North Korea: The World’s Worst Economy?
December 30th, 2015
Per the Wall Street Journal, a commentary on the dimensions of economic failure in modern North Korea: Economic history is a story of progress and success, but also of retrogression and failure. Among the latter cases, the most gruesome is surely the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea (DPRK). Its signature catastrophe, the Great North Korean Famine […]
Read more »Telecom Market Opportunities In Iran
December 30th, 2015
Via TMT Finance, a look at Iran’s telecommunications market: The nuclear deal inked by Iran and the world powers has opened up the Iranian economy to global capital. The agreement has attracted the attention of some of the world’s richest people, as executives embarked on a flurry of trips to Tehran this summer. Further up the […]
Read more »Why Real Estate Investors Should Follow Global Population Trends
December 25th, 2015
Courtesy of the Financial Times, an interesting article on how changing demographics offer unusual opportunities for those prepared to think long-term: The best real estate investment in the world today? Beachfront huts in Somalia. That is according to Hans Rosling, a Swedish public health professor and data visualisation pioneer. A statistical geek is an unlikely […]
Read more »China Plans A New Silk Road, But Trading Partners Are Wary
December 25th, 2015
Courtesy of the New York Times, a look at how Beijing’s effort to revive ancient trade routes is causing geopolitical strains, with countries like Turkey increasingly worried about becoming too dependent on China: As tensions in the Mideast and Ukraine rose in recent years, Turkey moved to jointly manufacture a sophisticated missile defense system. The $3.4 billion plan […]
Read more »U.S. Firms Prepare for End to Iran Sanctions
December 24th, 2015
Via The Wall Street Journal, a report on how companies such as Apple, GE, HP gear up for potential opening of markets in the Islamic Republic: Ahead of an expected lifting of sanctions, several U.S. corporate giants including personal-computer seller HP Inc. and General Electric Inc.’s oil-services unit are actively exploring a market entry into Iran. U.S. companies other […]
Read more »The Afghanistan Land Bridge Is Finally Here
December 21st, 2015
Via Foreign Policy, some commentary on a long-awaited gas pipeline that could bring prosperity and stability to some of the poorest countries in Central and South Asia: One of the world’s most quixotic energy projects finally kicked off this month, with the formal groundbreaking of the so-called TAPI pipeline meant to tap into the gas fields […]
Read more »Focusing primarily on The New Seven Sisters - the largely state owned petroleum companies from the emerging world that have become key players in the oil & gas industry as identified by Carola Hoyos, Chief Energy Correspondent for The Financial Times - but spanning other nascent opportunities around the globe that may hold potential in the years ahead, Wildcats & Black Sheep is a place for the adventurous to contemplate & evaluate the emerging markets of tomorrow.