Wisdom in fragments

Dubai offers a lot. We're currently at the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC). There's a separate jurisdictional regime in this area meaning that companies are treated under English common-law principles. It's a very safe environment for transactions to occur, and this gives us a big advantage of areas which simply do not have that framework.

China for example, aims to increase their buying by 400,000 barrels a day in the last quarter of 2012, and will be adding over 750,000 barrels of new refining capacity. That economic engine is still turning, but what people want is to be able to price that trade-flow.

In our part of the world, there will always be some kind of uncertainty. The market accepts and endorses that our physical oil is delivered outside The Strait of Hormuz, we're also not subject to any destination restrictions as Oman is not part of OPEC.

We have open and transparent pricing through our futures exchange- that means price is determined by buyers and sellers and not an 'official' selling price set by a producer. In that regard, it's unique and filling a need that is not currently serviced East of Suez.

The market definitely recognised and endorsed the need for a new benchmark. WTI was certainly disconnected from the pricing and economic activity of the rest of the world. Further to this, Brent is great for the North Sea and European trade flows, but it does not impact or reflect the actual activity in the far east.

In a bit of a unique proposition, this exchange was created before the ecosystem existed. When you look at the growth and development of WTI, you have Houston which has production, New York which provides financing, the refineries on the Gulf Coast, the traders, marketers, banks and many other pieces of the puzzle which are already there. The DME was a bit of a unique experiment, we created an exchange before all parts of the ecosystem were in place.

The consumer is far better educated today than he ever was. Consumers don't need to rely on intermediaries to tell them what is good or bad- people are social, they share information with friends and strangers, and go to a broader community for help and assistance.

There's a huge gap between the inspiration side of travel and the execution into the purchase path. That latter part of the process is so universally horrid that everyone hates it- and nobody is doing anything about it.

The opacity is the difference between profit and loss. If every airline seat that could be sold- were sold at the lowest possible price, the industry would lose billions. If every airline seat that could be sold- were sold at the highest possible price… It would make billions.

Travel is a market that will always do well, in the absence of one of two factors. Firstly… if the global economy goes soft- since travel is a discretionary spend- it will go soft faster than the rest of the economy. Secondly… if there is ever an event that cause travel to be inhibited it has a ripple-out effect.

inspires because it has a huge emotional component, everybody feels very attached to it. At the same time, it's incredibly complex- and full of mind-bogglingly stupid things that make it more complex than it needs to be

since citizens' militias are anachronistic, gun owners now use the second amendment merely to defend individual gun ownership, as if that somehow offers protection against tyranny. A reckless, right-wing Supreme Court has agreed with them. As a result, gun ownership has become perversely linked to freedom in the vast gun-owning American sub-culture. But, instead of protection of freedom, Americans nowadays are getting massive bloodshed and fear….

Leading economist specializing in sustainable development and poverty reduction

we even regulate toy guns, by requiring orange tips — but lawmakers don't have the gumption to stand up to National Rifle Association extremists and regulate real guns as carefully as we do toys….

Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist & New York Times Columnist

more Americans died in gun homicides and suicides in six months than have died in the last 25 years in every terrorist attack and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq combined…

Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist & New York Times Columnist

as a nation, …we're meeting our obligations? Can we honestly say that we're doing enough to keep our children, all of them, safe from harm?… if we're honest with ourselves, the answer's no. We're not doing enough. And we will have to change…

44th President of the United States (2009-2017)

I used to think that if there was reincarnation, I wanted to come back as the president or the pope or as a .400 baseball hitter. But now I would like to come back as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody…

Political Strategist & Democratic Campaign Consultant, "The Ragin' Cajun