zlacker

>>obscur+(OP)
It's seems totally reasonable to expect that Norwegians, who are still dumb apes like the rest of us, would be at high risk of suffering from "trust fund syndrome". Just like the countless families (and handful of countries) that totally burned through every dollar they didn't earn.

The author is basically pointing out that the country is now pretty much a country of trust fundies, and that usually that leads to higher levels of directionless meandering and lack of ambition. Scale it to country size and you would expect to see stuff like insane spending without much discretion, and a general careless approach to life.

Other countries have that. Other countries have lots of waste. But it's totally logical to assign Norway as high risk for "affluenza" and therefore monitor it's vitals with that idea in mind. It's not particularly hard for ~5 million people to blow $2 trillion in a few decades.

>>Workac+ra
> It's not particularly hard for ~5 million people to blow $2 trillion in a few decades.

That wealth will continue to grow (assuming wise investment), so the population can live on passive income, without touching the capital.

>>andsoi+xd
Passive income is a myth. To a first approximation, at that scale it doesn't really exist. Someone has to actively manage the investments.

And even with good management, the investment income is nowhere near enough to live on. Especially not in an expensive country like Norway.

>>nradov+ko
lol thats not the reason. you're basically correct that passive income doesnt exist at scale, but it isnt because of active management. it's because passive income is very literally getting money from other people's work. you need to have a lot of people still working to support passive income