Last Straw

Landon Thomas Jr. in the New York Times:

Nor­way is … a major oil exporter [and] Even though prices have sharply declined, the gov­ern­ment is not par­tic­u­larly wor­ried. That is because Nor­way avoided the usual trap that plagues many energy-rich countries.

Instead of spend­ing its riches lav­ishly, it passed legis­la­tion ensur­ing that oil rev­enue went straight into its sov­er­eign wealth fund, state money that is used to make invest­ments around the world. Now its sov­er­eign wealth fund is close to being the largest in the world …

Norway’s rel­at­ive frugal­ity stands in stark con­trast to Bri­tain, which spent most of its North Sea oil rev­enue — and more — dur­ing the boom years. Gov­ern­ment spend­ing rose to 47 per­cent of G.D.P., from 42 per­cent in 2003. By com­par­ison, pub­lic spend­ing in Nor­way fell to 40 per­cent from 48 per­cent of G.D.P.

“The U.S. and the U.K. have no sense of guilt,” said Anders Aslund, an expert on Scand­inavia at the Peterson Insti­tute for Inter­na­tional Eco­nom­ics in Washington.

Eirik Wekre, an eco­nom­ist … describes Nor­we­gi­ans’ feel­ings about debt this way: “We can­not spend this money now; it would be steal­ing from future generations.”