Of whose values? Demoralization of whom?

Puritans can't stand the idea that someone else might be working less and/or having more fun.

I'm not an expert, but isn't that exactly what rich people who live off interest rates do? Why is bad when a country does the same? I understand the risks mentioned, but why are they acceptable when people with capital does that?

Its bad in both cases.

Lets take the extreme, lets assume that Norway is an island and has a $50t wealth for 5m people. $10m each. Assume 2% return on that wealth, $200k a year income. Great, everyone is happy.

Who empties the bins? Or repairs the road?

You end up importing those people from elsewhere, just like the wealthy parasites do. Oil countries like Qatar are like this. It's not a good thing.

A centi-millionaire, in Qatar, Norway or New York, can live for free without doing any work, and will see their wealth grow about $10m a year off the backs of other people, people who won't earn anywhere near $10m in a lifetime.

Other people who aren't as wealthy do the work.

Imagine you are on an island with 10 billionaire CEOs and 10 people who have no net worth but know how to fish, cook, build etc.

It doesn't matter how rich the billionaires are, their wealth is worthless, the person with the skills is whats valuable.

The real numbers are $340,000 per person in the fund, which at a safe withdrawal rate would be $10-13,000 per year if turned into an income stream. So not exactly fuck you money, and there's a very long way to go before they have problems with bin collection.

It's questionable the amount of fun. Norway has fairly high depression rates and doing almost anything is very expensive. Even fully employed Norwegians on average go out to eat only a couple of times a year. They also travel less and have comparatively fewer recreational activities. I'm pretty sure that anyone living almost entirely on government assistance isn't doing much else but existing.

Norway is middle of the list of countries by rate of depression: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/depressio...

It's not that surprising people spend less time eating out and travelling since it's a very cold country.

>isn't doing much else but existing

The nerve of some people.

Seriously though, why isn't existing enough?

I am not a puritan at all

If anyone doesn't want to work it's their choice, as long as they don't expect money from anyone else

Welfare states work best when the majority of the population has that attitude. It keeps the most people in the “producer” column and fewer people in the “being supported” column.

When you have a sovereign wealth fund that invests abroad, the "producer" column can be the rest of the world.

It'll work as long as those other countries respect property rights of foreign investors.