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>I'd like to point out a HUGE fallacy in this "simple" plan -- it only works in low population high natural capital resource areas. Alaska and Norway happen to be relatively remote/cold places with an abundance natural gas/oil. Norway's 1T dollar fund would be comical at US scale.

What makes natural resources different from capital such that these wealth funds work with natural resources but not capital?

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Probably something to do with the rent seeking problem. It’s wealth tied mostly to possessing rights to exploit valuable land, not to the labor or ingenuity of people.

this ^

Value is value -- for sure

but Value derived from luck of the draw (e.g. Norway's current citizens banking on their ancestors settling in a land rich in oil).

Frame it this way -- would Saudi Arabia be as wealthy as it is today without Oil? Do you think their social and political structure would have produced equivalent wealth as their oil companies?

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