To: koan who wrote (1062482 ) 3/26/2018 7:21:42 PM From: RetiredNow Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 1574265 Norway is not successful because they have socialism. They are successful because they have a huge amount of oil and are a tiny country. They have a $1 trillion sovereign wealth fund to manage an economy with 5 million people in it. In short, it's an accident of location that has made them wealthy and they have so few people that it is sustainable. They are not that different than Dubai. To whit:indexmundi.com The government manages the country’s petroleum resources through extensive regulation. The petroleum sector provides about 9% of jobs, 12% of GDP, 13% of the state’s revenue, and 37% of exports, according to official national estimates. Norway is one of the world's leading petroleum exporters, though oil production in 2016 was close to 50% below its peak in 2000; annual gas production, conversely, more than doubled over the same time period. After a continual decline from 2001 to 2013, oil production rose in 2016 for the third year running, due to the higher production of existing oil fields and to new fields coming on stream. In anticipation of eventual declines in oil and gas production, Norway saves state revenue from petroleum sector activities in the world's largest sovereign wealth fund, valued at almost $900 billion as of early 2017. To help balance the federal budget each year, the government follows a “fiscal rule,” which states that spending of revenues from petroleum and fund investments shall correspond to the expected real rate of return on the fund, an amount it estimates is sustainable over time. In February 2017, the government revised the expected rate of return for the fund downward from 4% to 3%.