“Being rich is bad,” declares Venezuela’s president. But someone’s forgotten to tell his people. Because this place isn’t some dour socialist paradise… you can see the money everywhere!

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The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is the world’s leading petroleum exporter. Officially, it has reserves of about 260 billion barrels of crude oil – approximately 24% of the world’s total proven petroleum reserves.

A recent story in the Financial Times covered the possibility that Nigeria’s crude oil output could fall by a third in the next seven years. The problem is, Nigeria is one of the top five foreign oil suppliers to the U.S.

Concerns about the U.S. economic slowdown are starting to blunt some of the optimism surrounding Latin American economies.

Pemex better start exploring for more oil in the Gulf of Mexico or its going to pump out all its reserves in less than ten years. Mexican President Felipe Calderon went on national television last night in Mexico and told his countrymen (in Spanish, we presume), “We have to act now because we’re running out of time and out of oil.”

Gee a lot can change in a day. Before we get to the energy, Australia’s manufacturing future, and just where the biggest mob of drongos is, a quick word about the BHP, Rio Tinto, China love triangle.

In short, apparently these countries need the price of oil to stay high to pay for their welfare expenses…which means that they will necessarily be raising oil prices again pretty soon.

On the one hand, you have authoritarian rule and government-controlled natural resources. On the other, you have a liberalization of state control and a booming economy. Hmm. That’s a tough decision.

“The policia will rob you if you go down there…” I had just arrived in Ciudad Juarez. Ciudad Juarez is a border town across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas. It was 9 a.m. I was looking for a supermarket to get breakfast. A woman had pointed me down a backstreet. I started walking down the backstreet when a man called out to me, warning about the police.

Gulf states are planning to use desalinated water to grow wheat, whilst the US is already using corn to make biofuel – does this really make sense? If such misallocation of resources continues, food prices are going to cause mass hunger and civil unrest worldwide.