As a result of a huge surplus of petrodollars in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), "a secretive, government-controlled investment fund is helping to shift the balance of power in the financial world," explains the World Business section of today’s New York Times. The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority is investing in markets in every region of the world and quietly playing a role in the success, or failure, of companies on a global scale.

Sovereign funds are state-owned funds that manage state savings for the purpose of investment. Basically, they are pools of money governments use to invest for profit, and, generally, these investments are made in foreign companies. For a more in-depth explanation, see the Council on Foreign Relations' Sovereign Wealth Funds fact-sheet.

Can migrant workers help to improve an economy? An article in the Economist says they can. According to the National Research Council with a high school education a migrant worker can contribute as much as 105,000 dollars in taxes, along with the contribution of their children once they are employed.

Migrants need health, skills, determination, a willingness to take risks and some entrepreneurial nous to take the plunge, which marks them out as special people. Moreover, migrants increasingly alleviate specific labour shortages in rich economies. Some economies could not function without foreign workers.

Cape Verde, Africa is feeling the affects of migration, says The New York Times. With roughly half of its population gone, family relations have become strained, families separated, and skilled workers lost. Its hard to complain, especially when migrant's remittances make up 12 percent of the nation's GDP.

Even as Cape Verdeans struggle to get out, others are migrating in. This, too, is characteristic of the age of migration — most “sending” countries are also “receiving” countries, underscoring how universal the phenomenon is. Nearly half the migrants from poor nations move to other poor nations.“Migration is probably more important to more people than it has ever been,” said Dr. Carling of the International Peace Research Institute, a nonprofit group in Oslo. “But what characterizes the world today is also the feeling of involuntary immobility.”