Something that I found particularly interesting in Chapter 13 is the observation that having natural resources does not make a country more successful or wealthy, but may actually be more harmful than helpful. Wheelan points out that Israel, who has no natural resources, is much wealthier than other Middle Eastern countries who have vast oil reserves. And Japan and Switzerland are much better off than Russia, who has far greater natural resources. This seems backwards; I would expect that resource-rich nations would naturally be wealthy from their ability to make profit off of their natural reserves.
However, Wheelan explains that having natural resources changes an economy and can actually be harmful. Mineral riches can lead a country to spend much of its time and resources exploiting these reserves, which takes assets away from other industries. Also, an industry of natural resources is prone to random price swings. Furthermore, countries that are rich in resources often do not use the money they acquire from these resources to better their nations. Wheelan states, "Money that might be spent on public investments with huge returns- education, public health, sanitation, immunizations, infrastructure- is more often squandered" (Wheelan 309). This idea that having natural resources can actually be more detrimental than helpful to an economy is very interesting and is something that I had never thought of before.
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