Those Nasty Index Speculators. Is Correlation Causation? Where Are All the Tankers? Where Will Oil Prices Go? Is it 1980 All Over Again? The Middle East, California, and Help for Myanmar.

As crude oil prices smash the $135-a-barrel barrier for the first time, Taiwan, Malaysia and Indonesia say they will take action to protect their state-owned oil companies.

“If oil prices keep going up, it is simply not in any country’s best interest to keep subsidizing these prices indefinitely,” says Peter Gastreich, a UBS oil and gas analyst, in the Financial Times.

Just because an economist or a central banker says something, it doesn’t make it so.

Exactly 12 months ago, West Texas Intermediate crude oil was trading at just under $63 a barrel.

With aging power plants and failing infrastructure, South Africa needs an injection of investment cash into its power sector. And while its economy technically maintains a budget surplus, it’s constantly battling things like unemployment and poverty.

The established G7 markets are unlikely to see a recovery this year, but emerging markets will stay strong, according to IBM.

“If I were in a business model where I needed double-digit growth out of the G7 to drive my performance, I would be in a cold sweat,” said IBM’s CFO, Mark Loughridge, to Thomson Reuters.

“We’re not counting on a resurgence or recovery to achieve our growth for the year,” he said, referring to established markets in the G7 countries – the United States, Japan, Canada, Italy, Germany, France and United Kingdom.

There’s nothing worse than missing an amazing window of opportunity. When these great opportunities in the BRIC economies filter through to the mainstream – the chance to make huge profits is over. Get in ahead of the curve right now.

If the correction in gold is over – gold fever is about to hit. Sub-growth has become the norm in the United States…inflation is just a fact of life. The Century of the Emerging Markets…a new gold rush in California…and more!

Amidst all the furore regarding the Labour administration’s embarrassingly mis-managed tax shortcomings, the cries of those in the UK warning of a growing humanitarian crisis in the developing world have been lost.

Gulf States are raining money. With oil hitting $127 a barrel, the world population soaring and demand for scarce commodities at an all time high… these resource-rich emerging markets are being flooded with investment.