ECB staff to strike over pensions

.. according to FT.

C’mon! Can never figure out the Europeans.

http://icecurtain.blogspot.com/

Norway: Another Socialist Welfare Monarchy, and More

Norway, symbolized by the cute lion with the ax, is yet another low-Gini, Nordic socialist monarchy, like Denmark.

King Harald V and his Council of State taxes 40% of GDP and takes care of his people’s healthcare and pension through the National Insurance Scheme mandate and provide almost free educations.

Even better, there’s oil backyard – life is never fair.

Instead of squandering the oil revenues, the Norwegian politicians decided to save all the money for rainy days in the Government Pension Fund, managed by Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM), which is under but independent from Norges Bank (the central bank) and the account is somehow consolidated into and reported in the Norges Bank’s balance sheet.

The asset value today has reached NOK 2,300 billion, or around US$ 400 billion, or around 100% of Norway’s GDP. In comparison, the U.S. Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds are …

There’s a glitch, though. Once proudly claiming to owning 0.77% of global equity market – yes, they allocated 50% up into stock markets – the fund was struck hard recently (see chart below, or the report).

Here’s the story: when you have a fund, you invest it in the market; when your fund is big enough (like a sovereign wealth fund), it becomes a market. In this case, national currency is involved (see chart below). A funny, mind-bogging story.

See it as wealth, or a problem. If it’s a problem, China’s got a bigger one. China evidently is stockpiling into commodities – gold, oil, copper, zinc, etc. No fancy-pants derivative-based hedging, just go and buy up things.

 

P.S., the Norwegian must be some quite different species. Rich in oil, no Resource Curse, no Dutch Disease.