If the latest news reports are to be believed, a temple in South India has so far been found to have far greater wealth. According to The Times of India, Rs 1 lakh crore of Gold, diamonds and other precious metals has been counted by the RBI (Reserve Bank of India), and the RBI team is still counting, following an order of the Supreme Court. According to IBN Live, the six stone cellars of the Sri Padmanabhaswamy temple in Kerala (Thiruvananthapuram) contain a vast hoard of treasures. more »

There are recurring reports about members of Congress and others in government profiting from trading stocks based on insider information they obtain through their government activities. What is amazing about this is that these activities are not illegal. When somebody in business trades stocks based on information that is not yet public, securety laws are being violated. However, Congress, in their self-serving wisdom, has not enacted legislation that make the same trading activity illegal for them. more »

Globalization dominates our era, but it is an increasingly fragile dominance. Even as global integration delivers enormous benefits — growing wealth, spreading technology, the rise of billions of people in the developing world — it also creates new risks — financial instability, economic imbalances, environmental stresses, growing inequalities, cyber penetration — that we seem to have difficulty managing. more »

China has designs on oil rich areas in the South China Sea that are actually in closer proximity to other countries. A story in Aljezera highlights a dispute between Vietnam and China over a Vietnamese naval training operation in the South China Sea near the Paracel Islands, which are nearly equidistant from China and Vietnam. more »

There is disagreement about the consquences to the economy if the U.S. fails to raise the debt limit and suffers technical default. And the opinions are not all divided along traditional political lines. more »