Going to Norway?

Maybe I’ll Go To Norway – No "X"-Hole Country

Some of the best fishing is found in the fjords of Norway.  Really, I am not kidding.  Huge Halibut. Mammoth Sea Trout.  Pollock – and we’re not talking Jackson’s splashes here.  Good eating and a fight beforehand that leaves you famished. I love to fish.  And for that reason:

I’ve been looking in to ways to emigrate to Norway. 

Not so easy.  I thought maybe as an American – coming from a beautiful soon-to-be-walled land everyone else is desperate to enter – I’d find myself quite welcome in a cold country with an average temperature in warm months in the 60’s.  Cold months might require hunkering down or learning to fish through ice many feet thick.  

Unfortunately, like most nations, I will first have to qualify for acceptance into the country of Norway. 

“If you wish to come to Norway to work, you need a residence permit. You must normally have found a job first. What residence permit you should apply for depends on your competence and the type of work you will be doing in Norway.”

https://www.udi.no/en/want-to-apply/work-immigration/?c=usa

Grrr.  My wife is a shoe-in.  A nurse with a higher education (or an engineer); no questions asked.  But then again, a health worker with some vocational training – like many of the Haitians who cared for my mother in her last days in Florida – are also acceptable.  Or, if you are a seasonal worker, like a picker of crops, forestry labor, fish processing, or restaurant work; well, you are okay to go.

I can try to get in an exchange program, but at age 70 I will not likely make the sprint, cross country skiing, or even high hurdles for which the Norwegians are so well known. 

And seafaring?  Quite honestly, I don’t know if I have the “grit” at this point in my life to do a job on the high seas that Arne Duncan or Norway would find acceptable for a permanent residency. 

Maybe I can argue that I’m a good fit.  After all, Norway is nearly 95% white – a fact and cause not lost on our current President. I just need to find the willing Scandinavian to consider making a switch.

And POTUS would prefer that Norwegians come to the United States, rather than those from “%&^# hole countries like in Africa or Haiti.  Making America Great Again requires bringing in the right kind of people, and by kind we’re talking the sub textual code color, like white.  30% of us have been waiting, a disturbed assemblage of birthers and "some fine people" who have been on hold and fruitlessly seething for the last eight years. 

It might be a hard sell.  I imagine if some hopefully foolish Norwegian named maybe Lief, Ola, or Nels is contemplating emigrating to Trump’s “Great Again” America, he’ll have to rationalize coming to a place where 28 out of 100,00 pregnancies end in death as opposed to 5 in Norway.  His average chance of dying will be reduced by nearly 4 years.  His pay will be seriously reduced, but his taxes will also be significantly cut.  Remember, Sven, your system allowed for complete health care, for which you paid and a splendid infrastructure with a payment of nearly 45% of your income.  And, of course, your free education system is considered one of the best in the world.   

You may get what you pay for in Norway, Sven, but here in U.S.A. you’ll find we try not to pay for anything or anyone else – that road in front of your house is an entitlement.  Healthcare?  Let's just say, it won't be a burden to your taxes.  

Maybe that’ s why we have double the public debt as a country than Norway.  Also, perhaps why we have nearly 20% less purchasing power than a citizen in your country despite your high taxation rates.   And when you arrive with your qualifications in hand, be intrepid, be persistent – our unemployment rate is at nearly three times Norway’s.  

http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Norway/United-States/Economy

 

Of course, your government in Norway has also made a strategic goal to become climate change neutral by 2030, not 2050 as previously planned.  Following the Paris Accords, Norway, not even a member of the EU, has made the decision to trade in Carbon emissions to lessen the impact of using coal and fossil fuels as the nation searches for means to generate renewable energy sources.  Your country has refused to wait any further for fear of what your scientists agree is a man0made increase in global temperatures.

Not here, Sven.  We don't buy into that stuff, our evolution, or free press.  In fact you’ll find the greatest assortment of pesticides and herbicides flavoring the air over our crops in the coming spring.  Climate change is fake news, my blond and blue-eyed friend.  The media is never to be believed, and we are all educated as we can afford to be - or on average nearly $25,000 in loans per student.  

And, if I am fortuitous enough to convince Sven or whoever to come here in my place, I welcome him to the current amoral leadership in the White House and spineless Congress.  Paraphrasing our leader, #45,  as you arrive on our shores, I bid you -

Velkommen til shit-hullet