ARTICLE: "World's Assets Hit Record Value Of $140 Trillion," by Joanna Slater, Wall Street Journal, 10 January 2006, p. C8.

McKinsey report generates map of financial assets flows and holdings among world's great regions. One missrepresentation, IMHO, is showing Singapore and Hong Kong like some isolated offshoot of Euro/UK (colonial habit, one imagines), when all that money flowing into both also overwhelmingly flies right out again to developing Asia and especially China (something the map seems to ignore, but I know happens in bulk because FDI flows outward as a percentage of GDP in these two financial hubs is virtually as high as the inward flow percentages). Other than that weird bit, a cool map very much like ones I drew for the FDI "economic security exercise" with Cantor Fitzgerald atop the World Trade Center back in 2000 (see here for details). Factoid of note: America attracts 85 percentage of all money put on the table by asset-exporting regions. The future? Asset flows are expected to grow 50 percent faster than goods and services in coming years. Total financial flows in 2005 were $6T, twice the flow in 2002 and significantly higher than in 1999, the height of the bubble. Yes, yes, globalization is "in retreat" and soon to "end." Light up your doobie on that one, because as you know (he pauses while holding his lungs for effect), "those damn terrorists are running everything maaaaaaaaaan!" There are those who understand the force and those who only see the friction. There are those who see only war and those who get the "everything else. Want to be a grand strategist? Or do you want to live out your lives in fear, letting others define your nightmares while you give up on your dreams? Morning glory indeed. Globalization's greatest push is just beginning...