Is the US falling victim to the resource curse?

IT WOULD appear reasonable to expect that countries with huge natural-resource wealth – think oil, natural gas, minerals and even agriculture – would have a leg up on less-endowed countries.

Yet resource-rich countries in Africa, the Middle East and Latin America have often failed to achieve the prosperity that some resource-poor islands and peninsulas in East Asia have.

Now, some believe that this “resource curse” might be claiming a new and unlikely victim: the United States.