Skip to main content
Øystein Olsen

Øystein Olsen

Public servant and former Governor of Norges Bank

Sep 8, 2026

1:45
Could you explain, first of all, why you and your co-author wrote this book?
1:50
Thank you, David, and thank you for having this opportunity and this, this conversation with you.
1:55
And, and you're, you're quite right.
1:57
We've become a very rich country, and there are many reasons, of course, but the reasons that dominates compared to other countries is that we have this huge oil wealth, which we have been able to develop over time and exploit oil and gas resources, and to do that in a very, in a relatively sensible way.
2:14
We haven't spent it all.
2:16
We have actually been relatively restrictive to u-use the oil revenues in, in a sense that we have actually limited the use of oil revenues to the actual return.
2:27
So we have sort of preserved the wealth for coming generations, and in, in a sense that we have transformed a large part of the natural resources in the North Sea and in the sea in general to a huge financial wealth, which we mentioned, the Sovereign Wealth Fund of Norway, which we can call the Oil Fund, which it's what it is.
5:35
I think you say he might have used these phrase, "The Vikings turn to weaklings." So could you take both of those points and just talk about those, please? Also in the light of your first chapter, which is called Everything Was Better Before.
28:41
Det er, det er det vi også det, det er et av hovedpoengene våre i denne boken.
28:45
Din tolkning av vårt budskap i boken da, som går litt utover alle faktafeilene, det er helt riktig.
28:50
Han har truffet en nerve.
28:51
Det er flere stemmer der ute som, som vi sammenligner i hvert fall ikke Martin Beck Holte med noen andre enkeltpersoner.
28:59
Ingen er jo sammenlignbar med Trump.
29:00
Ingen over, ingen ved siden.
29:02
Han er ekstrem.

14 MINS LATER

42:44
Hva tenker du her, Olesen?

We value your privacy

We use cookies to understand how you use our platform and to improve your experience. Click “Accept All” to consent, or “Decline non-essential” to opt out of non-essential cookies. Read our Privacy Policy.