The Rescue That Really Worked (how Norway survived the economic meltdown)

[Rosa Luxemburg]

Source: Newsweek

Norway was the only Western industrialized state to escape the global economic meltdown relatively unscathed. It boasts a healthy banking sector, record-low unemployment, and one of the hottest sovereign wealth funds around. Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg sat down with NEWSWEEK's Jerry Guo in Oslo last week to talk about lessons learned from the crisis.
uring the height of financial meltdown in 2008, Norway actually grew by 2.2 percent. What was Norway's secret?
Our GDP did fall during 2009. But it started to grow again at the end of 2009. The important thing is we have managed to keep unemployment down, the lowest unemployment in Europe. It's now at 3.3 percent which is not much higher than before. The reason is we conducted a classical countercyclical policy when the financial crisis hit Norway. We increased demand by reducing the interest rate from 5.75 percent to 1.25 percent and we increased demand by expanding the fiscal stimulus.


Read more: http://www.newsweek.com/id/236807

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Hopefully Norway can show us the way?

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

1. Should we base our govt. on 5M people?

We have 60 times as many people.

:shrug:

[Stumbler]

6. Sure, their population is smaller, but what's discussed can work regardless of population size

1st - Norway supports labor unions; we don't
2nd - Their banks aren't casinos because of effective regulations. Our regs are riddled w/ loopholes
3rd - While their taxes are higher than ours, the bottom 95% of their citizenry saves money by not paying for the profit-motives on health-care, higher education, prisons, etc as we in the U.S. do.

In other words, our gov't provides 'socialist' benefits for the top 5% and 'capitalistic' competition for the bottom 95%. In Norway it's the other way around - as it should be.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

26. It is most important to have strong labor unions

After all it should be the workers that increase output and jobs. Sick of the cheap corporations which go overseas for slave labor.

We need to manufacture and sell! We need out people to buy our (American stuff!!)

Perhaps we can have a campaign to BUY AMERICAN! People could puchase tote bags for shopping that "I'm buying American - I'm supporting jobs."

[Stumbler]

31. That's not gonna happen til we get corporate money outta D.C

And sadly, thanks to the 'revolving door' that allows former politicians to become lobbyists who then spread corporate money around to influence sitting representatives we have little hope of seeing any real change soon. Our only hope would be for Congress & Senate to agree to pass a bill banning corporate money for both gifts and campaigns, but w/ the current SCOTUS that'd get overturned in no time as "unconstitutional." So long as they view corporations as people our jobs will continue to be outsourced and the disparity between CEO pay and base pay continue to expand... At least until our empire truly does implode.

[JDPriestly]

8. We adopted our Constitution when the population of our country was

around 2 million.

. . . the 1790 Census would count a total population of 3.0 million with a free population of 2.4 million and 600,000 slaves in those states casting electoral votes in election.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1788%E2%80%931789

We have changed our Constitution some, but we still claim to apply the same economic rules that we used then.

Of course, a lot of other things have changed. We now use telephones and computers and fly around the world, etc.

But don't we all agree that our economy really should function according to the rules we used in 1789?

Isn't that sacrosanct?

[Alcibiades]

19. You would not keep a car for that long

We have the oldest Constitution in the world. While we can all be proud of this, there have been notable advancements in constitutional theory since that time.

Did you forget the :sarcasm: thingy?

[JDPriestly]

24. Just tryin' to fool people

Yes, I was being a tad sarcastic. Much as I love the Constitution, the world has changed. And the way we understand our Constitution has too. Private property was a different concept in a frontier society in which land was plentiful.

[Alcibiades]

32. At least we have the third amendment

"No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law."

The founders didn't even trust the military to be good guests in people's homes, but we're supposed to believe they would have entrusted them with the power to end all life on earth. It protects us in ways that are no longer relevant, but fails to do so in ways that matter today.

[kristopher]

2. Look at Norway and petroleum for the answer...

[Kingofalldems]

3. Freepers would call that communism and 'facism'.

[earth mom]

4. The secret is that Norway's leaders actually give a damn about their people.

Obama & Congress only give a damn about the almighty dollar. :puke:

[Rosa Luxemburg]

15. There is a corporate stranglehold on the US

[truedelphi]

18. Oh yes, a total stranglehold. Sadly your words are true.

Someone here had a cartoon the other day of how structured it is - the Big Firms on Wall Street over the Banks and then at the very bottom of like eighteen levels of officialdom, you get "our" President and "our" Congress.

The truth of the matter is that Greenspan, Paulson, Bernanke, Geithner have had far more power over the shaping of the Average American's reality than Bush or Obama put together. Of course, Bush and Obama are needed as "salespeople" or "mouth pieces" but they really have very little to do with this, other than standing out of the way of the Big Players.

And should they ever decide they need to stand in the way of the Big Power Brokers, they will be conveniently sent to the current day "Dallas" where an "Oswald" will take them out.

[Blue_Tires]

17. +1

[truedelphi]

5. Some little known things about Norway -

They have used microwave based phone technology since the mid seventies.

They have little or no chlorine or fluoride in their drinking water system. Live there sixty days and your skin will start to glow, without use of expensive face jams or jellies.

In the seventies, the Norwegian government sent any household raising a sheep a welfare check, in order to promote meat as a food (The diet at that time was heavily fish.)

Should you be convicted of a crime, you will go to jail, but you may be let out for the weekends so you can spend time with your family. Until recently, even the most serious criminals were allowed to tell the judge when it would be "convenient" for them to show up to serve their sentence. (This may have changed in last 18 months. For whatever reason, people were finding it "convenient" to not ever show up for their jail time.)

[Rosa Luxemburg]

12. It would be a great place to live

I stayed with some people in Oslo some years ago and they did not have a car. They used the tram system. Food was expensive relative to the US but seemsed to be of a good quality - fresh.

[salguine]

7. 'Cause in Norway, banks and corporations exist to serve the country and the people, not

the other way around.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

9. yes

[maxsolomon]

10. LBN?

more like GD

[Rosa Luxemburg]

13. I know

I was going to but it's kind of new.

[h9socialist]

11. Sounds like socialism to me!

[Rosa Luxemburg]

14. sounds normal to me

[high density]

16. 25% return was "astounding" for 2009?

Uhh, I did something like 40% last year doing nothing but owning some Vanguard index funds.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

21. ??

[Iowa]

22. I noticed that too...

The 2009 return on the Total Stock Market (US) Index Fund was 28.70%. Total International was 36.73%. Emerging Markets was 75.98%.

[Doremus]

20. Proof of what can be ....

Here's what it looks like when the banks ARENT'T in charge and government institutes responsible policies:


"We have the most transparent and most predictable investment fund in the world. The reason we have this sovereign fund is we have saved most of the oil revenues rather than spend them on tax cuts. Our value-added tax is 25 percent and gasoline price is $8 per gallon. The whole idea is to replace our national wealth from oil and gas in the ground to equity and bonds in the international market."

[LongTomH]

23. Norwegians also outlive us!

80.2 years life expectancy at birth vs 78.2 years in the US. That puts them at 14th on the UN list vs 38th for the US.

OK, you RW trolls! Let's hear your talking points on the superiority of the US system vs Europe now!

[Rosa Luxemburg]

25. do they have good preventative medicine?

[bemildred]

27. If you stay away from the casino, you don't lose your shirt. nt

[Rosa Luxemburg]

28. Norwegian onlline casinos are billion Euros, baby!

google

[bemildred]

30. Owners and customers are not the same thing.

Just saying. You want to own a casino or gamble in it? You want to own Goldman or buy their CDOs?

[Yo_Mama]

29. Norway has a lot of natural resources

Its economy is very mixed, with a lot of reliance on oil production and gas as well as ag and fisheries.

Bottom line, they did well just like other countries with the same profile did.

In 2008, 33.5% of government revenues came from petroleum.
http://www.npd.no/en/Publications/Facts/Facts-2009/

If the US were to expand petroleum generation, our economy would do much better also. It is worth looking at how Norway uses that revenue to shore up the pension fund and so forth.

It is a well-run country with very low corruption, but so are many of their neighbors. The dominant factor in their current relative prosperity is really oil and NG. The Norwegian banks had a lot of bad investments!