Well, investing their surplus into Facebook/META (among many other stonks) is a pretty risky trade.

With that much money they pretty much have to invest in every publicly traded company.

Famously saved by a former Iraqi petroleum executive, who knew about the resource curse:

https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.2604105

While that sounds like an alluring narrative (ie. oil executive from country that squandered oil windfall convinces country that recently discovered oil not squander its oil windfall), I doubt that's how it actually played out. "Investing oil windfall rather than blowing it" isn't exactly a novel idea that only a former Iraqi petroleum executive can come up with. I'm sure other people in government must have had the same idea. Meanwhile the article itself only says this with regards to his involvement:

>He was an instrumental force behind the Norwegian government's decision to establish a national oil company, StatOil, and an independent industry regulator.

While I don't doubt he played a non-zero role in making it happen, I'd expect more details about his involvement (eg. meetings with ministers) if he actually played a significant role.

This is honestly such a bizarre degree of skepticism for something so widely reported, I’ll try not to impute what might be motivating it. Farouk Al-Kasim was knighted by the King of Norway for his efforts in this of all things, so no, not really. You’re quite wide of the mark. His guidance was also shaped more by the experience of Netherlands in the 60s than Iraq, as is cited in the article.

Norway had successfully georgist tax policies in place for hydropower for half a century at that point. He was not fighting as much of an uphill battle as he would almost anywhere else:

https://slimemoldtimemold.com/2022/05/17/norway-the-once-and... https://progressandpoverty.substack.com/p/norways-sovereign-...

(Update: This is not to detract from his achievement, but to harp on the fact that Georgism is one of the most useful, underrated tools in the economic toolboxt)

* * *

Why would Australia be doing that? What's the threat? That the foreign mining companies leave? Wouldn't that be a neutral outcome to Australia? Then the mines could be seized for non-operation somehow, and given to domestic companies with a 78% tax?

Mostly capture of politics by shareholder interests. Once a political system becomes thoroughly permeated by the interests of a specific industry (i.e. through campaign contributions, individuals moving from industry into politics, labour interests, etc.) it becomes quite hard for governments to make sensible decisions in that area, because industry interests and identity politics at some point become indistinguishable. See also Germany's car producers and the military-industrial-complex in the U.S.

See also Alberta, Canada

And howdy from Texas and its somewhat widely distributed mineral rights, creating a landed gentry that sometimes doesn't even have to deal with the inconveniences of owning said land, but often has, on a personal level, an even more vested interest in continued petroleum extraction than the average employee of Exxon-Mobil.

Yes.

Political campaign contributions is the perfect euphemism for corruption.

Corporations aren't allowed to make direct campaign contributions in Norway; political campaigns are paid for by the public.

(I've been an expat for over two decades, please correct me if anything has significantly changed - of course the companies still have political influence through choices of where to invest etc, but at least it's nowhere as blatant).

One might say it would be a waste of taxpayer money to do the same in Australia, but in the end we would be far better off by cutting off the direct corporate influence.

We might not have gotten an EV tax instead of incentives if we had politicians not directly receiving money from big petrol.

And we might just be able to raise corporate mining taxes to a far better level, clearly state that if you don't like it then just pack up and leave - and let someone else who is willing come profit instead.