Did the Perfect Economy Just Get Better?

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As a Norwegian.. i didn't even know we hit the natural resource jackpot again 😅

I'm Norwegian and I'm afraid you got the premise of your story completely wrong here. A journalist from The Economist massively exaggerated the find. It's correct that they found 70 billion tons of phosphate-rich rock (in the west of Norway, not the north) but according to Norway Mining, the company that owns the rights to the find, only around ~2 billion tons will be profitable to mine. There's also no knowing exactly how much pure phosphate will come out of it until they start digging. It's still a huge find, and advances in technology could make it profitable to extract more material in the future, but the numbers being thrown around in international media is way, way off. This is not the new oil.

As a Norwegian, i find it weird that i've never heard about the discovery of "Phosphate". Never seen it in our news, online etc. this is the first time ive heard about it... well that's good and maybe bad who knows

As a norwegian this is very interesting, more people struggle financially here and the prices are rising alottt so i really hope this will help these people

Small correction, a lot of the hydroelectric power plants was built before the oil, as this was something that drove the early industrialisation of Norway.

I'm norwegian, and I haven't even heard of this phosphate discovery.

I think you already said it, perhaps indirectly: Norwegians can check what eachother’s salary (and tax payments) every year. They log into a website and can literally check any person’s taxable income. In this way, Norwegians have full control over Norways tax income.

As a norwegian it was incrediably interesting to learn about our economy! In school, we learn the basics: fishing used to be the biggest income, found oil in the 60s, we have a national bank etc. However, this video is filled with details about the story I was absolutely clueless about. Including the recent discovery of phosphate! The dots have started to connect now. This was fun, thank you!😄

Morroco's strategic importance just took the biggest hit in history.

As a norwegian, i cam attest you did good on the pronunciation of Pensjonsfond. Now the Norwegian Hydro eletric was not developed because of the oil industry, it was developed because of the Nitrate industry, as Norway was the leading producer and inventor of Artifical Fertilizer that is now used everywhere in the world in the early 1900's. But in order to produce this, high amount of energy was in demand and Norway being a natural hotspot for ideal Hydroeletric locations started developing this, which in turn help spreading the industry which also included ship building, which was a major industry for Norway back in the pre-oil days, and its legacy still remains today as Norway is one of the biggest shipping nations in the world and even more influential, most of the Global Shipping insurance companies are owned by Norway. Which gives them a massive influence in world shipping. And then oil. And now potentially phosphate in due time. Another interesting thing with the oil-fund is that Norway is currently experiencing record high inflation rates, however as our currency drops in value, our pension fund reaches record high values due to exhangerate but also due to more income from all its exports. So while yes, I am partly suffering from constant interest rate increase, at least I know the country won't turn into a 3rd world country within my lifetime at least.

Obligatory: As a Norwegian. It's really weird hearing how much the economy as a whole on a macro scale is considered to be in great shape. While the cost of living crisis ravages most young people I know. Especially if you run into any health issues before you start working properly. The good sides are that you will get healthcare and at least money to survive on. However you will never savings like that.

18:05 The Norwegian Industrial Revolution was kickstarted by hydroelectric power in the 1800, because of how cheap the power was. And we used them long before we discovered oil, and we kept the hydro plants because it's cheap and clean.

Hi. Australian surgeon working in Norway here. Can attest to the dissatisfaction at the relative flat incomes. That in addition to the extreme work hours is causing a huge shortage of medical professionals. There may be no brain drain, but there is an internal brain redistribution to careers with better work/life balance for the same money.

as a Norwegian this flattering perspective of our economy seems foreign to me

Watching videos like this always reminds me how insanely fortunate I am to be born in Norway, it’s a great reminder to be more grateful for the life I’ve been given.

Loved the video! And really excited about the geopolitics collab planned for the future.

I don't think it's correct that the Phosphate deposit is readiliy available. From what I remember reading in the local news, it's very deep and the experts being interviewed said it might even be too deep to worry about. Now, I don't know if that's true, and it does give off a vibe of someone being overly sceptical, but at least it shows that nothing is obvious regarding this deposit. BTW, the deposit is in the South, not in the North. I would also like to confront the impression the video left regarding hydropower. Norway predominantly uses hydropower for electricity, not because we wanted to foreswear fossil fuels to make electricty, but because we have very plentiful water running down towards the sea in landscape with many steep slopes. The big build-out of hydro was around a century ago, long before oil and gas were discovered.

Do Denmark next! The explosive growth of Novo Nordisk is almost like the discovery of phosphates, and it now has a higher market cap than the GDP of Denmark. However Novo also still pays some of the highest corporate taxes in the world, and refuse to use loopholes to pay less, which seems to counter all economic principles. Could be an interesting topic to explore.

As a Norwegian i can tell you that it's pretty frecking cold here.