It's a New Day

 Image by Getty Images via @daylifeThe burgeoning freedom and democracy in the Middle East/North Africa is truly an opportunity to shake out much of the corrupt infrastructure in developing countries in their natural resources industries. This is a new day for multinational corporations and their involvement in the oil rich region. There will be a new set of players and many more voices and interests at the negotiating table. Corruption and collusion cannot hide for long in the light and transparency of openness.

Contagion Libya

Image via WikipediaAs of today Eastern and some of the West coast of Libya appears to have freed themselves from the vice grip of Qaddafi’s regime. This situation highlights the problem of the economics of class and hierarchy. When an economy is structured to create a gap between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’ it is, by its own nature, unstable. When that gap is allowed to widen, the situation becomes a powder keg needing only a spark to ignite it.

Change is Gonna Come

Image via WikipediaOver the last few weeks, I have been watching events in Egypt unfold with optimism and hope. Although it has been over twenty years since my last visit to Cairo, I have such fond memories of the people and their extraordinary hospitality. This country seems to be an excellent environment in which to develop a new prototype for balanced economic, political and social reform.

Conventional wisdom tells us that social and political democracy is not necessarily a strong first step to the opening and democratization of markets. We have the case of Russia as a relatively current example of the challenges of managing market expansion in a burgeoning democracy. Similarly, many would argue that the market reforms in China have been successful although political and social reform has happened at a much slower pace.