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