We at Blackhawk are approached by at least 500 supposed providers and sellers of oil derivative and other crude oil products a year and yet maybe only 2% of such providers have access to real product. Surprised? You shouldn’t be at all.

As you may or may not know, the reality today is that oil buyers are a dime a dozen, real fuel is the issue. The secondary market is for the most part composed of “fake offers” around the world doing a circle jerk on the Internet as people who have the real oil already know where to sell it.

Read More: Closing Oil Derivatives Related Transactions

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I have finally come to the realization; after 30 years on Wall Street and Silicon Valley, that our capital markets are simply obsolete and that it’s high time for a new technology that allocates money and other resources far more efficiently than both our actual technology and government.

The current VC/entrepreneurship worlds are in a mess, and to their credit, the players are doing some serious introspection. But mostly, it is still business as usual.

I have nothing against VCs and angels. Most are extremely smart people. But the world of problems and opportunities is now so complex and fragmented that any system that relies on “bottleneck star-spotting talent” is doomed to hit its limits in short order.

Read More: The current VC or Entrepreneurship worlds are In a Mess?

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Having as of today been involved in founding and running the Financial Policy Council for four years now, I am often asked how to come out with the most innovative ideas to turn a nonprofit into a truly unique organization.

The answer is simple… It all boils down to how you generate your ideas and then going about executing on them.

After all, coming up with good Ideas is not hard. It just takes focus. So how do you acquire this focus?

Here’s   some food for thought…

1. Find a problem you’re obsessed with solving or you’re passionate about improving and delve in it in full force.

After all, building a nonprofit is an obsession, an occupation, a disease, an addiction, a fascination, an absurdity, a fate. It is not a hobby. Those who do it must do it.

Life has taught me that the most miserable people I know are those who are obsessed with themselves; the happiest people I know are those who lose themselves in the service of others… So by and large, I have come to realize that if we complain about life, it is because we are thinking only of ourselves. If we are happy it is because we are fulfilled with a cause bigger than us.

Read More: “Out of the Box” Ideas for your Non Profit

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Ziad K Abdelnour

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Being both an oil trader and financier and tech investor, I am frequently asked about my general views on the oil and tech sectors at large given the ever changing financial and political disturbances out there.
Well for a start, you might think that tech is today in a bubble as a company whose sole product is a photo sharing app in which the pictures get deleted after they are shared just turned down $3 billion.

Maybe…. But the reality is that even if there is a bubble in the making there are really no consequences. Unlike the late 90s, technology is now established. If one company blows up, other entrepreneurs will start a new one or join someone else. So If you really think about it, the cost of failure has never been so low, ever.

By the same token, and for the sake of argument, I don’t think that the tech and software sector is even close to eating the world.
Take a look at the Fortune 500 2013 – Fortune on CNNMoney.com.  There are hardly any software companies on there. Google is #55 with a $52.2B in annual revenue. Facebook is barely hanging on at #482 with $5.1B in revenue.  The largest electronics company is Apple at #6 with $156.5B in revenue. The second largest is Hewlett-Packard at #15 with $120.4B.

Read More: Oil and Technology What Makes the World Go Round

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Ziad K Abdelnour

As part of Blackhawk’s close group of family and friends, we thought we’d share with you some of our most salient views as to the state of the world economy today and what to watch for in case you’re also in the “Wealth Creation” business.

We hope these thoughts will help you better position yourselves in the months and years ahead.

Even if you disagree with our points on the trajectory of where the world is heading, it cannot hurt to understand and prepare for the worst case scenario while still hoping for the best.

So here they are…..

About the markets at large:

Contrary to what the talking heads and pontificating gurus are saying, markets are not out of control, central banks are out of control printing money…and we believe they will never tighten monetary policy again, but merely print, print, and print more as they love to see asset prices go up, and as their policy reflects their desperation to perpetuate the process. As far as we are concerned, we know the Federal Reserve will keep interest rates at 0, precisely 0…in real terms.

About the Federal Reserve:

The lifetime achievement of Greenspan and Bernanke is really that they created a bubble in everything, everywhere. In fact, you have to ask what they were smoking during the housing bubble, as prices were increasing by 18% annually when interest rates started to steadily rise in 2004.

It seems that the tremendous economic Sophism of the day is that a nation can print its way into prosperity. By the same token, if debt and money printing equaled prosperity then Zimbabwe would be the richest country in the world. Go figure if Mugabe is not the economic mentor of Ben Bernanke.

Read More: what policy makers tell you

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Ziad K Abdelnour

Seventeen years ago, I read a book called The Evolving Self. Though I didn’t realize it at the time, it profoundly affected the direction of my life.

Since reading that book, I have dedicated my life to coming ever closer to getting a glimpse of the universal order, and of our part in it.

After years of research and analysis, I’ve come to the conclusion that we, in fact, live in a neo-feudal society built on debt and mental slavery.

That may sound like over-the-top rhetoric, and it obviously sounds extreme to propagandized and conditioned minds, and yes, it is extreme. However, it is the unfortunate reality of the present situation. The facts are there for the rational and unbiased mind to absorb and comprehend.

Let’s start by giving some context and perspective on present circumstances by breaking down some economic data. As Thomas Jefferson once said, “Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.”

Read More: Media is Most Effective Weapon

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Ziad K Abdelnour

Challenges and Opportunities Turkey

Turkey is today at the center of the world with on one side Russia, on another side the Gulf countries, and on the other side the Central East Asian countries., it is without a doubt turning into a tourist and financial and investment center in the region second to none.

Having bounced back from its own profound financial crises in 1994 and 2000, Turkey is indeed well prepared today to ride out the current global economic storm.

With the bank’s capital adequacy ratios at more than 17% — it is clear that Turkish banks are today very liquid and stable, even despite the adverse global market conditions we are facing.

Because of the country’s political stability since 2003, its financial market stability, and the liquidity of its banks, investors are today flocking to Turkey to invest in there.

In the last 30 years for example, and up to 2003, Turkey had only $5 billion or $6 billion in foreign direct investments. Since 2003, the country have had more than $15 billion to $20 billion in direct investments as equity.

Read More: Opportunities in Turkey

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Ziad K Abdelnour

The practice of doing business in China has come into question early this year. The disputes between Google Inc. and the Chinese government have been one factor; others have included the continued concerns raised in the West about China’s currency policy, and in China about Western financial policies. Moreover, questions about intellectual property protection in China have not gone away. At the same time, the consumer markets within the country are more vibrant as its pace of growth increases, and Chinese businesses are becoming innovative, fierce competitors within their country, and increasingly in the world outside. There has never been a time when getting China right is more important — or more difficult.

How do we view China in here at Blackhawk?

What is our investment policy vis a vis China given the increasing tensions that are raising concerns among some business people out there and given our increasing exposure to China through our strategic investments in Linktone and China Security & Surveillance Technology?

It is clear today that no capitalistic entity on Planet Earth can afford to ignore China’s role in global political and business affairs.

Whatever friction there is between US companies and China, I think it is time for us all in the West to step back and try to understand what China means to their business. We also have to understand what China has been achieving over the last couple of decades since it started its economic reforms. Ignoring China is not an option. The only way any company can take advantage of its massive opportunities is by placing its China activities in a global context — as part of an integrated web of capabilities, including manufacturing, marketing and sales, innovation, new business model incubation, and talent development.

Continuous Reading : The Challenges and Opportunities in China

The financial system may well have recovered more quickly if the bailouts hadn’t happened, but the suffering in the meantime would most likely have been unacceptable

The financial system may well have recovered more quickly if the bailouts hadn’t happened, but the suffering in the meantime would most likely have been unacceptable. Everyone who had savings would have seen them wiped out and a great many businesses would have ceased trading because they depend on credit for their cash flow, resulting in mass unemployment. Military coups in previously stable democratic countries could not have been ruled out and the prospect of extreme left or right wing groups taking control would have been a real possibility. The global economy was able to absorb localized banking collapses such as that in Iceland or of Lehman Brothers, but the human cost of a wider collapse would have been far worse.

The bailouts have been “successful” in the sense that some stability has returned, but they have not solved the underlying problem. Despite commitments in some areas to split up retail and investment banking and to improve capital ratios, the moral hazard remains because banks know they are too big to fail and will be bailed out again should the need arise. Only a total, irreversible disengagement of government from the financial sector could resolve this, and that is politically unrealistic. The main issue remains that the real cost of the bailouts is that they have reinforced the promise which was the root cause of the problem, that governments are there to rescue the banks when they fail.

Continuous Reading: How can we avoid another 2007-2008 type Financial Crisis in the Future?

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Would you tell us in your own words who Ziad is? What does he do, what are his experience, achievements, expertise?

I am a Lebanese American dealmaker, trader, financier, lobbyist and philanthropist with over 25 years of experience in merchant banking, private equity, alternative investments, and physical Commodities trading.

Since 1985, I have been involved in over 125 transactions worth in aggregate more than $10 billion in the investment banking, high-yield bond, and distressed debt markets and have been widely recognized for playing an integral role in those three key market sectors.

I am President & CEO of Blackhawk Partners, a New York based private equity “family office” that focuses on originating, structuring, advising and acting as equity investor in management-led buyouts, strategic minority equity investments, equity private placements, consolidations, buildups, and growth capital financings in companies and projects based both in the US and emerging markets.

I hold an MBA in Finance from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania and a BS in Economics, Summa Cum Laude, from the American University of Beirut.

I am the author of the bestselling book “Economic Warfare: Secrets of Wealth Creation in the Age of Welfare Politics” http://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Economic-Warfare-Creating-Regulation/dp/1118150120/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1311437307&sr=8-2 which sold over 100,000 copies since its publication in December 2011. A MUST READ for anyone involved in finance.

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Ziad K Abdelnour