Why?? Because they’ve gotten it right. Despite the collapse of the world’s economy they haven’t been hurt very much at all.

Despite being a high tax country they live within their means and unlike Britain and most other countries when they came across a windfall (see: North Sea Oil Profits) instead of spending it like drunken sailors they saved all the money into a Sovereign Wealth Fund.

They have no National Debt.

Now they have $300 Billion Dollars that they’ve been able to put to work earning more money and may someday reach a point where the income from the fund could pay the entire operating cost of their government… maybe even reach a point where they could stop collecting taxes from their citizens.

To give you an idea of the size of the fund Norway has 4.6 million people… divide that into the $300 Billion and you get over $62,000 per citizen.

For the US to have an equivalent fund with our 300 million citizens it would have to be almost 19 Trillion Dollars.

And you know the worst thing… we probably would have it if our politicians hadn’t looted all the different trust funds that have been set up over the years (Highways, Social Security, Medicare) leaving IOU’s for our children to pay.

I’m so fed up with them that at this point I’d be willing to turn everything over to the Norwegians and let them straighten it out.

Photo credit: stock.xchng.