Speaking about how clever Norway was.
Juan Pablo Pérez Alfonso (1903-1979), a Venezuelan minister and one of the funders of the OPEC used to say that oil is ''la merda del diablo" (the sh... of the devil). This because oil seems to generate in the collective psyche of the elites and populace the idea that the pure rent that it generates is there to be taken leading to the erosion of the democratic institutions, corruption and a poorly diversified economy and in most cases to a pile of debt. If memory does not fail me, in Saudi Arabia about 90% of their revenue still comes from oil notwithstanding two decades of a policy directed at the diversification of their economy.
Among the 20 tops oil exporters 16 are dictatorships and three (Russia, Venezuela and Mexico) very weak democracies.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/d...ries-must-hope-none-is-found-in-their-waters/
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