The financial markets are having a busy day.

Despite the economy slowly and tenuously attempting to rebound from the depths it has reached, OPEC seems to be intent on driving oil prices higher and higher. At $63.45 a barrel, prices are already the highest they have been all year, but OPEC has said that it is considering a price somewhere between $75 and $80 a barrel.
A sharp spike in oil prices has been supported by OPEC but strongly condemned by many economic analysts. OPEC contends that it needs to drive oil prices higher in order to spur energy investments, but analysts tend to agree that a skyward oil …read more

A simultaneous increase in demand for oil on the part of China and wave of worry over the state of the US dollar resulted in the price of oil rising and the value of the dollar falling on Friday. For the most part, the rise in the price of oil comes off the back of the softening of the dollar.
Since oil is traded in dollars around the world, the value of the dollar and the price of oil are intertwined. The dollar continues to buckle under the burden of a huge load of debt and it suffers from analysts’ doubt …read more

Hugo Chavez, the controversial President of Venezuela, is one of the many world leaders searching for ways to survive during these difficult economic times. In Venezuela, the economy has been negatively affected by slumping oil prices.
Chavez recently outlined a plan that will cut spending deemed unnecessary by federal employees. Examples of spending that will be cut includes money paid toward everything from new automobiles to cell phones to lavish parties. Chavez also plans to reduce the yearly income of many of those employed by the Venezuelan government.
Another way Chavez plans to boast Venezuela’s economy is raising taxes. According to reports, …read more

In 1973, Ernst Friedrich Schumacher wrote “Small Is Beautiful.”
His book propounded the idea that small organizations, whether businesses or communities, are more effective and efficient in the utilization of resources. Big corporations are wasteful in their drive towards large scale growth. He predicted that this mode of operations in large corporations would be unsustainable. He preached intermediate and appropriate technology. Today, thirty-five years later, he is being proven right: the subprime crisis, global warming, uncontrollable oil prices.
If small businesses rather than big corporations had dominated the economy and the utilization of natural resources in the …read more