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Is there a connection between these headlines? Yes, they are about money going in and out in a continuous loop. As the price of oil has reached stratospheric levels, oil-producing countries are flush with money. A lot of that cash is coming from the US since it is the world's largest consumer of petroleum products.
Money is never kept idle, so you have to invest it somewhere, which is what the oil-producing countries do expertly. They put it into emerging economies, but most of all they put it into the world's largest economy. That makes even more sense now that the value of the dollar has come tumbling down.
The investors who bought the Chrysler Building didn't do it to make a point that they were buying an American icon. They bought it to make a quick return on their investment. These investments complete the loop: the US pays more for oil, some of that money comes back into the US. Everyone is happy.
But is everyone happy? Present prices have given windfall profits to countries with oil, but they have been making money, lots and lots of it, for a very long time. What have they done with it? Nigeria is one of the saddest examples.
With its oil wealth, it could have been a showcase for Africa, instead of which it remains a poor country in which the favoured fez have bulging Swiss number accounts bursting at their seams. As for West Asian countries, there is no need for such corruption since their non-democratic structures decree that the oil revenues legitimately belong to the ruling elite.
By now, we no longer blink at the incredible wealth of their sheikhs and their ostentatious show of it, the massive palaces, the stretch limousines, the jumbo jets serving as private planes. We are in fact so inured to these displays of wealth that we never discuss the lack of social conscience that must lie behind them.
But conscience is a moral compass which shifts according to cultural value systems and is in any case a bad standard to use when taking pragmatic money decisions. For that, most people usually rely on self-interest.
But if you have any long-term perspective at all, you will realise that conscience is a good ally of self-interest. A Nigerian leader, for example, who amasses an obscene amount of wealth illegitimately, soon finds that he is thrown out of power. The sheikhs having the right to their riches under their feudal systems may not have felt the repercussions of their disproportionate wealth, but isn't it possible that much of the instability of that region has its origins in this imbalance?
It is stating the obvious that terrorism is a by-product of poverty and illiteracy. Most terrorists are poor, haven't had the benefits of education, and faced a bleak future. Fertile ground for the recruiters of suicide bombers. And where do most of them come from? Where did the majority of the 9/11 terrorists come from?
They came from Saudi Arabia — the world’s biggest producer of oil, and therefore the country earning ever-increasing revenues: Other terrorists too come from countries which are similarly rich but where the money does not percolate down to the large majority of the population.
The palaces and stretch limousines are one reason why this is not happening. But there is another reason and the Chrysler building is its symbol. The money managers of Arab sheikhs do what they are paid to do — which is to maximise returns, so hey presto, the Chrysler. But money spent on education and creating infrastructure for employment brings in poor returns. The important question is: whose view should prevail?
The narrow focussed view of fund managers or the broader vision of a real leader who will see that money invested wisely in his own country will bring in returns far greater than mere money — it will bring happiness and stability to his country and security for himself.