BANKING

The banking system in Norway is quite different than that of America. Norway stopped using checks years ago. Everything is now paid for with debit cards or electronic transfers and hardly anyone uses cash.  In fact, some bank branches and many businesses won’t even accept cash.  A new law is now in the works that would force people to use only credit or debit cards on items costing the equivalent of a hundred dollars or more – as a way of cutting down on “black money”- cash acquired doing work under the table.

All bills in Norway, from every company, including charities, have a standardized payment form so it’s easy to get the hang of how to pay them because they all look identical. For those people who aren’t connected to the Internet, they can go to the bank and a teller will pay everything for them from their computer.  It costs a bit more to do it that way, but nothing in the Norwegian banking system is free.  At least I’m getting nearly 4% on my savings account over there, though.

It’s a little bit disconcerting to me to walk into banks and see all the couches and areas in which to “relax,” but it’s necessary because based on my experience, the average amount of time a person spends waiting in the bank, is at least thirty minutes.  I guess it’s their way of encouraging on-line banking.  They have a “take a number” system so everyone just lounges around waiting for their number to be up.  It feels more like a doctor’s office waiting room, with magazines and newspapers sitting on coffee tables, than a bank. 

Every bank I’ve been to in Norway just has one teller working and they never seem to be in a rush to move on to the next customer.  One helpful thing many Norwegian banks have though is an automated teller that’s more sophisticated than the ATMs we have in America.  Norwegian ATM’s inside the bank accept cash and coins. 

Once when I was “relaxing” in the bank, I just sat with my eyes closed and listened.  It sounded a little like Vegas in the old days when the coins clinked down into the metal hopper under the slot machines.  There was a line-up of customers bringing in bags of coins and dumping them into the machine, which counts and sorts them and automatically deposits the money into their account.  A separate slot accepts the paper money, counts and deposits it as well.  I guess Norway needs to make it easy to get rid of the cash, since it’s obvious they are on a fast track to becoming the first cashless country in the world.  Scary.

Television

Twenty years ago, no violence whatsoever was allowed on Norwegian television.  Any scene with even so much as a slap to the face was edited out, as America edits out sex scenes and cursing. Nudity and sex have always been OK on Norwegian TV, though, because Norwegians consider that just a natural part of life. And swear words have never been bleeped out because Norwegians pride themselves on true “freedom of speech.”  Back then, however, even violent movies were completely banned from the country because the government didn’t want violence to influence their culture.  Yet, they studied in great detail the history of the Vikings, so go figure.

Norway was a much different place in the 1990s than it is today.  It’s shocking how much has changed in just two decades.  Many of those changes, I believe, have been from the influence of American television on that otherwise isolated and pristine culture.

In the 1990s there were only a few public television stations that broadcast minimal hours a day.  Think PBS – a children’s program in the morning and news in the evening. A movie might be shown once a week, but it was more likely from the BBC than Hollywood. 

Nowadays, every house in Norway has cable television with many disgusting programs not at all suitable for children, but they watch them anyway.  Many televisions are on non-stop with hundreds of channels from around the world available at the touch of a button.  American TV is the most popular, with The Simpsons and South Park (a raunchy adult cartoon), the biggest hits with the kids.  Most programs have Norwegian subtitles and only the littlest children’s programs are dubbed.  It’s easy to spot the grade school kids who watch a lot of TV because their English is much better than their peers.

In 1990, one of our relatives had foster children.  I was curious why someone would lose custody of their kids, since the whole Norwegian culture revolves around family life.  I inquired - was it drugs? Abuse? Alcoholism?  No, came the answer, the parents had bought a satellite dish and allowed the children to sit in front of the TV day and night.  The children weren’t getting their homework done or going outside to play with other children.  The government thought that was no way to raise a child, so they put them in foster care until the parents realized the error of their ways and received counseling. My how things have changed. 

Expectations

Years ago when my husband and I were on our honeymoon, traveling around in a motorhome for two years, we suggested to Cousin Odd (pronounced Ode), Kory’s favorite Norwegian relative, that he should fly to America and join us so we could show him around our country a little.  He and his wife, Turid, thought spending Christmas in Florida would be a hoot, so we planned our travels around their desires and we headed to Miami just before the holidays. 

When we called Odd in Norway to find out their exact travel plans so we’d know when to pick them up at the airport, we were in shock to learn they weren’t flying in to Miami after all, because all those tickets were sold out.  They researched it a little and had to go with Plan B, so they bought tickets to fly into New Orleans, instead.  Odd said New Orleans didn’t look like it was too far away from Miami on the map. 

Norwegians have a little problem with perspective, and none of the ones we’ve hosted in our home over the years, can ever comprehend just how big America actually is. 

It took us two full days of driving the motorhome out of southern Florida and up to New Orleans in order to pick them up, and then two more days of driving back down to Miami and the Florida Keys in order for them to have Christmas in their desired location.  They had no idea such a small space on a map would mean so much time on the road. 

We’ve had many Norwegians visitors over the years and some ask if we can take them to Disneyland for the day, or maybe North Dakota to have lunch with their other relatives, like it was just down the road.

Just this week we sent off our third set of visitors from Norway this year.  I was confronted again with the problem of perspective and the inevitable disappointments Norwegians have when they visit America for the first time. 

They all think the distances between places are too great and we spend way too much time in our cars.  Our latest guests thought the hour long drive to Seattle was a bit much.  When we asked what they wanted to see while here, we knew we were in trouble.  They hadn’t fully understood that maps of America and Norway use different scales.  It was difficult to meet their expectations because all they wanted to do was to go to a Dolly Parton concert and for us to show them around New York City.

Tax Free

Taxes, skat (pronounced “scot” in Norwegian), are the life-blood of the Norwegian social system.  They generate enough cash to give all their citizens things they can actually see and benefit from like free healthcare and higher education, guaranteed retirement, and roads throughout the land.  I know Americans don’t have as many direct benefits from the taxes we pay, but then again, 55% of Americans don’t pay any federal tax at all.  In Norway, even the little old ladies on a minimum pension still pay 10%.  Surprisingly, though, there are some in Norway that pay no taxes whatsoever, but it comes with a price.

The Svalbard Islands lie in the Arctic Ocean very near the top of the world and they belong to Norway.  Norway recently created an ice vault there to house samples of all the world’s grains and seeds, just in case there are people left after an apocalypse that want to grow food.  Norwegians are forward thinkers.  But they are also smart in realizing not many people want to live that far north, so if they do, they pay no taxes to the government.  It’s Norway’s only tax-free zone.  Still, there’s no line up of people who want to move there.

Way up north, on the mainland of Norway, wage earners only pay a flat 10% income tax for the same reason.  The government doesn’t want everyone living down south or only in cities, so this is how they create incentives to keep people in the locations they consider a “hardship.”

Norway also has many “hardship” jobs as well, so they compensate workers through the tax code.  For all those that work on oil rigs in the North Sea, they only have to pay a flat 10% tax, rather than the 36% everyone else pays.  Even those employed by the Norwegian ferry system, Hurtigruten, just pay 10% tax because their shift is three weeks on, three weeks off, and that’s considered a hardship.   Nearly all jobs in Norway are union jobs and those unions know how to negotiate.

There are a few other tax-free sources of income available in Norway and many people take advantage of them.  Rental income is taxed at normal tax rates, unless the place that’s being rented out is located in the taxpayer’s home, then it’s tax free money.  I guess the politicians feel if you are so desperate for extra cash that you’d rent out a room in your house, you shouldn’t have to pay taxes on it.  Most people just build a small apartment in their basement which helps pay their mortgage.   

But with their 26% sales tax, no one in the country gets off totally “scot free.” 

News Flash

This just in:

I won Second Place in State for my column Nuggets from Norway in the LaConner Weekly News!  I got the award tonight at the Washington Newspaper Publishers Association awards ceremony!  Woo hoo!

I also won 3rd place for "Best General Feature Story" for an article I wrote about connecting two long lost buddies.

Our hometown newspaper won 15 awards and they are the smallest of all papers in Washington State so we were up against much bigger competition.  Way to go LaConner Weekly News!

The Swedes

When it comes to sports, Norwegians are very competitive.  It’s pretty obvious when the Winter Olympics roll around.  Per capita, I’m sure they win more medals than any other country.  But what drives them isn’t necessarily the desire to win, it’s mostly the desire to just beat the Swedes.  If Norway comes in 4^th place in a competition, they are fine with that, as long as the Swedes come in 5^th.  

The rivalry between Norway and Sweden has been going on for centuries.  Ever since Norway went to war against Sweden for their independence in the early 1800s, and won, Norwegians have felt they are the superior race.

In today’s economy, Norway has many jobs they think are beneath them and it tickles them to no end that Swedish citizens come live in Norway and do their dirty work.  Sweden has twice the population of Norway.  In Oslo alone there are over 50,000 Swedes – that’s ten percent of that city’s population. 

I saw a news clip recently that highlighted Swedish workers in Norway.  It showed a bunch of Swedes sitting around peeling bananas.  The bananas were then sent into a squishing machine and I’m not sure what became of them afterwards, but the Norwegians we were with at the time, just howled in delight at the sight of the Swedes sitting there peeling bananas all day long.  It’s so beneath a Norwegian to do such a thing.

Norwegians like Sweden though because their prices are so much cheaper, so many head east to buy alcohol, cigarettes and groceries.  And Swedes are happy to work in Norway because the pay there is as much as three times higher than in Sweden, so it’s a kind of symbiotic relationship.

Norwegian TV includes many Swedish channels, but Swedish TV only has one Norwegian channel.  Norwegians take that as an insult. Norwegians are proud they can understand Swedish, but offended that the bulk of Swedes can’t understand Norwegian, even though the languages are almost identical.  This only feeds into the notion that Norwegians think Swedes are stupid.  And the fact that there certainly aren’t any Norwegians moving to Sweden to peel bananas all day, proves the point all the more.

One time my husband, Kory, and I were visiting an old fishing village and we walked past an outbuilding that looked to be hundreds of years old.  The big door was locked, but the old skeleton key was hanging on a nail right on the doorframe in plain sight.  I pointed to the key and asked Kory, “What's the point of that?”  He responded like a true born and bred Norwegian when he answered, “It’s to keep the Swedes out.”