Brazil

Bric - another acronym every silicon.com reader should be aware of and, no, it's nothing to do with Microsoft or operating systems. It actually stands for Brazil, Russia, India, and China and was coined by the investment bank Goldman Sachs when they published a report titled Dreaming of Brics in 2003. The report was essentially some controlled future gazing, based on economic fundamentals and projections right out to 2050.

The "BRIC" nations - Brazil, Russia, India and China - are all experiencing rising inflation and adopting similar measures to prevent prices of goods spiraling out of control, according to a report by China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC).

It seems that worries over China dumping its reserves of a trillion, or so, American dollars are just the tip of a much larger iceberg. Sovereign wealth funds, opaque investment funds controlled by cash-rich governments like China, Abu Dhabi and Russia, are set to buy more emerging markets currencies, at the expense of their more established counterparts. In other words these funds, which have reserves totaling $2.3 trillion, are set to sell off more American dollars, euros and British pounds.

Suez SA and state-owned Gaz de France plan to form a global energy giant that they say will be better placed to compete against players such as Russia's OAO Gazprom. The outlines of the new company, to be called GDF Suez after the deal is expected to be completed in 2008, was approved by Suez and GDF boards late Sunday after active brokering by President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Christmas Eve, Captain Morgan, Egg nog and I were getting very acquainted. With Family and friends we began to exchange one gift to each other. The gift I received was a pair of Nike Air Max Thorough so I began to try them on to see if they fit and there I saw it in bold letters, "Made in China". We started a game to see if we could find one gift that was made in America.