http://motherjones.com/files/images/tdispatch-notch.jpg (http://www.tomdispatch.com)This story (http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175534/) first appeared on the TomDispatch (http://www.tomdispatch.com/) website.
Goldman Sachs—via economist Jim O'Neill—invented the concept of a rising new bloc on the planet: BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa). Some cynics couldn't help calling it the "Bloody Ridiculous Investment Concept."
Not really. Goldman now expects (http://www.goldmansachs.com/our-thinking/brics/brics-reports-pdfs/long-term-outlook.pdf) the BRICS countries to account for almost 40% of global gross domestic product (GDP) by 2050, and to include four of the world's top five economies.
Soon, in fact, that acronym may have to expand to include Turkey, Indonesia, South Korea and, yes, nuclear Iran: BRIIICTSS? Despite its well-known problems as a nation under economic siege (http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175490/tomgram%3A_pepe_escobar,_sinking_the_petrodollar_in_the_persian_gulf/), Iran is also motoring along as part of the N-11, yet another distilled concept. (It stands for the next 11 emerging economies.)
The multitrillion-dollar global question remains: Is the emergence of BRICS a signal that we have truly entered a new multipolar world?
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This is a pretty straight-forward, Wall Street Journal type expose, with "withering" commentary like this:

However, BRICS cohesion, to the extent it exists, centers mostly around shared frustration with the Masters of the Universe-style financial speculation that nearly sent the global economy off a cliff in 2008. True, the BRICS crew also has a notable convergence of policy and opinion when it comes to embattled Iran, an Arab Sprung Middle East, and Northern Africa. Still, for the moment the key problem they face is this: they don't have an ideological or institutional alternative to neo-liberalism and the lordship of global finance.

"(T)hey don't have an ideological or institutional alternative to neo-liberalism and the lordship of global finance." Who does? (I mean besides commies :)).

This is just full of "bad actors" and 'greed" and "maters of the universe" thinking.

I remember a while back we came up with a group of nations we labeled "The SHITS". I can't remember who they were just now...

This is a pretty straight-forward, Wall Street Journal type expose, with "withering" commentary like this:


"(T)hey don't have an ideological or institutional alternative to neo-liberalism and the lordship of global finance." Who does? (I mean besides commies :)).

This is just full of "bad actors" and 'greed" and "maters of the universe" thinking.

I remember a while back we came up with a group of nations we labeled "The SHITS". I can't remember who they were just now...

I remember that too and I forget the countries as well!