Sovereign-wealth funds

"WITH $1.2 trillion in foreign-exchange reserves and the pool growing by more than $1 billion every day, China casts a giant's shadow over the global financial markets, even if it has mostly used the money to pile up American Treasury...

The top 12 each have anything from $20 billion to hundreds of billions of dollars to invest (see table). Recently, Japan, Russia and India have reportedly been considering setting up funds along similar lines. Some estimates put the size of the funds at $2.5 trillion by the end of this year (in contrast, hedge funds are thought to have a mere $1.6 trillion), with another $450 billion in transfers from reserves being added annually. Including capital appreciation, the amount could swell to $12 trillion by 2015...

That process may have started inadvertently in 1956 when the British administration of the Gilbert Islands in Micronesia put a levy on the export of phosphates—bird manure—used in fertiliser. The manure has long since been depleted. However, a once-tiny set-aside of money has become the Kiribati Revenue Equalisation Reserve Fund, a $520m investment portfolio that has grown to about nine times the tiny atoll's GDP."

-The world's most expensive club

Related;
Norway Keeps Nest Egg From Some U.S. Companies ;

Norway has amassed a fortune of more than $300 billion over the last decade, thanks to its profits from oil exports. Yet few countries are more ambivalent about their vast wealth than this modest, socially conscious society of less than five million people...

Among the first companies to run afoul of Norway’s standards were makers of cluster bombs and nuclear weapons or related components — a list that includes General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman, in addition to Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

Then last June, Norway added Wal-Mart Stores to its blacklist, alleging that the retailer was guilty of tolerating child-labor violations by its suppliers in the developing world and obstructing unions at home. The fund sold off more than $400 million worth of Wal-Mart shares.