were depressive.

Living in Berlin now, feels like a much more vivid city with a much more heterogenous society. Norway is very collectivistic.

Gatsky• 15 years ago

I agree, I think rumours of a Norwegian utopia are greatly exaggerated.

Is anyone really serious when they evince Scandanavia-envy?

lobo_tuerto• 15 years ago

For me it's the other way around. I grew up in Mexico, now working & living in Berlin, but I'd like to travel north and if possible stay for a time in Norway.

bborud• 15 years ago

The article leaves out the most important aspect of Norwegian society: the distribution of wealth is fairly even. The difference between the affluent and less affluent is fairly small.

mmagin• 15 years ago

On the subject of Norway, I can't resist recommending the brilliant dystopian sci-fi film The Bothersome Man. It complements that essay nicely.

Norway: an Eden with wifi

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