[Host]: Welcome to this celebration of the oil fund's 30 years. And when someone has a birthday, it's natural to sing a birthday song. We'll skip that. We'll give a round of applause for the Oil Fund. 30 years.

If the oil fund had been a woman, she would have liked horses, that's my claim. And that's based on the oil fund appearing in 1996. Hence the 30-year anniversary. And another person with a lot of money, not as much as the oil fund, but a lot of money. Born in '96. Alexander Andresen. Very fond of horses. Uh, the world's richest '96er. The world's richest '95er, Katarina Andresen, also fond of horses. And the world's richest '94er. Anyone want to guess? Justin Bieber. So he's very fond of music. The oil fund would probably also have liked music, but let's not uh... anthropomorphize the oil fund too much because it's actually quite serious stuff. And we're now going to learn more about the Oil Fund. You probably understand that I don't know much about it, uh, from the way I talk about it. So then we'll hear from someone who really understands the oil fund so well, actually. I think he would almost call himself a – these are my words – a kind of founder of the Oil Fund. We got him. He nods.

[Jens Stoltenberg]: No, I don't.

[Host]: No. Ok. He doesn't. He denies it. Please welcome to talk about the oil fund, Jens Stoltenberg.

[Jens Stoltenberg]: Thank you very much, dear everyone. Uh, it's incredibly nice to be here, and let me start with the most important thing. Happy birthday, because this is the celebration of the oil fund, also called the pension fund's 30-year anniversary. Uh, and it's nice to be here together with lots of students from upper secondary schools. I've greeted some from Tor Heierdal upper secondary school. That was there, and Ullern. And there are certainly many more. Uh, together with teachers from the same schools. Uh, and uh, not least, colleagues, employees, people who work uh in the pension fund or the oil fund uh who do a tremendous job for Norway every single day. Uh so so it's nice to be here and see all of you together. Uh I am very happy to be here today. So, I usually say that almost regardless uh of where I am giving a speech. Uh but it's a bit extra true. Partly because we are celebrating a birthday. Uh, but partly because what I'm going to talk about now, uh, is the pension fund, the so-called oil fund, uh which is one of the most important things that has happened to Norway in the last 30 years. Uh, it's not just one of the most important things that has happened to Norway in the last 30 years. It's also one of the most important things you are going to take care of when the rest of us slowly fade out. Uh, and you will get responsibility in Norway in various ways. uh uh to take responsibility for uh for that fund. Either as politicians or as economists or as lawyers uh maybe working with the fund uh or just as uh citizens in Norway who vote for parties that will look after this fund also in uh in the future. So uhh therefore I am, yes, extra happy to be here uh today.

uh because we are talking about something important. So, I'm also happy to be here because I am in the somewhat strange situation that while most people move forward in life uh and sort of move up in the systems and become more important things with age, I have started the opposite. I am going backwards in life. Uh I was finance minister in Norway 30 years ago. And now I am finance minister again. Uh and I have said many times before that before I was finance minister, I was industry, or it was called energy and environment, no, what is it called? It's called oil and energy minister. Uh, so I, in a few years, plan to become that. Uh, and before that I was leader of the Labour Party. So the day I stand as Labour Party leader again, someone must say that enough is enough. Uh, now I have to stop going backwards in life. But the advantage of being back in the job I had 30 years ago is that uh I remember 1996 well. uh it was the year I became finance minister, but on May 30, 1996, when we made the first deposit uh into the pension fund, I hadn't become finance minister yet. Then it was someone called Sigbjørn Johnsen uh whom I knew very well. He came into the government conference. There sat Gro Harlem Brundtland who was prime minister, all of us others. And he was very proud. And he took out a piece of paper, sort of like this, and showed it. Uh and on it it said: Deposit, Norges Bank, from the Ministry. Uh uh uh 1 billion 981 million kroner. That was the first deposit uh ever uh into the pension fund. So just under 2 billion. Uh uh that fund which then was just an account uh a savings account in Norges Bank that the Ministry of Finance put money into. That fund today is over 21,000 billion kroner. And none of us could imagine that it would go from 2 to over 21,000 billion. Uh and it's difficult to grasp how much over 21,000 billion is, but but it's almost 4 million kroner per Norwegian. Uh uh that is if you use 1 million kroner per day, so you take 1 million kroner per day, then it takes over 57,000 years to use up 21,000 billion kroner. So it's a billion, right? You know this because you are so smart. 1 billion is not a big million. It's a thousand million, and when you have 21,000 of those, it's a lot of money.

Uh so uh so it's a fantastic story. Uh and uh uh it's a story that of course is linked to the fact that uh we, you could say, were lucky in Norway, that we are blessed in Norway to have found oil on the Norwegian continental shelf, right? Uh we have the continental shelf outside our borders out in the North Sea and the Norwegian Sea and the Barents Sea. Uh and there we found oil on Christmas Eve 1969, and out in the 70s we started to get uh oil revenues. You could say that is luck, that there is oil on our continental shelf.

Uh, so we are lucky. But the fact that we have managed to manage those revenues that the oil and the gas give us, uh, that is not luck. That is good and wise decisions by Norwegian civil servants, bureaucrats, experts, everyone who works in Norges Bank, in the pension fund, and Norwegian politicians. And we must be allowed to say that this is the result of choices uh that mean that we uh uh many countries have had large revenues from oil and gas. Many countries have had large revenues from natural resources. For most of those countries, it has actually gone badly. Uh uh it's been like a short-term high. It went very well for a short period, and then they spent too much money. And then the rest of the economy went badly. And when the oil deposits started to decline, they had nothing else to live on. And then their country went badly. It's called the oil curse, the curse of oil. Uh, for most countries, oil and gas have been more of a curse than a uh blessing. That it has gone better in Norway is due to choices. And uh it's not least three important choices that I will now talk about, which have meant that we have managed the opportunities better than almost all other countries.

The one, if you are going to create a fund, well, this is the figure showing the fund. And in 1996 we had the first deposit in May. Ehm uh uh now we are over 21,000 billion. And it shows various milestones. I'll say a bit about them in a moment.

If you are going to create a fund, you have to make three decisions.

One is how much money are you going to put into the fund? That's obvious. How much are you going to save. The second is how much are you going to take out of that fund, and the third is where are you going to place the money? If you can't answer that, you don't have a fund.

The first decision, how much we put in, there Norway decided in law that all the oil money, all the state's revenues from oil and gas, that is what we tax the oil companies with, what we have direct ownership in through Equinor and the state owns directly, not half, not two thirds, but 100% goes into the fund, straight in.

And it's important to remember that it's not just that we said all oil revenues should go into the fund, but we also said we should tax the companies highly. And I won't have a long tax debate, I'll just say I remember we introduced 78% tax on them. The oil companies were not in a good mood, to put it that way. They thought it was far too high. They said they wouldn't invest, but they have invested and they have paid their tax. Uh uh and and it has gone surprisingly well.

We have something called special tax or resource rent tax on oil. So the fact that we ensured the state would have good revenues uh uh high tax, means that what we put in is a lot. It's 100% of a large sum.

That's the one decision. The second decision we have to make is how much are we going to take out? And that was the decision we made in... Now I don't have anything to point with, but I can point here. That was the one we made in 2001. And I remember it very well, because then I had become prime minister. I had advanced upwards in life, as I said I'm on my way down again. Uh so uh uh and then we created something called the fiscal rule. And the fiscal rule basically says uh how much money you can take out. And what it says is that you should save all the money. The only thing you can take out is the return. What we call the real return. The expected real return.

Uh, so it's like putting a lot of money in the bank and then only taking out the interest. That's the fiscal rule. Simply put.

And the third political decision we made, and we made it, it was actually the first decision I made as finance minister regarding this fund. That was that first we thought we would just keep all the money in Norges Bank, safe but with low interest. But then we decided in '97 to take the chance and place money in stocks. Then we only put 40% in stocks. The rest was in bonds or fixed income. Uh uh and we increased it to 60% in 2007. Uh, that is the most profitable decision Norway has ever taken.

So the three decisions: save all the money. Tax the oil companies highly and save all the money. Uh, two, uh, only take out the real return, and three, invest in stocks. That is what, together with all the skilled employees who have made this a reality, has brought us to 21,000 billion.

Uh, and then I'll say one more thing so everyone gets it. When we made the decision on high tax on the oil companies, there was opposition. When we made the decision uh to uh uh invest in stocks, there was opposition. And when we decided on the fiscal rule, there was also opposition. So this has been debated all along, but now it works so well that everyone thinks it's a great idea.

Uh, so it is that uh I will try to explain how we have used, or how this money is managed. Uh here you see me if I stand over here. Yes. Yes. Uh that is our oil revenues. That is what we have received in taxes, fees, dividends from Equinor. Uh, what we have earned from oil is 9,600 billion kroner. That's a lot of money.

Then Nikolai and his people and the people who work here, they have placed that money in stocks and bonds. It is so well placed that the increase in value on those stocks and bonds is 13,500 billion. So what we call the oil fund is more of a stock fund. We have earned more money on stocks than on oil.

So now you can choose whether to become an oil engineer or a stockbroker. Both are good. Yes. So so uh and then we have the exchange rate. It's a bit complicated, but it's that when we place the money in dollars and then the krone exchange rate goes down, then it becomes worth more in kroner. That you can ask your teachers about how it works, but you can earn from it. But it could easily turn the other way if the krone strengthens. But regardless, we have earned better money. We have used 4,000 billion that we have taken out, right? Because we take out surplus or cover deficits in the state budget, so we take out from the pension fund. Those 4,000 billion are also a lot of money. This year we are taking out almost 600 billion, which is almost 3%, which is the expected real return of the fund. It currently pays for almost 27% of all state expenditures, right. So over a quarter, over 25%, over a fourth of all the money the state spends on schools, health, defense, police, pensions, social security, everything, more than every fourth krone came from that fund. So there is nothing else now that is more important for financing Norwegian welfare than this.

Uh, and I think we... Sigbjørn Johnsen and Jens Stoltenberg didn't dream of this in 1996. But we are good at receiving the money when it comes. Uh, they are there. No, that's what we use. So it costs to have people. This is not just salaries for those who work here, but all management costs and such for those who place and manage over all these years, 85 billion. That's a large sum, but it's small compared to, for example, the profit here. Uh uh and then the total value of the fund now is 21,000 billion. Uh uh you can go to nbim.no on the app or see it. It changes all the time.

So that is the success story. We have saved everything. We have taken out uh uh and it pays for more than every fourth state expenditure krone. Uh and no other country is close to being in a similar situation.

Uh this one I'm a bit unsure how to avoid exaggerating. But one of my messages today at this birthday celebration is that the fund did not come by itself.

We found oil, yes, but others have too. For example, Great Britain has found and extracted about the same amount of oil and gas. This is total oil production, calculated in oil equivalents. Total gas production. So it's comparable uh in Norway uh in Great Britain. It's hard to compare because they are a larger country. They extracted at slightly different times, but they started in the late 60s too. Uh, but they haven't saved a krone. They have had lower taxes on oil companies. They have had less state ownership or privatized the whole of BP. So they have less, they have received less money into the state treasury and haven't saved them. So they have zero fund, we have 21,000 billion with roughly the same oil and gas production. The Netherlands found a lot of gas in the 60s. They spent almost all the money as they earned it. This gave rise to something called Dutch disease, namely that you spend too much money too quickly. And then the rest of the economy goes badly. And when gas production falls, you are actually in a worse position than before you found the gas. That's what's called the oil curse or the curse of oil as I said earlier.

So my point is that it's easy to find examples in world history of other countries that have had large revenues from oil and gas that don't have a fund because they haven't saved money. And now again, everyone thinks the fund is very nice. In the first years when we saved money and didn't spend it, it was quite controversial uh while it's less disputed today. What has happened, which is a bit difficult to explain, is that actually oil and gas are not ordinary income. Because when we find oil and gas, we find a form of wealth in the ground. And what we have done is that we have reallocated our national wealth from oil and gas in the ground to money in the bank or money in international financial markets.

And in 2000, as late as 2000, the expected value of all the oil and gas in the ground was around 10,000 billion. And the deposit in the pension fund that we had put some money into was only 800 billion. Then we pumped up the oil and gas. So now the value of the remaining oil has gone down to 4,000 billion. But because we have placed it in stocks and bonds, it has grown. So two things are happening, right? We are reallocating from oil and gas to financial investments, stocks and bonds. Uh, but the key is that it grows.

Uh, and that's why there is less red. While the sum of the red and the blue in 2026 is much more than it was in 2000. So it's a reallocation of wealth.

And then I thought about whether it's possible to say it in the following way: this happened 30 years ago. It's like your parents, before you were born, found a lot of gold in the garden. Not many do that, but imagine they did. And then they dig up that gold. And then they could sell it. And then they could use that money to stop working. They could use that money to buy, what shall we say, expensive holidays, better clothes, I don't know, more expensive wines, spend the money.

But instead of doing that, because you have such responsible and wise parents, they take the money they get from digging up that gold. They place all the money in the bank. And the only thing they use is the interest after accounting for inflation from the bank. Then you end up there.

That's basically the short version. Then I will end by talking a little bit about the future. Uh, because it's important not just to look back on a birthday. We celebrate 30 years, but we also look forward. Uh, and it was a great honor to be there during the first deposit and become finance minister that year in '96. But it's also, what shall we say, an honor to be allowed to be here 30 years later and talk a bit into the future and think that it is you, not me, who will look after this fund. Uh, and I will do that by taking a picture from the old days. Uh, this is me. Uh, actually before that, I think it's from '95, because there I am oil minister uh, before I become finance minister. Uh, and uh uh then I didn't know, yes, then I didn't know that we would get such a large fund, but uh I have uh three pieces of advice. If one of you were to become finance minister perhaps, or just a politician, or just start working in the oil fund, or just get some responsibility for this fund. And as I say, even if you become something completely different in life, you are a voter. You will vote in elections. You will vote for parties that take care of this fund. So everyone has a responsibility. It's our fund.

And then I have basically three pieces of advice for the future.

The first, and perhaps it is to say no. Say no to everyone who spends money. Because when you have 21,000 billion kroner and hopefully more in a few years when you take over, it's very tempting to use that money.

And therefore you must learn to say no, we cannot use more than the return. It's like good forest management. I used that as an example from the fiscal rule in 2001. It is that you should harvest the increment, not the forest itself that was there originally.

And uh therefore my advice, regardless of what the policy becomes, is to be able to withstand pressure because there will be so many desires to get access to more oil money. Uh that is message number 1, or rule number 1. Uh uh learn to say uh say no uh and withstand pressure.

The second uh main rule or second rule, is to uh uh spread the investments. I won't say exactly what you should invest in, but it's wise to buy a little of many things. Because some things go up, other things go down. If you have spread across many countries, many types of investments, you can withstand fluctuations and there is less risk.

And uh therefore it's also part of it that, right, I can't prescribe what kind of fiscal rule you have, but have a fiscal rule uh set in advance what you will do and don't let yourself be bent by pressure and think that it's wise to be invested in many places, spread risk. The third and most important uhh remember this: Oil is important, but work is much more important. Uh there is something called our national wealth. When we look at the value, what makes Norway rich, the value of the work we put in is more than 10 times as valuable as the oil and gas combined and the pension fund. So if you stop working, if you don't ensure that people are in work, keep unemployment low, keep many in work with good education, then you will use up the oil money immediately. It's like finding that gold in the garden and then stopping work. Then you become poor very quickly.

So the last and most important advice is uh remember to work, make sure people are in work. Keep uh people in work. Uh then the oil money, the oil fund, comes as a bonus. Uh and if you follow these good advice, then it will go well with you in the time and years to come. Thank you for your attention.

[Host]: Thank you very much. Uh Jens Stoltenberg, you were very involved in starting the oil fund, it must be said. And then you stand here and tell about how well it has gone. Are you afraid of being perceived as a bit boastful?

[Jens Stoltenberg]: Uh no, I was keen to say that many had contributed. Uh uh and many have contributed. Uh and it was Sigbjørn Johnsen who was finance minister when we had the first deposit. And it wouldn't have been possible without having a majority in the Storting. Uh and that the Norwegian people have voted for parties that wanted this.

[Host]: Precisely. I really like the Oil Fund, or at least the possibilities it offers. But then you come and say we shouldn't use the money. That's challenging of course. Uh how would you say the last few years, because I think many here have picked up on that book "The Country That Became Too Rich" and such, and the warning is that uh the Oil Fund has become a safety net or that there is a pressure on politicians to ask to use money all the time? The Chinese don't have to deal with this. For example, it's that we have elections every four years which makes it hard to convince your voters that no, that reason is perhaps not so sexy in a democracy where elections have to be won all the time. What do you see as the biggest political challenge for the parties in the Storting when it comes to keeping their fingers out of the till?

[Jens Stoltenberg]: Yes. So I think there is a persistent pressure to use more money. And we just this weekend negotiated what's called the revised national budget. And there were many wishes for much more money. Uh, but if you look at the bigger picture uh then there are masses of demands for money. Uh, but over the years, over time, we have managed to follow this fiscal rule. It says we should use 3%, which we say is the expected real return, uh, return minus inflation. Uh, and we have actually managed to stay a bit below it. So even if one can be frustrated by individual decisions, individual choices, the main picture is that for 30 years now, we have managed uh to uh resist demands for spending. So that seems, and that is the Norwegian people who have done it. This audience is mostly upper secondary students, I think. And then I assume that the things that confused me only three years ago probably confuse them a bit today too. Take the very basic uh this about the fiscal rule, why you can't spend a lot. You make sure not to spend too much. As far as I understand, the fear is that if you spend too much, there will be too many Norwegian kroner.

[Host]: I'll dumb it down a bit, if that's okay.

[Jens Stoltenberg]: No, it's fine. It's difficult.

[Host]: It's difficult. There are too many Norwegian kroner in circulation, and then the value of each krone simply becomes less, and then you fuck up your own economy. And that's what you called Dutch disease.

[Jens Stoltenberg]: Yes.

[Host]: Right. How close are we to Dutch disease now? Because we are spending more, the revised state budget yesterday, how much was it, 5000 billion? Are people helping themselves more than you would have liked?

[Jens Stoltenberg]: No, well, we are operating within the fiscal rule which says you can use the return. Uh uh it says we believe the expected real return, this is a bit complicated language, but what we believe is the interest or return over time is 3% uh and uh and 3% of 21,000 is a little over 2,000 billion. That is 600 billion kroner we use under that.

[Host]: Mm.

[Jens Stoltenberg]: Uh uh and we have in recent years actually been at around 2.7%, 2.8, yes 2.7%. And just the difference between 2.7% and 3% is 60 billion. So uh we have about 6 billion kroner to play with before we reach the fiscal rule. So uh the one answer is that yes, we are staying well within it. That's what we do this year, that's what we did last year. But there's no guarantee we'll do it next year. That has to be decided every single year. It's gone well so far. There's no guarantee it will go well in the future. But that's partly why I'm standing here saying to you, look after your funds. That's basically what I'm saying.

[Host]: Are you warning about this even when we stay within the limit each time? Is it that, as I read you, there is so much money in the oil fund now that the fiscal rule we made back then is now quite generous, and that even when we stay within it, it's still too much spending pumped into the Norwegian economy? Should we actually lower the fiscal rule?

[Jens Stoltenberg]: No, no, but no, I don't think so. But I say it because we must also admit that one reason we have managed to stay within the fiscal rule is that the fund has grown so much. Obviously, when 3%, which is a fixed percentage, becomes more and more kroner, because 3% of a small cake is less than 3% of a large cake, it's easier to stay at 3%. We have something called the revised budget which we presented a few weeks ago. There we show what can happen if the oil fund falls, and it can fall. It has fallen before. Then it suddenly becomes very difficult to stay within 3%. Uh so that's why we also want that buffer.

[Host]: That will be an exciting test, to feel whether we have the discipline.

[Jens Stoltenberg]: Absolutely.

[Host]: I'm almost looking forward to it a bit. But there are two reasons we hold back. One is that we shouldn't overheat the economy, spend a lot of money and get price increases and such. But the other is the generational thinking. That oil, or that gold we found in the garden, it's not mine. It's not my generation's. It's all generations'. So we put it in and only take the return. That way, many generations can enjoy the fund. That's why it said "Generational Fund" here. Uh uh so it's a fairness consideration across generations.

[Host]: You have been Secretary General of NATO, uh, the head of the defense alliance. I didn't know you were 18... uh, the head of the military that cooperates across Europe to protect us from the evil ones, you can't say that about other people, but enemies then. "Adversary" they say in English. That's a very nice word. How is it that Norway, right, we say it here, we say it on TV, we have 21,000 billion. And at the same time we are a fairly small country. Why hasn't anyone taken it?

[Jens Stoltenberg]: No, because uh respecting law and justice is for two things. Firstly, we only place our money in countries we trust, where there are well-regulated stock markets, exchanges, right. So we select some countries. We don't go into absolutely all countries in the world. Uh so there is a security there. And when we are in those countries, there are also many other private owners. We own a little in around 7,200 companies. Uh, and the whole idea is that we should own a little in many companies, not a lot in a few. Uh, and that is the other thing that other investors also care about, that no one should steal their money. So private property rights, protection of property rights, is strong in the countries we invest in. And all the other investors also care that it is respected. And then it will be respected for us too. But we have no guarantee. There is no place to safely place 21,000 billion kroner. Uh it's not possible to hide it away. Uh, there is always risk, but if we spread ourselves, we think we get less risk than if we place it in one place.

[Host]: And currently, it's spread out because the fear was oil, right, we can't be dependent on the oil price at all times. So we have to spread it and invest in other things. So now we have 71% stocks, 26% fixed income like government bonds and such, which is very safe income. 1.7% real estate, which is still a lot of money. And 0.4% renewable energy infrastructure.

The stock market fluctuates up and down. Ehm, how prepared are we for, for example, artificial intelligence now – I was about to say the bubble, I didn't mean that Nikolai Tangen – AI stock prices are now enormous, a pretty big part of the oil fund's increase as far as I understand. If it disappears overnight, are we protected against it, would you claim? Can we take it?

[Jens Stoltenberg]: Uh it will affect us uh if stock prices fall sharply. Uh, and that is why it's also important to say that it can happen. Uh, and that is also the reason why we, not just for one year, but for many years, have been below the spending limit, so we have almost built up a buffer. So when stock prices go up a lot, we haven't been fully along for the whole ride. But that means if stock prices fall a lot, we won't reduce the transfers to the state budget as much. Uh, so that's the way we prepare uh by being aware that it can fall. Uh, and thus have something to fall back on. Uh, we have saved a little extra for bad times. I was prime minister in 2008 and 2009 during the financial crisis. Then the fund fell, I think it was... stock markets fell 40-50%, at least a lot. Uh uh and it was a bit of a shock. Uh but it turned out to be quite good for Norway because we bought stocks at that time. Uh and those stocks we bought cheaply we made a lot of money on later. Whether it will happen again, we don't know.

[Host]: I had an idea, probably a bit stupid, but if the problem is we can't use too much of the oil fund because it hurts the Norwegian krone, uh, with the euro, wouldn't that problem be solved?

[Jens Stoltenberg]: Uh, no, well, Europe doesn't have that much money, does it?

[Host]: No, no, but we could still have inflation in Norway. Uh, yes, so we wouldn't get the krone exchange rate worsening, but we could get inflation in Norway, i.e., spending too much money.

[Jens Stoltenberg]: Mm. So it can go wrong either by the krone exchange rate going, or by prices being too high, uh, yes, or by inflation being too high. There's a very good Donald Duck from, I don't know, quite old, where Scrooge McDuck's money bin is uh taken by a hurricane and spread all over Duckburg. Uh and then all prices go up in Duckburg and then Donald, no, Scrooge ends up with all the money again. It's a bit simple, but that's how it will be in Norway. And it is our work that determines what we actually have in value. Uh, and we don't get more work by spending more money.

[Host]: Let's move on to ethics and morality. I guess that's how most people here actually first became familiar with the Oil Fund as a concept. It might have been around uh moral, ethical questions, around Israel and such things. Before we go there, did you see Norway vs Morocco yesterday?

[Jens Stoltenberg]: No, I didn't.

[Host]: No, that was the first time I saw these "drinks breaks" in action. Uh, this is relevant actually. Take it easy. Ehm, which in practice means the whole match is divided into four instead of two long halves. Watching two long halves of football is, in my opinion, a healthy thing to have in the population, in the culture, in the fight against hyper-entertainment on TikTok and such. But now they are trying to split it up to push advertising into the middle of the halves during the drinks break. The commercialization of football is terrible. I hate it. Can we use the oil fund to do something a bit bad too, so maybe it balances out with all the other controversies? So the answer is no. Uh uh uh because the Oil Fund is not there to do anything else. Because we like... it costs 70 billion. 700? No, not 700 billion. 70 billion, I hope.

[Jens Stoltenberg]: Yes, it's possible. Yes, we can afford to buy it. That's not the issue, but we are not going to buy it. Uh, no, but if a football club is publicly traded, then we probably already own shares, because we own about 1% of the shares.

[Host]: We have enough percentage to remove VAR and stop these drinks breaks.

[Jens Stoltenberg]: But, but, but, the whole idea of the pension fund is... you get so many chances to interview Stoltenberg. I'll take my opportunity to...

[Host]: But it's a very good question. But the whole idea of the pension fund is that it should give us income. So we place it in lots of stocks to give us safe income and reduce risk by spreading it. Then we get these 600 billion. We get cash into the state budget because we get the interest income. We can use that for whatever we want.

[Jens Stoltenberg]: Yes.

[Host]: So if we think... this is a completely honest discussion. If I think that instead of paying for Norwegian nursing homes, or paying for Norwegian police, or Norwegian defense, or Norwegian school, we should use 70 billion of it to buy some football club. Be my guest.

[Jens Stoltenberg]: That's perfectly fine. Uh, but then you just have to be willing to say that there will be less elderly care. It becomes a football club. That's an honest choice.

[Host]: Uh, but to sneak money via the pension fund so it doesn't show, that's wrong.

[Jens Stoltenberg]: But if you held a referendum on it, I think it would quickly become football, to be honest.

[Host]: But that's exactly my point: it's the Norwegian people who decide. But I care that the choice you make is honest. And if you start sneaking money to help football via the pension fund, that's wrong. Its job is to make money for the community, then we get the money and can use it for whatever we want. You might be more interested in cross-country skiing than football, but there's also an idea there, just quickly, that you could give more money to other cross-country skiing nations to get a bit more competition in the sport. So that's just a little idea.

[Jens Stoltenberg]: Uh, but...

[Host]: It's entirely possible, but then it's not directly from the fund. That's for the money set aside for that. But we live in a time, right, because the oil fund was supposed to be apolitical and not used actively as a political instrument and such. But we live in a time where uh what kind of clothes you wear, where the clothes are produced, what kind of food you buy, where the food is produced, whether you wear a mask or not. Everything is political today, and it's often called hyper-politics. And then taking an apolitical stance is often seen as a political stance. And this has become a challenge for the Oil Fund, one must say. How will the oil fund navigate in this landscape in the future, where everything is interpreted politically, even when you stand completely still?

[Jens Stoltenberg]: I think we should try to be honest and clear that there are political frameworks for the fund. It is the politicians who decide, for example, that we should not be in tobacco. It is the politicians who decide that we should have 70% in stocks and 30% in bonds. It is the politicians who decide that we should be in that country, but not that country. That we should not invest in Russia, but invest in many other countries. Uh, these are political decisions, so there are political frameworks. But when it comes to within those frameworks, when we have given what's called an index to Norges Bank, then it is Norges Bank, Nikolai Tangen, all the people there in the pension fund who should decide exactly which stocks, when we sell and when we buy. That should not be a political decision. So I think this thing about the fund not being political, people are a bit confused because they mean different things. Of course it's a political fund in the sense that it was created by politicians. It is politicians who save the money and politicians who take out the money, but the stock investments within the frameworks set by politicians are done by professionals. And I'm very happy about that.

[Host]: But you say, ok, we have agreed, I didn't know, to be honest, that we don't invest in tobacco, for example. Which by the way, the heirs I mentioned at the start, tobacco must be allowed to be said. So I don't know if they have any wish to pay it back. I don'tt need to talk more about those who are not present. But you end up with a dilemma where you eventually have to figure out. Ok, so tobacco is not allowed, marijuana is not allowed, but maybe, social media, big tech is completely allowed. If you look at what they do to the world, to our addiction and our time, I would say it harms the quality of human life just as much. And you can also say morality when it comes to how they affect democracy around the world, just like cigarettes. So these questions are difficult to navigate. Do you see it just getting more and more difficult and that we need some kind of new round of ethics around the oil fund, or do you think the fiscal rule, the ethics council and such are enough?

[Jens Stoltenberg]: I don't know if it will become more difficult, but I know it is difficult. Uh because it's not easy to decide exactly which companies or what kind of ethical framework we should have around the fund. Uh and that was very well illustrated last autumn when we uh paused parts of it. Well, it's a framework, rules for ethical investments to ensure it's within ethical boundaries. Uh we paused it. Uh among other things because some of the companies that make military equipment that Norway is completely dependent on, like the F35 aircraft, or the new frigates we are going to buy, or the equipment we have delivered to Ukraine. These are weapons manufacturers like Boeing and Lockheed Martin and Airbus and many others that Norway is completely dependent on. I remember when I was NATO Secretary General, I was very keen that they should be strengthened, that they should produce more, but then the pension fund couldn't invest in them because we shouldn't be invested in any weapons types. So it's difficult, I'm the first to admit that. But if the alternative is not to invest in stocks at all, then I disagree. Then we just have to enter that difficult landscape, find some boundaries, and accept that those boundary lines will be a bit difficult in the years ahead as well. But the alternative of not being invested in stocks is at least stupid.

[Host]: I have a little, I won't give you advice, but at least a little message I have. I'll bring it up in the debate afterwards too. It's an expression I think is missing, and maybe there's a better word for it, but the "collective gut feeling" instead of having principles that should fit perfectly. Just like in football you have this problem with people trying to define what is a handball, right? And it ends up with confusion because from case to case, the linguistic definition doesn't work every time. But the collective gut feeling, it's often quite accurate. Most people think that is handball. You take advantage of children. And a bit like that, I think one can actually use more politics now. Abortion limits too. Why should it be that week and not the next? Right? There's no logical reason there. It's on a spectrum.

[Jens Stoltenberg]: Yes, and that's probably a bit how one has to operate with the oil fund and that...

[Host]: ...most people think the investments in Israel seem a bit bad right now. Fine, then we drop that. But Silicon Valley, ok, it still works. Then we go for that. And then just respect the collective gut feeling as an authority.

[Jens Stoltenberg]: Yes, I think gut feeling is what the voters uh and they vote for parties and we politicians must consider what the voters think. But the ambition to have a concrete framework that will always work...

[Host]: Yes, but I think we are forced to have a concrete framework because we must give clear instructions to Nikolai Tangen and his people uh about which companies they should and shouldn't be in. Uh and I think they also want it to be the politicians' responsibility to set those frameworks as laws.

[Jens Stoltenberg]: Mm.

[Host]: Mm. But it's like the abortion limit you mentioned. It's a bit difficult to say it's exactly 12 or exactly 18 weeks. But unless you mean zero or the whole pregnancy, you have to set a limit. And it's a bit like this here too uh we are forced to find some difficult boundaries. Accept that exactly on both sides of the boundary, it's a bit difficult to see the big difference. But we started that discussion in '96, in '97 when we placed money in stocks for the first time. There was opposition to being in stocks precisely for those reasons. But if we hadn't been there, we would have lost thousands of billions, at least many billions, uh thousands of billions of kroner. Uh and that would have meant less money for nursing homes, schools, kindergartens and many other important things. So I think it was right, even though we live with some grey zones and some difficult choices.

A quarter of an hour goes terribly fast. Can you, at the very end, just tell about this Volvo agreement that was proposed at the start of Norway's oil adventure, and what we ended up with, and we offered them something that the Swedes said no to?

[Jens Stoltenberg]: Yes. Can give a quick version.

[Host]: No, well, it was about Odvar Nordli... I wonder if you've seen that series "Makta"?

[Jens Stoltenberg]: Yes.

[Host]: There Odvar Nordli is important. I don't think they have an episode on the Volvo agreement, but they could have, it would have been a great episode. But I was in the last episode.

[Jens Stoltenberg]: You were?

[Host]: Yes, me and Steinar.

[Jens Stoltenberg]: Yes, I was like an anarchist bookseller, and then Steinar, my buddy, a Maoist baker. We were quite funny. We got some good feedback on that.

[Host]: That episode is a lot about my little sister Minnie.

[Jens Stoltenberg]: Yes. Uh, but uh, no, and then they wanted to swap so that the Norwegian state would own Volvo shares. And then uh Sweden or the Volvo shareholders would get ownership shares. I think it was in the Statfjord field or some other oil field. Ehm, I must admit I don't know enough about that agreement to know if it was a good or bad deal for Norway, but in any case, the Swedish shareholders said no, so it never happened. And thus...

[Host]: I think the story is simply that the Swedes had more faith in Volvo than in the oil fund and said no thanks, we'll manage without, and that they bitterly regret it now. So that's too bad for them. Finally, you've already given some advice, but yes, a final message to the future finance minister. The future finance minister is sitting right at the back there, by the way. Yes. 18 years old.

[Jens Stoltenberg]: We can meet her afterwards.

[Host]: Yes. Meet her.

[Jens Stoltenberg]: Yes. One last piece of advice again. Hammer in the message.

[Host]: No, I've already said it. But the last of the three pieces of advice is to make sure people are in work. Uh because the countries that don't succeed with that, they always do badly. So uh get an education, do your homework. Uh uh think that there are lots of exciting things to work with in life and it's good for you and it's also good for Norway. And not least good for all of us who become pensioners and will live off all of you who will be working in the next 10 years. So thank you for the care and the pension you will pay to me. Thank you.

[Host]: Thank you very much, Jens.

[Host]: But now we have come to the point where I'm going to talk to the head of the entire oil fund. Uh, I think it involves having the main responsibility for where we invest things and how much. Where is he? There he is. Please welcome Nikolai Tangen.

[Nikolai Tangen]: Hi.

[Host]: Hi.

[Host]: Alright. I'm looking forward to this a bit. Uh, I'll just go for it because time flies. First of all, how many thousand billion kroner did we have when you started as head of the Oil Fund?

[Nikolai Tangen]: 10,000 billion.

[Host]: And how many do we have now?

[Nikolai Tangen]: 21,000 billion.

[Host]: 11,000 billion.

[Nikolai Tangen]: Yes.

[Host]: Is that approved? The finance minister is your employer, isn't he?

[Nikolai Tangen]: Yes.

[Host]: Yes. Is he happy?

[Nikolai Tangen]: Jens. I'm quite happy actually, but it's not me who earned all that money. It's because the stock markets have gone up. So we are well helped by that.

[Host]: Yes. And is it primarily American technology companies that have driven it up?

[Nikolai Tangen]: No. You could say that of the 11,000 billion, a little over 2,000 billion of those billions are from the American tech companies. So there are many more things that have created returns. But the American ones have of course done very well.

[Host]: "Go go gorilla", we'll talk more about that later when you become famous. To quote, that's what you thought they said in the USA about the market these days. "Go go go gorilla". And you know what? I'll bring it up now. Because...

[Nikolai Tangen]: I don't understand why there was so much fuss about it, because I think it's a completely normal expression.

[Host]: Yes, he knows. And that's it.

[Nikolai Tangen]: It's a Kristiansand expression.

[Host]: Yes, but this is what I mean, ok, hypothesis, I just don't want you to misunderstand me here. I mean that in some jobs, to perform, it helps to be a bit crazy.

[Nikolai Tangen]: Yes.

[Host]: Uh, I think you are a bit crazy in the right way. Another one who is crazy in the right way is Haaland. One who lacks being a bit crazy is Ødegaard. He would have benefited from being a bit more crazy. But there is something to it. It's interesting because if you invest, you have to be a bit different from the others. So, how many here feel that you are a bit different from the others, that you think differently? Hands up. How many here think that you are like everyone else?

[Nikolai Tangen]: I came again.

[Host]: So, the people we want to hire are those who are a bit different. Those who think a bit differently. Because in the stock market, you make the most money by doing the opposite of everyone else. So if you have something that makes you a bit weird and a bit different, that's something you must cultivate. If you have a strange hobby or something. I think that's good.

I must admit, I'll ask some naive questions. I must admit, and I think for many here too, it's a bit exciting with a person who is so close to such large sums as you are. And I just have to ask, if you had no morals, uh, how far would you be able to get away with the money?

[Nikolai Tangen]: Not even close.

[Host]: Not even close. There are so many controls, so many rules, so many checks, I haven't managed it.

[Nikolai Tangen]: But you might have the power to break down some of those control mechanisms first.

[Host]: No, I don't think so, unfortunately, because we have people who make sure I don't do that. Who?

[Nikolai Tangen]: No, we have cyber people and we have compliance and all sorts of things, so I can't steal. But they could be bought if they get to be in on the gig.

[Host]: No.

[Nikolai Tangen]: Yes. Ok. No, that's good. That's good to do. That was the test. That was the test. Ok. He can't be bought. Ehm.

[Host]: Now, we have earned a lot, right, on certain stocks that have gone up a lot. And I briefly asked Jens about it. I don't remember his answer. Maybe you could be clearer. But how prepared are we for, I mean, it's a fairly likely scenario, or at least one should account for the AI bubble bursting. I'm in those AI forums, on Twitter, and the accounts that follow it most closely are very prepared for it being a bubble, and then there will surely be some who run away as winners of the whole market, but the enormous volume in the stock market around AI could easily burst. Is that something you account for?

[Nikolai Tangen]: Yes, it's entirely possible.

[Host]: It's possible, but just...

[Nikolai Tangen]: No, but I feel it. But just put your hand up if you use AI tools.

[Host]: Yes, right. And you are ahead in society. You adopt technology quite early and quite quickly, but there is a whole society behind that hasn't started yet. And that's Norway where we are early adopters, but in the rest of the world, there are very many who haven't really started yet. So this could last quite a while. So is it a bubble or not, I don't know. But I see it's an extremely effective tool. And the technology curve, it doesn't go like this. It goes like this, right? These models just get better and better.

[Nikolai Tangen]: So there are a lot of high valuations there. But whether it's a bubble, I'm not sure. Do you have any thoughts on what artificial intelligence, yes, much can be made more efficient, but what it does to the experience of being human? And sorry if you think this sounds a bit soft or something. But what I want to get at is how many jobs are, yes, they are made more efficient, but they are also reduced, I would dare to say, that you end up with professions where before you had a skill, you performed a task, and you went home proud of having achieved something. And in very many professions now, the people in those jobs are reduced to being robot babysitters. They sit there and check that the robot is doing it right and correct it occasionally, maybe four hours between each time. Due to EU regulations and such, a human has to watch. Concretely, a guy who worked at a car factory at Mercedes who previously worked a lot with the cars making them. Now he sits, due to regulations, and he has to watch the robot do what he used to do for 9 hours straight.

[Nikolai Tangen]: Yes. Uh, now I don't think you will sit and watch those robots for very long, because they don't need watching. But uh, I think it will do two things. Firstly, I think it can make us do fewer boring jobs, right? There are some jobs that are very repetitive and quite boring. I don't think we should do those in the future. I think we should do more interesting jobs, and that's positive for humans. But at the same time, it does something to society. So I think being able to talk to each other, understanding each other, uh understanding how human emotions work, that becomes more valuable. So talking to people, that knowledge, I think will become even more important than it has been before.

[Host]: How many here have talked to a chatbot to understand their own feelings?

[Nikolai Tangen]: Yes, very few. But then people talk to each other instead.

[Host]: Yes. How many didn't dare to raise their hand, but have actually used it for that? Ok. Ehm, there's another thing with artificial intelligence if it really takes off. We invest in it. We hope it will take off economically in many ways, but the future scenarios that are drawn, also by those who make these models, are often quite dystopian. And one of the things presented is how people with evil intentions, let's say ISIS today versus 2014, needs a pretty ok bioengineer, and an AI model will be able to create quite potent viruses that can be spread in populations. Uh, and actually opens the door for very few people to cause enormous harm. Is this something you think about when you are enthusiastic about artificial intelligence?

[Nikolai Tangen]: Yes, I think about it because AI can be used for fantastic things, and mainly the people developing it think it's positive, right? Uh, some of the leading developers think that within 10 to 15 years, we can get rid of all diseases in the world. That's positive. But it's the way with technology that if it falls into the wrong hands and is used incorrectly, it can become scary. And if you put together viruses that are very deadly, it can of course have very serious consequences. And that is perhaps the biggest risk for humanity. If it happens.

[Host]: Mm.

[Nikolai Tangen]: But we hope it will work out.

[Host]: Yes. You have to remember that when they say they can cure all diseases in 10 years, they want people to invest in the company.

[Nikolai Tangen]: Yes, but there is an enormous amount happening in medical research, especially in cancer, quite impressive, for sure. AI, but that was only 2,000 of the 11,000 billion that went up.

[Host]: Yes, it's a bit of job security... right. Questions, I've asked many. How badly can you screw up in your job? I mean, is it such that if you are not focused enough, let's say a two-month period, could thousands of billions disappear?

[Nikolai Tangen]: Yes, well, there are many ways I can screw up, and I do it constantly, but not with the fund. Because with the fund, the extent to which you can screw up is limited. And that's what's fantastic because we have quite a precise recipe from the Ministry of Finance. How we can be invested, how many stocks we should have, how many bonds, which countries, and so on. So it's the Ministry of Finance that makes the main decisions, and then we get a kind of risk budget that says how much we can deviate from those instructions. So it's quite structured and organized. So when it comes to investments, I can't screw up. But of course I have screwed up with things like SMSes to Elon Musk and such. That you can do. I have unfortunately done it a couple of times, but now I've gotten better at it so I do it less.

[Host]: I don't think that was so embarrassing. Of course, if you're going to... No, I don't think you should be so hard on yourself. Yes, but a bit embarrassing, but... No, you quickly said "this will get out, Elon, you need to calm down." We won't talk too much about it. But it's clear that when you are the head of the oil fund, it has to be like that. It has to be a guy who knows Elon Musk and who uh is a bit "go go go gorilla". So you shouldn't hold that against yourself. You have good self-confidence, don't you?

[Nikolai Tangen]: Yes, I do. It's usually fine.

[Host]: That's very good. Do you want a job at the Oil Fund? No, I'm not sucking up.

[Nikolai Tangen]: No.

[Host]: No. I am also very against artificial intelligence, so I don't think I would get the job. No.

[Nikolai Tangen]: Uh, what do you see? Uh, do you see a scenario, or was that a job offer? No.

[Host]: No. We are in the public sector. Then you have to go through interviews and lots of stuff.

[Nikolai Tangen]: Yes. No, it's not.

[Host]: But we hope that many of you are thinking of applying when you finish your education.

[Nikolai Tangen]: Yes, they can do that.

[Host]: Yes. And we have summer programs and we have graduate programs which are actually very, very good where you get to work with artificial intelligence. So this year, for example, all the summer people at our place are working on different AI tasks in the different parts of the company. It's really exciting.

[Nikolai Tangen]: Can I do another test? This is almost representative of the population. How many here wish that artificial intelligence had never been invented? Yes, very few. Yes, right. They outsourced thinking to the machine, you know. So, is there any scenario where you envision that we suddenly have to burn half the oil fund almost overnight?

[Host]: No, that's never relevant. Your question 2, this was actually asked to Jens Stoltenberg, but you work under a government, a minister and such. Does a finance minister have the power to command you that now we will use half the oil fund, we need to get the money. I need 10,000 billion right now immediately. And I'm going to use it to build a wall around Norway, for example. No, uh, you can't do that because of the fiscal rule that the finance minister talked about, namely that you can use 3% of the fund each year. 3% of the fund is still a lot of money, over 600 billion, but you can't just suddenly decide to take out 10,000 billion. That would require complete political agreement. That's another thing that's very important about the Oil Fund.

[Nikolai Tangen]: "Complete" as in just a majority in the Storting, or something more than that? Yes. If you want to change rules in the Storting, you have to go through uh so-called parliamentary hearings and you have to go back and forth. It's quite a cumbersome process. Precisely to safeguard the fund against that type of thing.

[Host]: But it could happen quickly. Across Europe now, more and more extreme parties are gaining more power. It's not completely impossible to imagine, in a 50-year perspective, that someone comes and gets a large enough majority to say, you know what? We're going to take quite a bit here. But you think there are so many obstacles that it can't happen quickly by one government?

[Nikolai Tangen]: No, there are many obstacles. Yes.

[Host]: But they can take it all within the fiscal rule. So they can use it for whatever they want in theory.

[Nikolai Tangen]: Yes, the government decides how to use the money, and that's what's nice about my job. My job is actually quite simple because I don't decide what goes into the fund and I don't decide what comes out of the fund. I just work with what's in the fund and try to make it grow as much as possible.

[Host]: Precisely. So that we have money for the next generations. So, maybe that's what it says on the screen here, "Generational Fund". The Generational Fund is a new website we have created, you can go to generasjonsfondet.no. And there you can play with numbers and find out how things can rise and how much the fund will finance what you will use in the future.

[Nikolai Tangen]: What is it that people today don't understand about the oil fund? Especially young people. I think people understand quite a lot about the oil fund, right? It's set up to last a very long time. It's spread across the world. Uh we invest with a very long-term perspective. It's the government that decides how much we spend. No, I think it's not that complicated actually.

[Host]: Mhm.

[Nikolai Tangen]: If Jens Stoltenberg afterwards, I don't know if he's still here, he's most likely not, but if he said to you again, ok, within the fiscal rule 3%, I need all of it, how much was it, 600 billion or something?

[Host]: Yes.

[Nikolai Tangen]: 600 billion, I want, I'm going to start making nuclear weapons in Norway, he says. Is it natural in your position to argue against him, or is it that you should...

[Host]: No, it's not natural.

[Nikolai Tangen]: No.

[Host]: No.

[Nikolai Tangen]: But you would think about it.

[Host]: Yes. Well, I don't think it's wise for us to start making nuclear weapons, but that's not for me to decide.

[Nikolai Tangen]: No.

[Host]: No.

[Nikolai Tangen]: That's about jobs. Because I heard in an interview you said that when AI takes jobs here and there, people should do more interesting things, more free time, and you used the example of picking up litter. Yes, as a nice thing. But isn't that the kind of job that would be automated first? Or is it the type of job you want people to go back to, and isn't that a bit of a circle?

[Host]: Yes, picking up litter I don't think will be automated because it's hard to find. But uh...

[Nikolai Tangen]: What if OpenAI puts enough effort into picking up socks? So it's clear that what AI does is automation, things that need to be checked. The more repetitive it is, the more often you have to do it, the easier it is to use AI for it.

[Host]: Mhm.

[Nikolai Tangen]: While many of the difficult jobs are harder to replace with AI.

[Host]: Mhm.

[Nikolai Tangen]: But it's clear that there are more and more things you can use it for.

[Host]: Finally, uh, over 21,000 billion in the oil fund. When you have such large sums, does it tempt you to put, let's say, 5,000 billion on a very, very safe bet? Do you know what I mean? That's a bit like what you do with the stock market.

[Nikolai Tangen]: That's exactly what we do. And that's why the fund is set up in a quite clever way, right? We have 70% stocks, and then we have 30% which are government bonds. And that's the safe way to invest. It doesn't go up and down that much. It's a pretty safe place to be. And then we have real estate which is quite safe. For example, when you go and buy things in London, you own 25% of Regent Street. So when you spend money there, you should feel good about it.

[Host]: Because when I buy sneakers and such, the money goes back to us.

[Nikolai Tangen]: But do the people working there know that we own the place? Ok. Yes, that's good. Ok.

[Host]: So, you should be a bit proud when you walk around in London, because we have bought even more things there recently, so we own quite a lot of the middle of London.

[Nikolai Tangen]: Do you have a dream purchase in real estate that you think "ah, that would be cool"? We have the money, it's our investment strategy.

[Host]: Should we take the Eiffel Tower or something?

[Nikolai Tangen]: No, that's an interesting suggestion.

[Host]: That would be quite good symbolism.

[Nikolai Tangen]: Yes, but I don't think we should buy it, and it's probably not for sale either. Or we haven't bought anything in Sweden, but we have in London and Berlin.

[Host]: Is that to rub it in that they said no to the oil money?

[Nikolai Tangen]: No, I don't think that's why. But you have to choose some cities and be there. It's possible we will invest in Sweden in the future. We are invited to invest in logistics properties, right, where those internet portals and such use logistics centers. We own quite a lot of those.

[Host]: Right. Yes. There's a call now. We could buy the whole of Sweden if we wanted.

[Nikolai Tangen]: How much of Sweden could we buy if we wanted?

[Host]: No, we could buy the entire Swedish stock exchange.

[Nikolai Tangen]: Is that true?

[Host]: Yes.

[Nikolai Tangen]: Yes, that's a factual check then. Ok. Great. We got that fact-checked. Nikolai Tangen, thank you very much for the conversation. Is there anything else on your mind before we say goodbye to the group?

[Nikolai Tangen]: Uh, you know what? I think you are living in the most exciting time we have ever seen. Much more exciting than when I was young. Because uh so much is happening in the world right now with geopolitics and technology. What's happening in technology is so fantastically exciting. So I just think you have to get up every day and think "wow, this is incredibly fun". And then you have to read lots of newspapers. Read The Financial Times and the various newspapers that interest you. It's so much fun. And then, as we talked about, talk to people, and we also encourage you to do that here before you leave today. Get to know three new people. It's really fun to meet people you didn't know. Yes.

[Host]: Those are very wise words. Thank you very much, Nikolai Tangen.

[Nikolai Tangen]: You're welcome.

[Host]: Yes, thanks.

[Host]: Now we move to the last item of today's program. Obviously, if I had been very professional, I would have said at the start of the day everything that was going to happen, but you've stayed anyway, so I didn't need to. Uh, it's simply a debate. To debate the future of the oil fund. Please welcome Simen Velle from the Frp, Gaute Skjerve from the AUF, and Frøya Sursetter from the MDG.

[Simen Velle]: I get a bit starstruck by you. Not so much by Stoltenberg. Starstruck by you.

[Host]: Yes. And Ståle Solbakken. Ståle Solbakken was the most extreme. Because he's so good. The others on stage are too. That wasn't a diss on the others on stage.

[Simen Velle]: Thanks.

[Host]: Yes. No, I said I was starstruck by you. Ok. Uh, first of all, I have a fairly open question. I'll start with you, Frøya.

[Frøya Sursetter]: Mhm.

[Host]: MDG, Frp, AUF, not the Labour Party. Important.

[Frøya Sursetter]: Important to say. So that means I envy a bit the free role he has, who can just represent a youth organization and say pretty much what he wants?

[Host]: Uh, a bit.

[Frøya Sursetter]: Ok. That's good.

[Host]: Mm. You can use this "joke system" to say what you really think, which isn't MDG's position, later in the debate. Frøya, how would you use the oil fund differently if MDG held power alone today?

[Frøya Sursetter]: Yes. Uh, no, most of the Oil Fund has worked very, very well. It's a success story in many ways. In Norway, we have managed to do what I think many other countries regret not doing, which is to have such a long-term management of our money. For me, that's perhaps the most politicized part of the oil fund, because I think people largely agree. It's about what type of investments you make. There are quite a few in Norway, 8 out of 10, who think that, for example, you should not invest in human rights violations. That's perhaps a place to start. Because we don't invest in the violations, do we? No, even if it would have increased returns a bit... So, that's perhaps the main change one would want to make, based on those reasons, to move investments away from things like, for example, we have seen examples of investments in illegal Israeli settlements. So, that's perhaps the only politicized part of the oil fund, for the most part it works very well.

[Host]: And you are not afraid that the ball will start rolling and new people will demand other investments be withdrawn?

[Frøya Sursetter]: No, I think we can handle that political discussion.

[Host]: Yes, right. Same question. How would you use the oil fund differently if Frp held power alone? And remember the fiscal rule.

[Simen Velle]: Yes. No, well, I just first want to say that what Frøya is doing is a recipe for the oil fund to earn less money. And the Progress Party is very, very skeptical of that.

[Frøya Sursetter]: Yes. That's obvious, but there are quite a few in Norway who, even if you earn less money...

[Simen Velle]: Uh, no, I mean, we have a plethora of instruments to conduct peace work in the world. We have an aid budget, a foreign ministry. We participate in all sorts of strange organizations around the world. I don't think the oil fund should be an instrument to try to create peace in the world. I think the Oil Fund should be an instrument to create as much money as possible for the Norwegian welfare society.

[Host]: At any cost?

[Simen Velle]: No, not at any cost. What has been defined is acceptable risk. Those are the words used in the Storting. Then there is a discussion about what acceptable risk is. For example, I think investing in Caterpillar, which was a huge discussion last summer during the election campaign where some very angry activists thought we had to pull out. We have lost billions on pulling out of that investment. And it has also had the consequence that some other countries are starting to see the Oil Fund as a political tool. And we must be very careful about that, because there are countries we are heavily invested in, and countries we are not. And around the world, there is agreement that the Norwegian oil fund only invests based on money. It's not something we use to conduct politics. But if we cross that line and start using it as a political tool, then the questions will also come. And I'm not sure a small country like Norway would stand very well in that. I think the smartest thing we can do is to rely on the oil fund being what it is meant to be. Namely a money box that we can all live well from, and hopefully our grandchildren too. And then we can't carry on like MDG proposes. And fortunately, 96% of Norway understands that.

[Host]: I interpret you a bit as, and this is not necessarily wrong, I don't mean to make fun, but a bit like looking down, covering your ears, just watching the money pile up, and then looking up to see who you can help a bit with the money.

[Simen Velle]: Mm.

[Host]: That's perfectly fine. It's not a diss on your position.

[Simen Velle]: I don't think I'm sticking my head in the sand by saying that pulling out of Caterpillar is a bad idea. That is following what's happening out there.

[Gaute Skjerve]: Mm. I think if there's one thing that is sticking your head in the sand, it's pretending that the decisions we make in the Storting don't have consequences out in the world.

[Simen Velle]: And you saw that fund managers all over the world, political authorities, for example in the USA, ended up wrinkling their noses and thinking, hm, now Norway is acting in a different way than we have done until now.

[Gaute Skjerve]: They did, you know. They did. Simen is a bit right here that Norway, by pulling out of Caterpillar (which was demanded by activists), is interpreted as the oil fund going around and having opinions. Yes. When the first oil fund op-ed comes out. We have always done this. We pulled out of Russia in 2022. That was completely uncontroversial because no one thought we should make money from children dying in Kiev. Then some of us think the same should happen for brown children in Palestine. But suddenly it's not possible according to Frp. So I think you should have principles for everyone. Uh and then we could well take...

[Simen Velle]: No, it's true. I know him well.

[Gaute Skjerve]: Yes, it's completely true. I mean, why should I, in principle, blame that? If your bulldozers tear down the houses of Ukrainian children, it's just as bad as tearing down the houses of Palestinian children. Listen to your own party leaders, they say the difference is that the freezing of funds in Russia and such was a large collective decision taken together with many other countries. Yes. And we were part of that together. But the risk is too great if you alone, before you have gotten many others on board, boycott Israel in the same way.

[Host]: Yes. The rest of the world are cowards. Everyone knows that. Look at Eurovision, some countries went ahead. For example, Ireland, Spain, Norway stood on the outside, didn't dare to join. But that's a better explanation than the skin color explanation.

[Gaute Skjerve]: Yes, we are cowards, but is it better for them? I don't think that holds. So I would say that someone should go ahead. Norway, which has the world's largest fund, and the oil fund is not just one of many funds, it's the largest in the whole world. If we went ahead, there would be a signal effect that the rest would have followed. So I believe in showing international courage in a world where politicians are running over our future.

[Frøya Sursetter]: Yes. And also, it's not just after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. We did this already in 2006, for example, we pulled the oil fund out of Wall Street in the USA due to poor working conditions. You can have your opinion on that. But it's there to claim that using the oil fund with wisdom and common sense because you don't want to invest in the example I brought up, which is probably a genocide in Gaza, is not radical. And also, it's not true that 96% of the population disagrees, even if 96% of the population doesn't vote for my party, because 8 out of 10 think that even if you earn less money on it in the oil fund, you should pull the oil fund out of investments in violations of international law. So it's not a super radical thought.

[Simen Velle]: But you think 8 out of 10 agree with you. No, what I said was that 96% of Norwegians are sufficiently with it that they don't vote for the Green Party. And that's a fantastic statistic that I happily live with. But if I can answer in this two-against-one debate, I just want to start by saying that Caterpillar is not an extreme exponent of human rights violations. You make it sound like Caterpillar sent its workers down to Gaza to tear down houses. Caterpillar builds bulldozers. The IDF bought those bulldozers. Should we then ban Microsoft from being part of the oil fund because the IDF uses Excel in a way? I really don't know where these boundaries should go. That's why the Labour Party and Frp, your fantastic adults in the Labour Party, voted through in the Storting that we should review the ethics. I think that's a great thing. Absolutely super. We have to have some boundaries, but what I am skeptical of is exactly what you two describe, which is that Norway should go outside the community of nations in Europe and have its own self-directed course in foreign policy when it comes to managing the fund. That is risk in business. It's going to cost money, and I think it's a bad idea for Norway to stick its head out and say "look how tough we are".

[Host]: Can I ask, this is a difficult question, but can you imagine a company or an activity where you thought the Norwegian oil fund cannot be a part of?

[Simen Velle]: Yes. For example, we have not invested in nuclear weapons programs.

[Host]: Yes, right. So it's basically just a question of where the line is drawn.

[Simen Velle]: Yes. And that's why I think Gaute's rhetoric becomes so extreme when he starts talking about brown children and such, because that's not what it's about. It's about whether you set the boundary there or there, and the Progress Party believes the money should be earned and that we should have as little politics as possible.

[Gaute Skjerve]: But can you explain what the difference is between, for example, investing in Russian innovation and that several countries backed it? Do you mean that it's always a prerequisite for foreign policy that you only do what all other countries do at the same time?

[Simen Velle]: No, but I think that line, the line Norway has had for many years, is that we are not the first country in the world, we are not the last country in the world, but we are part of the beginning of the trend, but in no way the first to stick our head out. That is a wise assessment for a small country of 5 million inhabitants without a defense.

[Gaute Skjerve]: We are quite few. We shouldn't get tough because we have Ståle Solbakken and 22,000 billion, but we are quite small. We could be invaded. We must remember that. Gaute, you had a comment, and then I have a question for you.

[Gaute Skjerve]: History tells us quite a lot. For example, very many rich Norwegians and Germans invested heavily in the companies that killed people in World War II. Today, they are seen as traitors and many were convicted in courts, because it was unethical to make money from people dying. And I'm glad that Norway does not invest in nuclear weapons, nor chemical weapons. Certain types of things. But clearly, many of the equipment, for example bulldozers in Gaza, which are directly produced to tear down the homes of tens of thousands of children, have obvious consequences for those people. And then it's not a radical standpoint that perhaps Norway should not make its money on exactly those bulldozers. I think Simen Velle is a bit too much about following the rest, following the flow of the USA, Israel, Hungary, etc., it's not a great argument.

[Simen Velle]: And the other thing, I think it's too banal. Yes, who should you follow? Is it the EU? It's certainly not the USA, Israel, and Hungary. 80% of the world's countries agree on this. And your rhetoric is so out there, it's as if you describe it as Caterpillar primarily makes IDF bulldozers effective on Palestinians. Gaute, Gaute, now I'm going to say something I said a lot last autumn. Was it me talking? Uh, it's not like they primarily produce something that is to be used in Gaza. It's one of the world's largest companies that produces, for example, bulldozers. They produce excavators that are used all over Oslo too. It's pretty much like saying you should ban the oil fund from putting its money in Microsoft because Benjamin Netanyahu reads things written in Word. That's a completely out there thing to say. What you must base it on is that our money should not directly violate human rights. The Oil Fund already believes that. If there are companies that break that rule, they are frozen out of the Oil Fund. And Norwegian politicians agree, your superiors in the Labour Party agree with the Progress Party that we should review those rules. And we are doing that. I don't understand what the problem is.

[Host]: Ok, thanks, Simen. It doesn't have to get angry. Geez.

[Simen Velle]: Ok.

[Host]: Uh, Frøya, you had a little comment, and then I want to start on the question. I'm trying to find this boundary, you see.

[Frøya Sursetter]: Yes, but because we have actually had a quite effective tool for finding that boundary.

[Host]: Ok. But do you use it now for the arms industry, yes or no? Because you make fun of the thing about children in Gaza. But that is actually the concrete thing used as a sales pitch for many weapons manufacturers who are allowed to... it says "tested in war". And they use Gaza to advertise this when they sell weapons to nations. So actually the whole war zone is used in a capitalist machine that...

[Frøya Sursetter]: And all other war zones.

[Host]: ...which is quite not ok. But we have had a tool to investigate which companies are legitimate to invest in and which ones one should pull out of because they obviously violate, for example, basic principles of international law. But that tool, when you say review it, what has actually been done is that it has been paused now, so there is no ethics council to ensure that investments don't happen where we don't want them to happen. So I just don't understand why you think we can... It's much better that we have proper constructive discussions about which companies should be pulled out of, which ones we might keep, because it's obviously difficult balances. But now we have frozen the one tool we had to have a constructive discussion about precisely that.

[Simen Velle]: But "constructive", I think that debate was characterized by people being quite nasty to each other. Cecilie Huset was very upset, at least.

[Host]: Yes, that might be. That's perhaps another discussion, and one must be a bit nice to the person who is the one standing there, because there are naturally very strong emotions involved. I don't think if Hellestveit can't stand it, I don't know who will. And she is supposed to be responsible for the morality of the oil fund.

[Simen Velle]: Mhm.

[Host]: Yes. So we have to automate that. We must have a robot we can yell at.

[Gaute Skjerve]: Uh, yes, let's take the arms industry first. We send weapons worth billions to Ukraine. Acknowledge the function of weapons is to defend, right. But we still don't want to invest in the arms industry. So we don't want to invest in those who make them, but once they are made, we buy them and send to Ukraine, or make some ourselves. That should be said. The arms industry, is it a total no-go for the oil fund in your opinion?

[Frøya Sursetter]: For us, yes, and the reason is that the arms industry in most countries in the world has as its task to make as much money as possible. So it's cool to show that your rocket launcher has blown up houses into pieces at the checkout. That's where it's tested and works. That's a type of ethical consideration that we Norwegians largely don't think is very cool. Therefore, we make our own weapons which we have very strict requirements on where they can be sold. For example, it is forbidden to sell Norwegian weapons to Israeli soldiers. That's a policy I think is smart. But if the Oil Fund were to invest in the arms industry freely, then you would invest in masses of companies that displaced people all over the world, in Sudan, in Congo, and so on, and it's wise of Norway not to make money on exactly that industry.

[Host]: What about Simen Velle's take? We just earn that money. We should earn as much money as possible. And then, instead of talking about being almost apolitical with the oil fund and that we must admit we might have to be a bit political, go full in and be like, you know what, we are super political, and Norway, with the help of the oil fund, can become one of the biggest lobbyists in the USA, for example. Frøya, couldn't you do more for the climate if you used oil fund money to install the right president in the USA who gets the USA back into the Paris Agreement, than by buying a bit of wind power?

[Frøya Sursetter]: You come with many exciting ideas per billion.

[Frøya Sursetter]: You come with many exciting ideas per billion.

Yes, I think it's an important principle that the Oil Fund should be used to earn as much money as possible. And that has been part of the point. But I still think that making assessments of whose money you want to earn is completely legitimate. And I actually think Gaute spoke well about it. I am not interested in money that is supposed to be our common piggy bank here in Norway being used to tear down houses in the West Bank in Palestine, for example. Uh, and these are completely legitimate discussions. I think it's a bit strange to hear Simen in this discussion act as if it's completely outrageous not to want that. It's not. There are quite a few in Norway who agree that we want some form of ethical management of how we use our money. And I don't think there's anything radical about that at all.

[Host]: I understand. But do you two also understand, Simen? I understand Simen very well emotionally. And I remember from the "flight shame" thing. Yes, I mean it, and from the "flight shame" stuff where people are like "yes, but remember this and that and the other", and then it's like "yes, yes, but I'm going there and it's fun".

[Simen Velle]: Ok.

[Host]: You know what I mean.

[Simen Velle]: Yes, I understand very well. Now there was a lot at once here. I think you are asking for a bit of both, when you first complain about how the ethics council is composed, and then you want a review of the ethics council, and then that's also wrong. It was you who triggered the Storting in that discussion. So it's a bit of having it both ways. I find it difficult to relate to. We are reviewing the Oil Fund's ethics. It will be better than it was. I think that's positive. Two. I think it's very special to say on one hand that no, we shouldn't make money from, for example, Lockheed Martin making weapons. But they can make money from it, because what Frøya and Gaute don't say is that we are sitting and negotiating defense policy in the Storting as we speak. And then the Norwegian Storting is buying, with our common tax money and money from the oil fund, from Lockheed Martin. And that's not money we earn. That's money that Lockheed Martin takes out in dividends.

[Gaute Skjerve]: Yes. And we don't even get a chance to vote in the general assembly there.

[Simen Velle]: And that, that brings me to my third point, if I may, which is about using one's influence. That's what the oil fund does. When we are invested through the oil fund in companies all over the world, we are part of shareholder meetings. We sit on boards around the world. And in those boards, we use the influence we have to push through the worldviews Norway has. No, we are...

[Gaute Skjerve]: Well, it could certainly be more, we only have about 1% of the total stock value in the world, but we are influential in a host of companies around the world. And I think that's also a positive thing about the Oil Fund. But the Oil Fund has also sat and argued against Norway's adopted climate goals, for example, in companies they have been invested in. So it's not correct that the Oil Fund goes around defending Norwegian values or Norwegian... fact check. Have they argued against it, or have they just voted in consultation with the board there?

[Simen Velle]: I can look into that.

[Host]: No, I think they just... I don't think they care that much about those meetings. Uh, ok. It's possible to have multiple thoughts at the same time. Uh, I am super happy that the oil fund exists, invested smartly, has earned an insane amount of money for Norway. It makes it possible to build football fields and nursing homes and have people working in kindergartens. At the same time, it must be allowed to have an ethical debate about what we should make money from. We have had that since the dawn of time. Right now, nuclear weapons are not allowed. The fact that we have a legitimate debate about whether one should invest in Israeli occupation and Palestine, that must be allowed to have an opinion. But I think the problem with the Progress Party often is that with one hand they bandage you, with the other hand they stab you. You finance the arms industry abroad, at the same time you give aid to clean up the mess. And then the politicians' task is to think about the whole. How do we create peace in the world? Well, not by investing in companies that tear down houses in the West Bank again. So I think if you are going to conduct aid policy, you cannot on the other side simultaneously finance those who drive the war forward. Therefore, Norway must think holistically. And that is the point of an ethical standard for the oil fund. We should do the same... But are you then against the Labour Party contributing to buying weapons from, for example, Lockheed Martin for Norwegian troops? No, it's not the same.

[Gaute Skjerve]: No, there is a difference between investments (which are about us only making money) and, for example, financing weapons for Norwegian soldiers on the border. And I wish we could build all that ourselves, but we don't have an arms industry to produce AK47s. When you buy from them, you give money into the cash register of that weapons manufacturer, which they use to make more weapons. So, the money just takes a slightly different path.

[Simen Velle]: In principle, I wish no one needed soldiers. But Russia is waging war against all of Europe, so we must protect ourselves. And then we need weapons. And the least problem then is that we buy weapons that Norwegians use to defend our own.

[Gaute Skjerve]: And perhaps it's a good idea that one of the few large funds in the world with ethical rules is heavily invested in precisely that.

[Host]: So, ok. Uh, ok. So, either it's just a convenient argument, or you are speaking a bit for Simen that the Oil Fund should, instead of having 1% in all sorts of companies, go up to, I don't know, get 51% of Lockheed Martin and then control it a bit. Why not? Then you at least have power.

[Simen Velle]: No, I... Yes, but I don't mean that I as a politician should sit and say this company is for, that company is against. I mean we should make some frameworks and some rules.

[Gaute Skjerve]: Yes. As an elected politician, I should keep my fingers off. Because if there's one thing the Storting is bad at, it's economic investments. The list of how the Storting places money wrong is long as a bad year. But you set the principles, right.

[Simen Velle]: My point is, MDG also wants to take money out of the oil fund and invest it in climate solutions. That's also a bad idea. What we should do is let people with PhDs in finance invest our money. They are better than us. End of story. And then we can extract and use the fiscal rule and enjoy ourselves and finance welfare, prosperity, aid, and all sorts of other things, once they have earned the money.

[Gaute Skjerve]: But if the three of us sit down and start figuring out what the Oil Fund should invest in, that cash box will be empty before we get old. I'm absolutely sure of that.

[Frøya Sursetter]: I just want to say it's a bit funny that Frp sits here and says "relax folks, we have to listen to those with PhDs". It's most people who say we should use money on aid, which Frp wanted to cut relatively.

[Simen Velle]: But the point here. Jesus Christ. No, but you reduce the debate to nonsense.

[Host]: Next question. No.

[Gaute Skjerve]: Yes, but we have already discussed the debate a lot. They think we must have a much more morally conscious relationship to where we place investments, and it's part of a round, so they must be allowed to respond to the jabs that come.

[Host]: And then you come with two jabs and then we move on.

[Simen Velle]: Take a short one then.

[Frøya Sursetter]: Everyone knows the Progress Party is not against aid, and everyone knows the Progress Party values people with PhDs. That was incredibly low. The point here is that you are for creating a fund that earns less money. Good luck when you become pensioners.

[Simen Velle]: No, but I say very clearly that politicians should not decide what we invest in. That's not right. We should say what we absolutely should not invest in. Which companies the oil fund invests in, that is fortunately the oil fund's job, but politicians have a bit of ethical responsibility that our tax money doesn't go to finance, for example, genocide, nuclear weapons elimination, cluster bombs, etc. Because you say for example, and that's where it gets difficult and a bit troublesome. Ok, a private company in the USA that specializes... you are for free approach choice, or in the USA, the possibility to choose whether to have an abortion. And in the USA, you have private actors involved. So you have a private company that offers abortions to those who want it. Can we invest in it?

[Frøya Sursetter]: That must be figured out by the oil fund.

[Host]: Yes. Ok. We agree on that.

[Simen Velle]: Yes. The oil fund decides what they buy.

[Frøya Sursetter]: They say what they are absolutely not allowed to invest in.

[Host]: Ok. And then the advertisements from this company go like this: "You've always dreamt of going to India. Why kill the dream when you can kill the baby?" Would Norway still invest? This company has very good prospects because they offer very good abortion solutions right up to the last second.

[Simen Velle]: I think I'm moving into "no comment" territory.

[Host]: Yes, I actually have a slightly serious point with this too. I just need the other slogan, which is uh "No, screw it". The point is really that you can have some principles. For example, there is no principled objection to a medical provider in the USA that offers some abortion services, but with such an advertising campaign... uh yes, here's the other one: "You can still get the masters degree, kill the baby, not the dream." uh with such an advertising campaign, it might awaken a kind of outrage and popular protest on social media that would create engagement against it, and we would have to get out of it if it turned out Norway owned, for example, 10% of it and profited from these abortions.

[Frøya Sursetter]: No, well, one thing is the feelings it evokes, but actually, I experience that it's a bit of a fallacy that the discussions we have had about the oil fund in Norway have primarily been based on feelings. They have been based on genuine political disagreements about what to invest in. And there are very many in Norway who think that you should not invest in things that, as mentioned several times, are taking lives in Gaza in an ongoing genocide. That's not that controversial.

[Host]: Finally, a predicted "silver wave" is washing over our country. And apologies to those who might be very old and call it a wave, but there are many of them. And uh this means that the economy in Norway going forward will be tighter, and we have known this for a long time. Uh can you just take a quick round on what kind of economy this audience, who are around 18 years old I think, will have when they are 45? And what will you do to achieve that economy? We can start with you, Gaute?

[Gaute Skjerve]: The vast majority of Norwegians will have it at least as good as today, in the world's best welfare system, and earn very high wages, actually the highest in the world, if we do what we do today. The problem is if inequalities become too large, so that, for example, a lot of the surplus goes to a few, like in the USA with the 1% getting almost all the surplus, that must not happen in Norway. So I would tax that 1% a bit harder and redistribute it. I can allow myself to say that there is a French economist named Piketty who has proposed an 80% work tax against all 25-year-olds getting 1.5 million kroner in cash when they turn 25. It's a bit radical, but a type of arrangement where we can distribute money to activity in the economy to ordinary people is a dream. But I really hope we manage to maintain high wages, ensure the world's best welfare system, and perhaps take a bit better care of grandma, but we have also moved on that.

[Host]: Yes. Ok. You talk a bit fast, but we tax the top more. But is there enough money among the top? Nikolai Tangen. Is there enough money among the top? No, you shouldn't take a position on tax policy. You don't need to.

[Simen Velle]: Simen Velle, tell. At the risk of sounding like the finance minister. That sounded wildly inflationary, just giving half cash to all young people.

[Gaute Skjerve]: If you take it from other Norwegians.

[Simen Velle]: That is, something being in an account or locked up in a company, versus people flying around and spending all the money on all sorts of other things. I think it could easily be inflationary. But, uh, that wasn't my point. Uh, I agree with Gaute. I think Norway will continue to be one of the most beautiful countries in the world. Uh, but I'm not very worried that someone won't. What I am worried about is that we can no longer create winners. What we unfortunately see in Norway compared to some other countries in Europe, especially our Scandinavian neighbors, is that they are much better at cultivating entrepreneurs than us. And we are bad at that in Norway. Uh, and let those who have a good idea get the chance to turn that idea into jobs. Uh, and we are now in a time where several hundred thousand Norwegians during our working lives will leave the oil industry. Whether you vote Frp or MDG, it will happen. And then the question is, what will we live on when that time comes? Uh, and I am genuinely concerned that the tax setup that the other two parties here are proposing will kill the dreams of a generation of young Norwegians, to put it bluntly. Uh, I met just last week a young entrepreneur, a 17-year-old named Sebastian, who has created a company called Youth on Demand. He is now moving to Stockholm.

[Gaute Skjerve]: It has changed its name to Trive.

[Simen Velle]: Yes. Or Trive, I think it actually is.

[Gaute Skjerve]: Tribe, yes, of course.

[Simen Velle]: But, yes, it's a cool startup. My point is quite simple. He doesn't have what it takes to succeed in Norway. Because that company suddenly has money. He doesn't have much income. Not much turnover. Not much profit. No taxable income. But on paper, that company is worth money because it's good. And we can't carry on like this. So I think if we can create a society where we cheer for entrepreneurs the same way we cheer for our national football team, then we will create the jobs needed when the oil disappears. And then we have an oil fund with hopefully some sensible investments that cover the rest. A little battle cry for the hospital, in the same way. We can make that one day.

[Host]: Like we have for Nusa and such. Ok. Frøya, finally, uh, what is your appeal here? How will you ensure that these people get an economy like their parents? And you know that generations that get less than the generation before, they get furious.

[Frøya Sursetter]: Mhm. One gets very angry, and rightly so. I think perhaps the most important thing we do, which Gaute has already touched on, is to continue to give people opportunities to create good lives. Regardless of whether you come from a low-income family or a high-income family. And I think it's a bit of a short conclusion that removing all the taxes that the Progress Party wants to remove for those who have the most money is a good solution for those sitting in this room to have a better future. And I think it's a lot about people getting the opportunity to buy their first home. It's important to clean up the housing market and make it so that everyone can enter the housing market, regardless of who their parents are. It's about giving people the opportunity to go to work. And there is a problem now that there are very many who have taken higher education, have a master's degree, who can't get a job that matches their skills. So, I think those are the two main challenges that it will be important to sit down and work on politically. And, Norway is the world's best country to live in. I think that will continue there too.

[Host]: Yes or no? Will these people, when they are 45, have to work more to buy the same things as people who are 45 today?

[Gaute Skjerve]: No.

[Host]: No, you think...

[Gaute Skjerve]: The purchasing power of Norwegians will go up, as long as we have strong unions.

[Host]: What do you think? It's a difficult question.

[Simen Velle]: Ok. I think it's fine.

[Host]: Yes. But you're like flipping a coin. I'm very unsure.

[Simen Velle]: Yes. It's often a sign of a wise man to dare to say "I don't know".

[Host]: Frøya.

[Frøya Sursetter]: I also think people will...

[Host]: Yes, I say I don't know. No, I say it will probably be fine. We do something smart with the oil money, don't we, Tangen? Yes, very good. Ok, thank you very much to the panel and thank you to all of you who came.