The verdict is in on UKs Margret Thatchers Thatcherism of 1980s (Reaganism same time over in USA) w.r.t. to a fabulous offshore oil wealth legacy squandered in comparison to more moderate Norway that has upheld social, sustainability + environmental values beyond just economics. Neo-Liberalism + Neo-Liberalistic Govts are disasters for most folk, sustainability, inter-generational legacies + environment. quote: Thirty-five years after she swept to power as British prime minister, it is ironic that socialist Norway now has $830 billion in the bank and enjoys fully funded social programs that most of us can only dream of. Meanwhile the U.K. is enduring another round of wrenching austerity and owes over £1.3 trillion -- about US$2.2 trillion. That massive debt grows by about $3.8 billion each week, while every seven days Norway adds another billion dollars to their bank account. Thatcherism has gone on to become an economic school of thought with true believers in positions of power around the world. The doctrine of cutting taxes, privatizing government assets and embracing deregulation continues apace around the globe to this day. But does it work? The 75 billion barrels of light sweet crude discovered in the North Sea was worth over $8 trillion at 2014 prices. With that much money on the table and the resource roughly evenly split between the U.K. and Norway, lets see how socialism and Thatcherism fared in this economic cage match. One of the first things the Norwegian government did was to incorporate a state owned oil company -- Statoil -- to ensure they had an equity stake in their own oil production and to act as a repository for oil expertise. Oil is also a good investment and the Norwegian taxpayer has enjoyed over $23 billion in Statoil dividends from their governments stake in the company since it was founded in 1972. The equity value of those shares is worth another $64 billion. Through a mechanism called the States Direct Financial Interest (SDFI), the taxpayer shares the development costs, risks and profits with oil companies -- essentially acting like a senior business partner. By actively participating in how their petroleum is developed, Norwegians brought in an additional $227 billion by 2011. Of course $830 billion is nothing to sneeze at. Setting up the oil fund was another example of Norwegians intentionally charting their future rather than letting the market have what it wanted and hoping for the best. Creating a separate pool for oil money and investing it outside Norway was specifically intended to avoid Dutch Disease -- the artificial inflation of currency at the expense of the manufacturing sector due to excess petro dollars. This was exactly what happened in the U.K. in the early 1980s. By creating a firewall between petroleum wealth and general revenue, they also ensured that governments would maintain fiscal discipline by only allowing four per cent of the oil fund to spent each year. That works out to about $33 billion per year -- again nothing to sneeze at given that investment returns on the principle are often double that. Their oil fund currently holds about one per cent of global equities. Lastly, the Norwegians wanted to consider intergenerational equity -- recognizing that it would be unfair for this windfall of resource wealth to only benefit citizens who happened to be alive today. So seriously did they consider the ethics of their vast petroleum prosperity that they hired a staff philosopher to ponder such weighty issues. Norway is currently ranked number one in the world on the Human Development Index, is the worlds best-governed nation according to the Democracy Index and the third best country in the world to be a mother. On those scores the U.K. ranks 27th, 16th and 23rd respectively, behind such nations as Slovenia, Malta and Italy. Thirty-five years later, Thatcherism is not merely a failure. It has become a well-funded construct of those very outside interests seeking to access public resources around the world at rock-bottom prices. And by that yardstick, it has been wildly successful. unquote And what weve seen here practiced in Canada by successive LibsCons & ConsLibs Govts has been Neo-Liberalism/Neo-Conservatism, we have little to show for our current generations nor future generations from all our Corporately dominated natural resources (including fossil fuels energy ones) extractions + exports but for Federal + Provincial yearly real terms deficits + debilitating long term accumulated debts. thetyee.ca/Opinion/2014/03/10/Thatcherism-Verdict/?utm_source=daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=100314
Posted on: Mon, 10 Mar 2014 22:44:43 +0000
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