This is an excerpt from an interview with the French Mid-East scholar Gilles Kepel:

Q. What is your advice for the next president of the United States?

A. After Iraq, it is clear that American military might is no longer a sufficient gateway to power. America has to work with its allies. That is one of the great lessons of a post-neocon world. A few years ago, Condoleezza Rice said that in the Middle East, the Americans will do the cooking and the Europeans can do the dishes. Can you imagine the national shame for the French, who are so keen on gastronomy, to have America — the nation of McDonald’s — insist that they will do the cooking? That was hard to swallow. But in all seriousness, Europe needs to get back in the kitchen. America can’t do it alone anymore.

But the Middle …

The masks are coming off. It’s the end of the party, now we get to see what people really look like. And it’s not a pretty sight.

You’ll recall that one of the fairest of the Bubble Era’s revelers was the idea that, over the long run, you would make money in stocks. All you had to do was ‘buy and hold.’ Who didn’t like her? She seemed so easy…so willing…so fetching and attractive.

Yesterday, the Dow lost another 203 points. Investors are down 44% so far this year. Worldwide, they’ve lost $10 trillion this month - far worse than the crash of ‘29.

The most successful economy of the 20th century was the United States of America. The second was probably Japan. It rose from the bombed-out ruins of WWII to become a worldwide export powerhouse, dominating the auto and electronic equipment industries.

But yesterday, stock prices in Japan fell to more than

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I am only being somewhat facetious in the title of this post, but I just wanted to underscore the logic expressed in Medvedev's Financial Times editorial yesterday, "Why I had to recognise Georgia’s breakaway regions," which presents both the invasion and the recognition of the territories as obligatory outcomes of Russia's duty to protect its citizens abroad. Whichever major PR company drafted the text for Medvedev, they unwillingly exposed a crisis of confidence and legitimacy among Kremlin leadership over these events. But perhaps there is also a pre-emptive warning in the note. French President Nicholas Sarkozy, for example, may want to keep an eye out for any Russian officials distributing passports in Saint Jean Cap Ferrat, the French Riviera enclave where 60% of the +100 million euro mansions are now owned by Russians. According to the argument expressed in the FT, the army may as well ...

The iShares MSCI France Index Fund (EWQ) is an ETF that is based on the MSCI France Index. The index currently is comprised of seventy-six securities with top sectors being financials, consumer discretionary, energy, industrials, and materials.

The France ETF (EWQ) is the ETF “pick of the week” from Carl Delfield, editor of the Chartwell ETF Global Advisor newsletter. Mr. Delfield highlighted several reasons for his choice of the France ETF. The main reason he highlighted is the current government of French President Nicholas Sarkozy. Sarkozy’s government has begun to implement major changes to the French economy. Some of the changes include: slashing of red tape, raising of the retirement age, privatization of some public sectors, and a possible end to the 35-hour work week.

Mr. Delfield believes that these recent policy changes signal that France is moving in the right economic direction. He also believes that now with French stocks at

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