It is disappointing to see an official rep of CFA Institute advocate for taxpayer-funded "pro-social" sovereign wealth funds whose investment mission evidently is explicitly political ("build, buy, and operate infrastructure; stabilize currencies; and prove up new asset classes"). Such activities carry obvious risks of cronyism, outright corruption, and the wasting of public resources when investments aimed at promoting "social welfare" (another phrase Ms. Ortel used approvingly in the above essay) inevitably go sour. I am familiar with Norway's sovereign wealth fund and am pretty certain its mission and governing statutes make no provision at all for channeling any assets toward public policy goals other than assuring income for retirees; it is managed like a hedge fund and any political interference in investment decisions is strictly prohibited.

Endorsing the minting of a coin to erase the national debt is even more reprehensible (even if legal -- which is debatable, at best). My recollection is the Obama administration, to its credit, stated in 2013 that it had determined that the trillion-dollar coin expedient was neither legal nor desirable as an Executive Branch expedient for overriding the wishes of a GOP-controlled Congress. Of course the GOP's cynical efforts to wreck the economy to embarrass Obama deserve condemnation; but for an administration to use legal sleight-of-hand to win political fights it couldn't win at the ballot box would be equally destructive. (And remember the government lawyers George W. Bush ordered to write memos saying torture isn't torture? A few years later, those lawyers barely avoided going on trial themselves.)