Comments on: Paging Norwegians and Eurosceptics

By: Jarndyce

Jarndyce — Wed, 02 Mar 2005 03:29:00 +0000

Yes, I drifted OT but my point really was that Norway have something like 150 bn squid invested for whan the oil runs out, whereas we have a flighty oil multinational or two who when the time suits them will sod off and take their profits with them. Which country was wiser?

I'd be wary of any comparison at all between us and Norway, either way. It's like saying Iceland should get itself a foreign policy like the US's. Nonsense, that is, chalk and cheese and related cliches.

By: john b

john b — Tue, 01 Mar 2005 19:07:00 +0000

BP’s record profits have recently mostly come from exploiting the Yanks while Shell’s have mostly come from exploiting the Africans (equally, Thazza sold off BP and its North Sea reserves in the 1980s for a reasonably fair price, to fund her amusing but expensive policy of keeping everyone in the North unemployed…)

Mr Stephens’s point was, I think, focused on those Norwegian businesses that aren’t directly involved in oil exploration. Certainly, the Eurosceptics’ stats do tend to ignore this particular fact when comparing Norway to The Rest Of Europe, which is why I ignore them.

By: Jarndyce

Jarndyce — Tue, 01 Mar 2005 13:31:00 +0000

State-owned and controlled too, with the money properly invested not pissed away in BP/Shell record profits to shareholders like ours.

By: Matthew Turner

Matthew Turner — Tue, 01 Mar 2005 08:30:00 +0000

Surely any discussion of Norway’s economy has to start with the fact that it produces more than half a barrel of oil per citizen per day.