Trillion Dollar Baby review by Chris Fowler, Canberra Times
I have been reflecting on the squandered opportunities by successive governments over the past 20 or so years [or more] to establish a sovereign wealth fund similar to that of Norway.
Others have written and spoken about it to little avail, notably Paul Cleary (in his book Trillion Dollar Baby) and on ABC Radio National, Late Night Live (31.8.16) when he said: “The really big lesson from Norway is not the size of its trillion–dollar fund; it is the way every single krone of surplus revenue has been converted into foreign currency.
“Norway has a commodity-based economy like Australia’s, but it has built a giant hedge to help manage the boom times and protect against the inevitable periods of subdued commodity prices. This explains why Norway is a creditor nation that has almost doubled its net foreign assets to around 185 per cent of GDP since 2010. That is the equivalent of Australia having amassed net foreign assets worth $3 trillion. Instead, we owe the world $1 trillion.”
This spectacular failure is a pox on all our governments and they should all be ashamed of themselves.
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