I’ve never worked so hard and been paid so little. Norwegians have chosen a more equitable model of income distribution in their society. In addition the food is of a much lower standard than say the uk! Norwegian pay check? Pulling everyone up rather than pushing some down, improves life from everyone. Norwegians go on shopping sprees in the USA not because of exchange rates but because the products are taxed much less which makes them seem cheap. A Whopper will set you back a whopping $10. On a recent visit to Norway, two friends from the University of Oslo on my first evening in Oslo took me out for a beer to talk about my visit–as in one beer each. The pie doesn’t always get bigger, and even if it does, there’s no guarantee that the top tier of elites don’t start taking even more. What if, because Ed is now so good at catching fish, he bribes the head honcho of the community to give him special favors, or to make it harder for Jay to get his own fish his own way? Hence productivity is tied to wealth. what if Jay is disabled or sick, or has a sick family member? The market wage is the market wage even if the government adds laws to make the market wage more expensive. California is around the same size as Vietnam. 57% more than Norway Highest point: Galdhøpiggen: Mount McKinley: Irrigated land > Per capita: 0.278 sq km per 1,000 people Ranked 70th. not every one has the power to direct their own life for so many reasons including race, class, inflation, influence, debt …. The big fast food franchises of America will spend hundreds of millions of dollars to lobby against a liveable minimum wage. In fact average Norwegian can not afford to go out to restaurants, pay somebody to paint his house or have a haircut to the hairdresser. Great article. Most surprisingly, gasoline is expensive, too. Pingback: Norwegian Travel destiantions, art and culture. What is this false assumption that richer people are more productive? For other liquors, you have special stores. They would never beat someone up, and if they did, they would be stopped by some bypassers, and they’d immediately go to jail. Lake Victoria is 2.5X as big as Crimea. I’d love to list up terrible people with an UK ethnicity, however I’m not that childish, and the fact that the UK has 60% higher crime rates than Norway speaks for itself. Lake Victoria is 2.5X as big as Crimea. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Agree 100%, I am visiting Norway now and do not plan to come back. Dollar value menu, or die. Asia will make sure of that. At that point it would be wrong to demand that Ed give Jay any of his spear-fished fish. By the way, unemployment in Norway is not only lower than the United States, but the labor force participation rate is about 8% higher. As were restaurant food, train rides, hotel rooms, and books. You may call that income redistribution. your analogy is far too oversimplified. Central Park is 3x bigger than Vatican City. Good luck, girl-man. Amazon rainforest is half the size of Sahara desert. Why do you think crime is not linked with supplying basic needs? The man who produces while others dispose of his product, is a slave. One day the cost of each rises to a $1.50 for each because of living wages. Required fields are marked *. Bananas in UK 70p/kg in Norway 300p/kg. This has nothing to do with markets and everything to do with politics. How about that and the great social system? I did not understand a word that you’re saying bro. Then the tax load will be too great and the social problems will resurface. The tab for the three beers: $57. slightly less than twice the size of Texas: Nigeria: slightly more than twice the size of California: Niue: 1.5 times the size of Washington, DC: Norfolk Island: about 0.2 times the size of Washington, DC: North Korea: slightly smaller than Mississippi: Northern Mariana Islands: 2.5 times the size of Washington, DC: Norway: slightly larger than New Mexico: Oman View of the Aurlandsfjord from the town of Flåm. I am concerned when people think that socialism works in Norway or Sweden when in fact it does not. 1. . Anymore misconceptions of Norway you’d like me to debunk? It’s a silent agony only what works well is spying on each other and grassing up each other. You have the odd situation of a Norwegian having half the standard of living of an American which is almost exactly the situation. United States is about 30 times bigger than Norway.. Norway is approximately 323,802 sq km, while United States is approximately 9,833,517 sq km, making United States 2,937% larger than Norway. Norway’s style of taxation will work till a certain size limit is reached. At the same time, it has supported a notion of a livable wage that is deeply anchored in Norwegian society. How does that undermine a middle class citizen? Come and take mine, if you dare. Yes, in Norway you can earn twice as much, especially if you are unskilled. They were his property. There is only one law of economics. All well and good, but most folks in these countries who want to be like Americans, can easily move to America. I am yet to see that the extra 50-60% I paid extra here is justified by a product which is 50-60% superior to the one offered by any other country in Europe, for example. Also, also, there are only a handful of capitalist here who own a majority of the commercial real-estate here making it high prices necessary to pay the monopolized rent. Not surprisingly, the most expensive hamburgers in the world are sold in Norway where in July 2013 they cost 64.7% more than in the US. You can decide that they are all expensive and not buy any of them. If a Norwegian fisherman catches 10 fish, he is richer then an American fisherman who catches 8. Beer is very expensive because it is heavily taxed, as are all alcoholic beverages, as part of a strategy to curb alcoholism. No one should be poor, I agree. A waste of time and money. Yes poor people are richer but only because the rich and middle class are poorer. There is Medicaid for those that can’t afford health care and food stamps for 55 million people who need it! etc etc. Norway is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe that has a landmass of 148,728 square miles (385,203 square kilometers), which ranks 62 nd in the world in terms of sheer size. Thank you for a great article! Deciding on the role of government in society is political. What if Ed goes around getting all the spear-making components and hoards them and either makes people work for him at a low rate or sells the components for an exorbitant rate? So if you will visit Norway as a tourist any time soon, you will surely complain about the exorbitant prices. I love your colleague’s response that if you have a Norwegian paycheck [prices are] not a problem. How this could be ethical or fair towards tourists? And it also subsidizes alternatives to fossil fuels, like this recharge station for electric_cars in central Oslo. Referring to Living wage: In a free market you get paid for value, not need. I noticed that they mostly sell beer individually, not per six-pack. Norway is the only oil-producing country with high gas prices. Spoiler alert: Texas is pretty big. But to say Norwegian can’t afford anything is ridiculous, there’s a high quality of life. I feel instinctively that there would be very little need for criminal activity with basic needs met. The price to pay is higher taxation, particularly in higher income brackets. Tourism is intended to benefit the local industry: but this is extorsion. He doesn’t gobble down an already-baked pie — he produces. 24 Hours in Oslo | Trishna's Travel Adventures, Norwegian Travel destiantions, art and culture, How a Displaced Sense of Humiliation Drives Trump’s Iran Policy, The Thirty Years’ War as Foil for the War in Syria, What the Belalcázar Monument in Popayán Teaches Us About Confederate Monuments, Switzerland: Pioneer of Right-Wing Populism. You are a lunatic pal! 4. If you've ever driven from a Northern Texas city like Dallas down to the Mexico border, you can appreciate just how big Texas is. I’ll have to remember that! It is rather 0.8X to 0.3X of US salaries. I think you meant “Dollar value menu AND die.”. How could those bananas stay cheap in UK and became mega expensive in Norway is a mistery for me. In my book, that is a good thing. If you want more distribution of wealth you must take it from whose who hoard it. Look at LA, taking the trams / trains 50-60 years ago and now putting them back up, sorry but we are 50-60 years behind. we have seen? But make no mistake, a nation can not go on forever with a ever increasing welfare state and government. I cannot argue with the basic fact that goods and services are taxed at a higher rate in Norway than in the US, for instance. I’d love to properly educate you, because that’s clearly something you haven’t had enough of.