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To correct misgivings in many quarters about Syrian refugees not finding a haven in Gulf states, this letter from the Cato Institute points out that the population of Syrian refugees living in the Gulf states including Saudi Arabia has gone up by 1.1 million by 2013 from the beginning of the civil war. He cites World Bank data showing 241,000 Syrians living in the Gulf states before the civil war. By 2013 that number is 1.4 million. For Saudi Arabia the figures are up from 111,000 to 1 million.

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The RBI, India's central bank, raised its interest rate by half a percentage point moving it up to 7.25% to fight inflation. The RBI's inflation target is 6%. Inflation is currently running at a headline inflation rate of 8.98% for March 2011. The RBI governor, Duvvuri Subbarao, says the bank's policy is for giving precedence to controlling inflation even if this means lowering the growth rate. RBI estimates are for the economy to grow at 8% in the current fiscal year compared to 8.6% in the last fiscal year.

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An indepth look at the ISIS as a vast money raising organization levying taxes on everything within its reach and paying salaries to young unemployed Sunnis willing to join the fight in Iraq and Syria.

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The sixth round of the annual Strategic and Economic Dialogue in Beijing, China, July 9, 2014, between the U.S. and China at the Diaoyutai State Guest House. Jack Lew of Treasury, and John Kerry of the State Department meet their Chinese counterparts and other officials to promote peaceful cooperation. The background for the meeting of increasing tension in the Pacific region between China and its neighbors, the Philippines,Vietnam, and Japan, is acknowledged by president Jinping- "Confrontation between China and the United States would definitely spell disaster for the two countries and for the wider world... The immense sea allows fish to leap at liberty, the vast sky lets birds fly freely. The broad Pacific Ocean has ample space to accomodate our two great nations."

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This televised debate of Republican presidential candidates focussed on Iran's development of a nuclear weapon. Rick Perry said he would impose sanctions on Iran's central bank, something the Obama administration is reluctant to do because it might disrupt international oil markets. Romney and Gingrich said they would use military action if other measures failed. Huntsman called for a complete withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan and Iraq, saying: "This nation's future is not in Afghanistan. this nation's future is not in Iraq." Ron Paul said hw opposed military interventions in conflicts overseas. Perry and Gingrich said U.S. aid to Pakistan should be suspended because Pakistan was not a reliable partner.

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John Bolton looks at the continual dithering behaviour of the U.S. president in the Middle East- Iran, Libya, Syria, Iraq in sequence- and provides some insights into the president's behaviour. He says it comes from Obama's distrust of the U.S. role in the world as a positive factor, and a deterministic view of the "arc of history" bending towards outcomes he finds ideologically acceptable. This coincides with a different public perception of America's role in the world, not so much of mistrust and skepticism, as of indifference and focus back on domestic issues following the event of the first war in Iraq and of the 2008-2009 financial crisis. The two are different in nature as the public including women may not share the ideological frame of mind of the president that the U.S. is not overall a serious positive factor in the world through the presidencies of TR, Wilson, FDR, Truman, Ike, to Kennedy, Reagan and Clinton, from the Russo-Japanese war, through the First and Second World War, the Berlin Airlift and the Korean War, to the Balkan conflict. Bolton writes at a time when the two perceptions are about to diverge as the U.S. returns to its normal role of positive and constructive engagement with the world....

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As Nigeria's president Buhari returns from 100 days of receiving treatment for an unknown illness in London, the situation in Nigeria has deteriorated further. For most of 2017 Buhari was absent from Nigeria. In his place Vice president Obisanjo was running the administration. The situation in Nigeria has deteriorated under Buhari- in the northeast that attacks by the Boko Haram group, and discontent in the south from the lack of investment in that region with oil revenues leading to corruption. One of the dominant themes in Nigeria has been that oil revenues have led to corruption with little change under the administration of Buhari's predecessor, Goodluck Jonathan, who came in as "Mr. Clean." Again and again the hope for a clean administration and good governance are not being met in countries with much of Africa's population. Nigeria with 186 million people suffers sorely in this respect.  See Ruchir Sharma's WSJ article on how oil revenues have become a curse with widespread Nigeria corruption. ...

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The dangers to Turkey from external short term borrowings to finance its current account deficit. Turkey's current account deficit reached 10% of GDP in 2011. It is 8% in 2012 and is considered high by experts. The problem is short term borrowing from overseas which is sent through its banks for increasing levels of personal and housing loans. Were this flow to dry up because of a sharp downturn in the Eurozone economies it would damage Turkey's financial position. Bank short term external debt has doubled in 2011-2012 to $70.3 billion, or 9% of GDP, according to Capital Economics. The U.S. Fed and the ECB have eased global liquidity concerns, but risks are high as long as Turkey relies on short term borrowing. An escalation of the conflict with Syria also poses risks with fears of scaring away investors.

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U.S. president Obama says at a rally in Philadelphia that Donald Trump is a fradulent champion of the working class, saying that Trump is simply exploiting the populist mood, that for 70 years he has shown no concern for working class people. Obama told the crowd he understood the public's mood for change and that he himself had benefitted from it. Yet he said that it did not add up. Obama said: "This guy is suddenly going to be your champion? I mean, he spent most of his life trying to stay as far away from working people as he could, and now this guy is going to be the champion of the working people. Huh." "I mean he wasn't going to let you in his golf course. He wasn't going to let you buy in his condo. And now suddenly this guy is going to be your champion." 

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Smaller companies are being squeezed by rapidly escalating costs as costs are going up as fast as oil prices, and face tighter emissions rules in Alberta's oil sands projects. Some projects now cost 2 to 3 times the original projections and there is a severe labor shortage. Even the big players will find it difficult and expensive. To meet the stringent emissions rules, as Prime Minister Harper signs on to new international greenhouse emissions targets, Shell may have to use a technology that captures CO2 from the plants that process the oil sands and store the gas underground. This costs $120 a ton, and would cost Shell upwards of $2 billion a year just to capture and store the CO2, for the 15-20 million tons of CO2 that would be emitted when it increases production to 770,000 barrels a day. The cleanup from oil sands processing is costly because processing is very pollution intensive. Production of one barrel from these oil sands is 3 times more polluting than producing conventional oil. Synenco Energy, which had a project in partnership with China's Sinopec for mining and processing the oil sands called Northern Lights for $10.8 billion, called off the project last year because of all these hurdles, slashed its work force, and decided it may sell the company. Currently 1.1 million barrels a day come from the Alberta oil sands. 2020 output was expected to rise to 4.3 million barrels a day. But now this looks too optimistic. CAPP forecests 3.8 million barrels a day, but even this may be on the high side. ...

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There could be a bad ending to the tar sands story, if the environmental pollution, including contamination of waterways and other emissions, cause the Obama administration and Congressional Democrats to ban imports of Canadian oil from tar sands. IT is going to be a sticky issue for discussion between Stephen Harper and the new Obama administration.

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Places like Rapid City, South Dakota, and Topeka, Kansas, where people are choosing to live because of the affordability of homes. Average 30 year mortgage jumped from 3.1% at the end of 2021 to 5.0% by April 2022. High housing prices in coastal and mountain region cities and remote work flexibility are reordering where people choose to live. Rapid City, South Dakota is near the Wyoming border, here you are in what was once the Wild West of Teddy Roosevelt, a western wilderness found in an 8 hour drive to Grand Teton National Park. Nearby to this 145,000 population city are Mount Rushmore and the Black Hills mountain range.

Other cities that are getting attention from younger buyers are Santa Cruz, California, Santa Rosa, California. These are smaller towns of less than 600,000 population with outdoor recreation opportunities and small city feel, and are also attractive to retirees.

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New rules for euro currency nations in Sept. 2011. The rules provide for sanctions against countries with budget deficits exceeding 3% of GDP, and national debt exceeding 60% of GDP. Countries that break the rules will be required to make a cash deposit in a non-interest bearing account for an amount that is 0.2% of GDP. If the situation continues the deposit becomes a fine. The European Commission will still require finance ministers permission to impose sanctions, but the voting system makes this harder to block. The European Parliament will consider 6 pieces of legislation to make these changes.

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Chancellor Merkel of Germany proposed bilateral or trilateral deals between smaller groups of countries as a temporary solution till some agreement can be reached on immigration. She said "The European Council will not yet provide an overall solution to the migration problem." Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Czech Republic which have opposed a quota system for asylum seekers did not attend.  Austria, Denmark, and Italy with the new government openly opposing immigration, attended the summit. Merkel said  a "lot of goodwill" was created, and leaders agreed that borders need to be better protected to prevent people from entering illegally, and reducing immigration at its source points in Africa. The migration problem has persisted as an issue long after the huge surge in immigration in 2015 has diminished to a trickle, and after chancellor Merkel has accomodated critics with new policies strictly limiting new immigration. New governments in Denmark, Austria and Italy, and the government in Hungary under Viktor Orban, have kept the issue alive by running on anti-immigration platforms. The European summit in 2018 was used by Merkel to reduce disagreement on this issue by allowing different countries to express their views and working in smaller groups for mutual benefit. It also reduces tension inside her CDP-CSU coalition after Bavaria based CSU decided to run in 2018 state elections on a platform calling for securing borders. ...