Brazil Finds Massive Oil Field

Finding, possibly, the world’s fourth largest oil reserve in your backyard would seemingly be a good thing. Unfortunately, as my old friend Thomas Friedman has been telling us for years:

The Arab world, alas, has been cursed with oil. For decades, too many Arab countries have opted to drill a sand dune for economic growth rather than drilling their own people — men and women — in order to tap their energy, creativity, intellect and entrepreneurship.

Fortunately, Brazil has already begun drilling its own people. In fact, if Brazil hadn’t been drilling its own people then those very people wouldn’t have found oil in their backyard. It is almost impossible to guess where Brazil’s oil wealth will take, but considering that Brazil has managed their existing wealth as well as they have already and that this new wealth will arrive so late in Brazil’s growth cycle it seems the direction may be more that of Norway than Nigeria.