Hacker News

In the Netherlands it was surely a wasted opportunity. They used the money mostly to prop up some services and fill short-term gaps in the budget. Should have saved it like Norwy. It's awful

fmajid 7 hours ago [ - ]

Both the UK and the Netherlands budgets relied heavily on wealth extraction from India and Indonesia respectively during the colonial era (~$50 trillion over 200 years for the UK and around $34T for the Netherlands). That kind of money spigot is hard to wean a country off from, and tends to mask all sorts of governance failures, so it was inevitable the oil windfall would be used to plug the imperial shortfall. The difference with Norway is it was never a colonial power.

throwaway2037 3 hours ago [ - ]

    > $34T for the Netherlands

Woah, that is pretty wild claim between Netherlands and Indonesia. I tried to Google for more info. It seems like this claim can be attributed to the current president of Indonesia, Prabowo Subianto. He said 31T USD in a recent speech. I follow Indo news a little bit. This guy makes some pretty wild claims. I doubt the previous president Joko Widodo (who is much more reliable) would make such a claim. It does not seem that Prabowo has offered any serious evidence to defend this claim.

    > That kind of money spigot is hard to wean a country off from, and tends to mask all sorts of governance failures, so it was inevitable the oil windfall would be used to plug the imperial shortfall.

Again, I can speak more for the Netherlands here. Indonesia became independent in 1949. The Groningen gas field was discovered in north Netherlands in 1959, and full scale extraction started in 1963. So what did Netherlands do between 1949 and 1963 to "plug the imperial shortfall"? (No trolling: That is a lovely turn of phrase. Is it your own?)

    > The difference with Norway is it was never a colonial power.

As understand, Norway alternated between a colony of Sweden or Denmark. (Please correct if I have that wrong.)