Norway has set aside nearly $188K for each of its citizens

Tidewater

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Of course, you can still buy by the drink in restaurants, etc. In Oslo, they can make it over to Sweden to buy, where it's much cheaper and easier to obtain, so there's a mass exodus on Fridays to get over there and stock up. One of the funniest things about this happened in Bergen, where we spent the last five days of our last trip over. It happened that our room overlooked the nearest "Polet." (They have a habit of shortening words. An "automobile" is a "bile," pronounced "beel.") On Saturday, having already stocked up, I happened to be watching at 3:01 PM. A lady came striding down the street and approached the doors, which faced out catty-cornered on the intersection. She pulled and then rattled the door and then stepped back in defeat. One odd thing though - they let minors in the Polet and they'd sit along benches in the front of the store and beg you to buy them booze. It was apparently legal, whereas here it'd get you thrown under the jail. I'd just say "Jeg snakker ikke Norsk." ("I speak no Norwegian," which wasn't strictly true.) That ended it...
Funny. When I was in Tallinn, I saw the ferry come in from Helsinki. The Finns tax booze a LOT more than Estonians, so Finns take the ferry across to Tallinn, load up on booze (and get drunk) and then take the ferry back to Helsinki. On the other hand, Latvians tax booze less than Estonians, so Estonians in the southern part of the country drive to Latvia to stock up.
 

4Q Basket Case

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I've never been there, but have a theory: the Scandanavians tolerate 50% tax rates because they have faith that the government will be generally good stewards of the money.

With good reason, we Americans have no such faith, dating back to the founding of the country.

Irony: written as I head out the door to vote....shaking my head.
 

TIDE-HSV

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Funny. When I was in Tallinn, I saw the ferry come in from Helsinki. The Finns tax booze a LOT more than Estonians, so Finns take the ferry across to Tallinn, load up on booze (and get drunk) and then take the ferry back to Helsinki. On the other hand, Latvians tax booze less than Estonians, so Estonians in the southern part of the country drive to Latvia to stock up.
I have known several Finns, some first generation here and a couple of native-born. All of them loved their booze and were just a bit wacky also...
 

Intl.Aperture

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All this talk about alcohol in Norway piqued my interest. Here's an article that explains the situation there and in other Scandinavian countries:

https://tonic.vice.com/en_us/articl...estrictive-on-buying-booze-and-people-like-it

Displaced, this is a small view into Scandinavian life. Really not sure you'd appreciate it overall, notwithstanding their fiscal responsibility.
Yes, their citizens are fiscally responsible....fiscally responsible for every other person who lives in the country. : )
 

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