Free Republic

OSLO (Reuters) - Everyone in Norway became a theoretical crown millionaire on Wednesday in a milestone for the world's biggest sovereign wealth fund that has ballooned thanks to high oil and gas prices. Set up in 1990, the fund owns around 1 percent of the world's stocks, as well as bonds and real estate from London to Boston, making the Nordic nation an exception when others are struggling under a mountain of debts. A preliminary counter on the website of the central bank, which manages the fund, rose to 5.11 trillion crowns ($828.66 billion), fractionally more than a million times...

http://www.marketskeptics.com/2009/01/hyperinflation-will-begin-in-china-and.html The conventional wisdom on China is dead wrong. Specifically, there is a widespread belief, as expressed by Goldman Sachs, that "China will keep the yuan trading within a narrow range in 2009 due concerns about exporters." Worse still, others are even predicting that China will devalue its currency! The sheer wishful thinking is astounding! The idea that "China will keep the dollar peg to help its exporters" ranks all the way up there with "Housing prices always go up" and "You can spend your way to prosperity".

IMF urges action on sovereign wealth By John Burton in Singapore and Chris Giles in Davos Published: January 24 2008 21:53 | Last updated: January 24 2008 21:53 Singapore, Norway and Abu Dhabi have been asked by the International Monetary Fund to take the lead in drawing up disclosure benchmarks for sovereign wealth funds, Lee Kuan Yew, the former Singapore prime minister and chairman of one of the world’s biggest sovereign funds, has said. The IMF’s move comes as countries with sovereign wealth funds and recipient states skirmished at the World Economic Forum in Davos over the need for a...