Canada needs to set up a sovereign wealth fund. According to The Economist (Sept 6th-12th, pg 87), which is my favourite magazine and so happens to be one of my biggest influences (Along with Professor Ferguson (University of Guelph) and South Park in the spirit of full disclosure), makes some interesting arguments about sovereign wealth funds (SWF).
It stipulates that SWF's world wide are worth $2.5 Trillion. It also gives three specific examples of uses.
Norway's is aimed at transferring money to later generations long after the spike in national wealth from the oil dissipates; Chile's which uses it to save when prices and exports are high to spend when prices and exports are lower to smooth out their business cycle; and Saudi Arabia which will start buying farmland around the world to help guarantee a supply of food to the desert.
In previous articles over the past two months they have gone into more detail about the first and third examples. The latter is being developed as a cheaper and more environmentally stable way of producing food for the desert nation than their last major project of pumping desalinated ocean water in an irrigation system in the desert to produce some of the world's most expensive wheat. The first example, Norway, has a strong ethics board which monitors all the investments for environmental and social justice concerns (Completely reasonable and necessary). How could you promote rights but invest in companies that employ children in sweat shops? Individuals have no problem but governments need to be more aware. Since local governments do not have the resources to monitor all of the major projects, it is a great way for the developed world to express their concerns - by selling off their shares in unethical companies.
Another common factor in SWF is the majority of money is invested outside the country to prevent increased inflation which would reinforce the business cycle not smooth it out.
Canada needs a SWF. We need to use it to invest in Environmentally sound projects around the world. I believe we could help finance future generations, save the pension plan and meet our Kyoto obligations all with a reasonably large SWF. It is not an easy thing to implement and certainly not a band aid for all of our problems but it is a necessary step.
We need to nationalize more of the oil profits, and perhaps other primary resources eventually, so that some of the royalties can be siphoned off for this fund. We need to hire top notch investors, along with a bipartisan ethics committee, and blend the investments to have some within but most outside of the boarders.
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2 comments:
Professor Ferguson is likely the most pedantic, hideous, slovenly, arrogant, asshole that I have ever had the displeasure of learning from at Guelph. The only thing that adds credit to this article is the fact that you cite South Park as a major influence, which in my mind is cool enough to offset this.
A Canadian SWF, in my opinion, would only be acceptable if we were to nationalise the oil profits. Personally, I am fed up with these Canadian oil companies experiencing profit windfalls by free-riding off of global cartel pricing models.
The problem, however, is how to approach what a "perfectly competitive" oil price is. The fundamentals change frequently, supply is difficult to ascertain, and the model itself would be a topic of huge debate. If the feds or a think tank could figure out a PC pricing model that everyone (except obviously the Big Oil and their shareholders) could agree on I would support surtaxes in this industry. Maybe Ferguson can figure it out he thinks he knows everything anyway!
Sincerely,
Noah
The fact that he thinks he knows everything should be reason to call him an influence. Did you take History of Economic Thought? regardless. South Park is a greater influence.
I agree. I think I plainly stated the necessity to nationalise the oil royalties.
Oil companies require an incentive to remain in the industry. The investments are huge, the payoffs take years and the risk is astronomical. How many other industries have to deal with the possible overthrowing of a government and the expulsion of their company; the nationalisation of the industry from some new socialist leader; the price of their product changing by 40%+ in a year (in both directions); an entire world that is a) based on your product and b) wants to change that; the fact that your product will eventually run out; currency risk to a grand scale.
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