Sovereign Wealth Funds and Democracy

A pleasantly moderate article on the Sovereign Wealth Fund issue can be found here: http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/globalisation/global_politics/stolen_wealth_funds

It is worth noting that this issue is normally polarized along one of two lines: (a) non-transparent foreign wealth funds are evil and out to ruin the US economy or (b) wealth funds finally mean the south is less dependent on northern financial markets, which is a wonderful thing. I would usually tend to fall a little more into the "(b)" camp, but the wealth funds are typically found in OPEC countries and Singapore - not necessarily the most altruistic of governments towards other southern countries. Still, the variety of political agendas of those new significant shareholders could make development finance interesting in the coming years.