- China's mysterious Third Plenum
China's mysterious Third Plenum has ended much as it started:
With a brief word from the official Chinese media that the meeting had begun and now a short communique announcing its conclusion.
BBC 12 Nov. 2013
Among the few phrases in the short communique, the key ones are "comprehensively deepening reform" and "crossing the river by feeling stones".
The reference to "comprehensive" reforms fits with the billing in the Chinese state media that this meeting of the top Chinese Communist Party officials will result in significant reforms under the new president and premier during their decade in power.
The details of their economic policies are scant from the communique. In the coming weeks and months, the official media may divulge more at the whim of the Chinese leaders.
So far, allowing the market to play a "decisive" role in the economy has emerged as a message in the state media.
This sums up the aims of the Chinese leaders which is to introduce more market forces into the economy. It would be key to achieving the "breakthrough" reforms that were discussed in the "383" plan that was circulated by the government's top think tank beforehand, which I wrote about before.
Not easy
The three "breakthrough" reforms involved reforming capital markets, labour in the form of improving social welfare, and land.
Basically, the factors of production all need reform and much of it requires raising productivity in order to support growth.
Now, that's no easy task for any economy, much less one where powerful state-owned enterprises dominate the financial sector and key parts of the economy.
So, the devil will be in the details as to how these reforms will be implemented.
- Prince Alwaleed bin Talal: An Ally Frets About American Retreat
Influential Saudi royal Prince Alwaleed bin Talal talks about the U.S. debacle in Syria, the Iranian threat, and 'this perception that America is going down.'
The Wall Street Journal Nov. 22, 2013
'The U.S. has to have a foreign policy. Well-defined, well-structured. You don't have it right now, unfortunately. It's just complete chaos. Confusion. No policy. I mean, we feel it. We sense it, you know."
Members of the Saudi royal family have voiced their displeasure with the Obama administration's approach to the Middle East through private channels and recently in public as well. None of them puts it quite like HRH Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz Alsaud.
One of some three-dozen living grandsons of the first Saudi King Abdulaziz, this prince is a prominent but atypical royal. His investment company made him the Arab world's richest businessman. He strikes a modern image for a Saudi, employing female aides and jet-setting on a private Boeing 747. He's at ease with Western media.
Passing through New York earlier this week, Mr. Alwaleed, who is 58, sits down with the Journal editorial board between a couple of television appearances. He wears a blue suit, shirt and tie. These days, his bouffant widow's peak has more salt than pepper. The prince holds no important government post in Saudi Arabia, but it's hard to shake the impression that here is the uncensored id of the reserved House of Saud.
"America is shooting itself in the foot," he says. "Saudi Arabia and me, myself, we love the United States. But what's happening right now here, from Republicans and Democrats, is just not helping the image of the United States and is making this perception that America is going down a reality."
Mr. Alwaleed struggles to understand how a wing of the GOP can shut down the government and threaten a debt default. His company has a significant economic bet on the U.S. through Twitter and New York's Plaza Hotel, among many holdings. As for President Obama, his second term is "going downhill completely," he says, adding on several occasions the disclaimer that "this is the impression I have in Saudi Arabia." But it's clear that the Saudis believe that the president's political troubles shape his actions in their region.
Mr. Obama's recent Hamlet act on Syria surprised and infuriated Riyadh. After the worst chemical-weapons atrocity of the war, the American leader heeded long-standing calls for military intervention, then hedged by asking for congressional approval, then nixed airstrikes in favor of a disarmament pact with Syria's Bashar Assad. The civil war continued—with Assad and his Iranian allies lately taking the upper hand. Mr. Alwaleed says of Mr. Obama: "He blinked."
Then came the autumn outreach to Iran's new president, Hasan Rouhani, leading to this week's negotiations in Geneva on Iran's nuclear program. Another "impression" from the prince: President Obama's falling popularity explains his "overeagerness" for an agreement made "very fast to at least put one issue in foreign policy aside" because "he's wounded now across the board." The Saudis view the Shiite theocracy in Tehran as the biggest threat to the Sunni Arab world.
3. In New Energy Era, Gushers of Opportunity
Plenty of Profits in the Resurgence of Oil and Gas Drilling
The Wall Street Journal Nov. 23, 2013
It isn't too late to learn important lessons from the surprising resurgence of American oil and gas. It is also not too late to profit from it.
The surge in energy production has confounded giant oil companies, created billionaires who are emerging as the nation's new Rockefellers and Gettys, and altered America's economic and geopolitical outlook.
Just a few years ago, the country seemed destined to rely on imported energy. Today, the U.S. is moving toward energy independence.
The dramatic shift is thanks to a few stubborn Americans who developed improved—and controversial—methods to hydraulically fracture, or frack, shale and other tough rock. They also introduced ways to drill horizontally in challenging, compressed rock.
Pioneers of the new age of energy have scored historic fortunes and rewarded their shareholders, while also creating an environmental backlash.
They're not yet household names, however. Harold Hamm grew up dirt-poor in a tiny town in Oklahoma. He began school each year around Christmastime because he had to help his parents pick cotton until it became too cold to be in the fields. Today, Mr. Hamm, founder of Continental Resources (CLR), is worth more than $14 billion. His stock is up over 50% in the past year.
Mark Papa, who helped turn EOG Resources (EOG) into an oil power with huge discoveries in Texas, has seen EOG's shares jump more than 40% in the past year.
Charif Souki, an immigrant from Lebanon, runs Cheniere Energy (LNG), which is expected to be the first company in the lower 48 states to export natural gas. The stock has climbed 152% in the past year and he's worth $350 million.
A key lesson from the era: Smaller companies often are best at engineering breakthroughs.
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