Quote Originally Posted by Alex_krsk View Post
But look at norway btw. What do they produce besides pumping oil and gas? Not that much.
As their neighbour and speaking the language, more or less... In addition to oil, they have
1) Fish, fish and more fish....
2) Svalbard and a slice of the Arctic and whatever is hidden there...
3) Ports to the Atlantic that Sweden and Finland use as well - it's a source of income.
4) A little bit of ship building - but it's cheaper to do it in Asia, so I don't know if it's still active.

The state there is HUGE and apparently very bureacratic in an old fashioned way. They never had to/needed to or wanted to slim down the state - so everything is very bureaeucratic.

They have managed the oil money quite well, paying back all debts and investing in public services.

The state, mainly, owns the oil, similar to in Russia, I think... But lots of private companies are involved in serving Statoil, that's what some people got rich on there.

They know they have to get ready for when the oil runs out and have lots of projects preparing for it.
Same dilemma as Russia I think. They know they need to diversify but it's not easy. .

Before they found the oil they were a well managed social democratic, and quite christian country. However, historically (pre-1950s or so, Norway was always poor, but people are hardworking and honest. They had a big transformation of society recently though. Same thing as the rest of Western Europe; issues with immigration and drastic rise in criminality.

But the most important thing that Norway doesn't own their oil and gas, they just collect tax from BP.
Norway had exchanged their sovereignty for garanteed piece of their oil pie.
Really? Are you sure about that? I thought that Statoil (state owned Norwegian official oil company). owned the Norwegian oil and BP or anyone else bought off them. In Scandianvia you see their oil tankers and petrol stations everywhere. I think it sells gas as well.