Norway had a per-capita GDP 10x that of Venezuela when they launched their fund. The option was a luxury that they were granted by already being a fairly wealthy country.

Also, consider if 25% of Norway's oil revenue is sufficient to provide a basic functioning government. Now you have Norway saving 75% of their oil revenue every year, and Venezuela still sucking 5% out of other funds, resulting in a long-term extremely wealthy Norway and a destitute Venezuela.

Venezuela was the 4th highest GDP as recently as the 50s. It saw sharp declines in economic health after Chavez and Maduro.

You could ask a similar question of the UK.

This is a question I ask.

The UK policy was, effectively, 'paaarty!'

Sad but true. One shining light in this dismal situation however is that Shetland managed to do something similar to Norway: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.scotsman.com/news-2-15012/g...

Well - capitalise trade in The City of London; without the oil it's pretty clear London wouldn't have developed the way it did.

Rather than the story of financial degregulation?

Sceptical.

The UK has the same amount of oil spread across 12x as many people. Yes, the Tories wasted it but it could never have had the same impact on the whole UK that it had on Norway. Perhaps if Scotland had been independent (most of the UK's oil is in its waters) it would have been similar.

Nonetheless it would have ha some positive impact, And, while I'm as anti Tory as anyone there does not appear to have been a lot of objection to the way the oil income was handled from other parties.

And North Dakota. The resource curse can happen anywhere.

Venezuelan oil costs more per barrel to extract than Norwegian oil...