Some numbers to back up the last post on the globalisation of Banks and funds from Asian investment.  Not that its good or bad … just something that is changing in the financial world.  In fact it is probably a good thing, because there is nothing like financial implications to drive rational decision making, and the increased global aspect brings different politics to bear.

Citigroup and Merrill Lynch asking for more foreign cash | FP Passport

Bloomberg notes, “Banks and securities firms in the U.S. and Europe have turned to Asian and Middle Eastern governments for about $34 billion to prop up balance sheets battered by writedowns from the collapse of the U.S. subprime market.”

And more here:

Foreign Policy: The Truth About Sovereign Wealth Funds

The Arabs, the Chinese, and the Russians are about to buy up large swathes of Western economies. Or so the scare story goes. A frenzy of recent activity, including Dubai’s purchase of an undisclosed amount of Sony shares, Abu Dhabi’s acquisition of $7.5 billion worth of Citigroup, and China’s $3 billion stake in private-equity firm Blackstone, has many commentators fretting about so-called “sovereign wealth funds”—investment entities set up by governments to manage their surplus savings. According to an estimate by Morgan Stanley, sovereign wealth funds have poured some $37 billion since April into (mostly Western) financial institutions. One hyperventilating observer of these developments even bemoaned the onset of a “sharecropper economy” in the United States.