Norway Files Lawsuit After Losing Lots of Kroner on Volkswagen

+10000

@dukeisduke It's a sovereign wealth fund, which invests the returns from the sale of Norway's oil reserves. It's run by professional money managers; you don't want elected representatives picking stocks.

Norgies don't have 100 million head o' hamster to feed.

....While another "legitimate functions of the Norweigan government" appears to be enriching lawyers who harass those who do something occasionally useful. Not much different from the US government, in other words.

Pissing away $$ has long been the provence of Republicans in fighting the wrong wars and letting Wall St./finance sector time and time again tank the economy with their malfeasance (the proponents of Reaganomics continually fail to take into account the human equation - greed).

You are not seeing the whole picture if you think it's just the Congress - top level monies are apportioned there, but once the funds hit the agencies managed (supposedly), by the Executive branch, there is zero Congressional oversight...

@TTCat "scarey" is mostly right. For the first six years of BO, there was no budget ever submitted and no budget approved. The Pres got his pen out and committed to spending and the Dem controlled Congress wrote the checks. No Constitution considered. He's also right in his implication that the Republican controlled Congress is run by "Omama Republicans." I'll wait while you look it up.

What's an "Obama Republican"? Is it just a Republican who is open to some give-and-take or perhaps even cooperation with the President, rather than opposing anything and everything he proposes as a matter of routine? Scandalous!

All those continuing resolutions were the product of Congress. You are correct that there is quite a bit of discretionary spending of allocated agency monies (whose allocations come from Congress), but, ultimately, spending authority comes from Congress.

@bunkie Congress? What a relic. Next you'll be telling me you have to be born in the actual borders of this nation to become President or not put classified information on a secret unsecured email server.

@bunkie Congress is a nearly pointless institution these days, since they refuse to exercise their Constitutionally mandated ability to act as a check and balance via the "power of the purse", and they defer to the Judiciary to basically legislate from the bench...

Sorry, we need these money to survive now that oil prices are dropping through the floor, also with the prices overe here we are hardly exporting anything, so we have to buy everything we need from other countries, since the thing only we do well is sell oil (and weapons) , when we are not busy fighting for peace and the environment offcourse.

@Zykotec Oil has shot back up to what is probably a reasonable range, Norway should probably consider exporting something else lest it befall the future of Saudi Arabia in a few short decades. I think $850 billion is quite a nice nest egg for 5.04 million, I wonder what the whole country is worth by itself.

@28-Cars-Later I think it will be a while before Americans get to lecture Norwegians on how to run an economy.

@VoGo A one commodity economy is nothing to be proud of, the UAE understands this hence Dubai. Even as fake as the US economy has become, it is a multifaceted farce.

@VoGo Don't forget Jarlsberg cheese! So really, a two-commodity economy. Is that diversified enough?

@28-Cars-Later We did (and still partly do) export a lot of other stuff, but pumping oil out of the bottom of the sea was just so much easier... Since Norway is mostly just a mountain ridge protecting Sweden and Finland from the Atlantic ocean we have some knowhow on boats, but because we could afford to outsource all the hard work for so long we really really wish for the oil prices to go back up where they were...

@VoGo Honestly, managing 5 million people just has to be a lot easier than managing 300 million.

@28-Cars-Later The Tine coop exports everything from cheese to smoked salmon. There's a lot of tourism, too. If I had to set up in Europe I'd prefer Norway to the UK and Ireland because everyone speaks better English and drives on the right side of the road. The 50 MPH national speed limit, on the other hand...

Phrasing!

@darkwing ...and just about right.