How Countries Waste Trillions

Added: 2026-05-26

[00:00:00]There is a way that it happens, which is massive, massive natural resources that are really, really well managed. So, for example, Saudi Arabia, huge oil reserves. If you can defend it, if you can have a a benevolent dictatorship that splits it. Norway did really well with the way they had their sovereign wealth fund. But then you've got Australia, which is insanely resource rich, but terrible at managing it. They do stupid stuff like give away their gas and subsidize their minerals and they're dumb as right? I say this as an Australian. Right? [laughter] Our government, you couldn't pick dumber individuals to run a country that is sitting on trillions of dollars worth of natural resources. You couldn't screw it up more. Or you could, but barely. Yes, the answer is there are scenarios where you can have widespread affluence and equality, but it comes from having a huge underlying natural resource base that you sell to the rest of the world and then you live off it.