Once natural resources are found, the road to prosperity is technically a straight on, if it wasn't for the large potholes on the way that have the power to capsize the whole nation.

Most commentators were quite surprised that America's southern neighbor and economic partner did not play a greater role to the 2012 candidates' future plans. It can be explained by both the nature of the debate and the declining role of the United States in the region.

Here is a nation whose infrastructure was focused on pearl "hunting" and fishing, whose economy was virtually destroyed by the introduction of Japanese cultured pearls in the 1920's and 1930's. Then in the 1940's came the discovery of oil.

Get your armor on, and keep it on. Otherwise, you will be stripped bare.

Editor's Note: This post has been removed from the Huffington Post....

Senior officials in the Obama administration and at the Fed say they are counting in part on foreigners to keep the housing market funded. ...

To paraphrase Mr. Gartman, "when I don't understand what is happening, I get out the market."

You know we have a problem when Moscow begins searching for an alternative to investing in U.S. Treasury notes.

Speculation and psychology go hand in hand. The Department of Energy has it within its powers to change the temper of the marketplace.

The good nabobs of OPEC are going to Vienna to munch their strudel, lamenting about the urgency to push prices to the $75-80/bbl level before they can order a second course.

Low incomes are what defines a Third World economy. High incomes are what power and define a First World, prosperous, economy.

It is good news that the CFTC is awakening from its reverie and beginning to deal with the core issues of oil trading. But it is still too much of a hit/miss operation with a degree of insouciance.

The price of oil has done for Russia what the cold war Kremlin was unable to achieve with all its missiles, tanks and mind numbing divisions of men and armor.

Hugo Chavez is not a friend of ours, but he does come up with some good ideas, since we are dealing with a commodity that has left all ballast of free market determination far behind.