The late Malcolm Forbes (founder of Forbes magazine) made famous the expression: "He who dies with the most toys wins!" He had it all wrong. Toys, for the most part depreciate, are hard to sell, expensive to maintain, and mean nothing (except big numbers on paper) until they are redeemed for cash. When was the last time you attempted to sell a painted 'masterpiece', a large diamond, or a Rolex watch for what it is really worth — on paper?

No, the expression really is, "he who has the most cash wins, and dying has little to do with it." Whether an individual or a country, there are only two types of financial categories: spenders and savers. How does an economy become a saver, or conversely allow itself to slip into a constant spending mode?

Many ways, but in an over-simplification, an economy needs necessities to function and meet the complex demands of its society. Countries that are fortunate enough to have natural resources that everyone wants, while practising fiscal prudence in selling these commodities to the highest bidder (or those economies in desperate need) represent the savers.

Countries that squander those resources or never had them in the first place, are disadvantaged. They almost automatically become spenders, unless they can create a demand for a product or service equal (although preferably greater) to that of a 'Saver Nation'.

In textbooks, this is otherwise known as economic equilibrium. An economy that slips to the wrong side of the equation without significant counter measures unencumbered by debt of any kind, will never have the upper hand. Cash wins every time.

Citibank has us Cit up and take notice.

When the biggest bank in the world is desperate for cash infusions, everything comes into perspective. For some reason for years, the fact that the largest individual shareholder of this bank was from the Middle East was not considered an interesting issue, but it suddenly dawned on me a couple of weeks ago when Prince Alaweed expressed his wish for the old CEO of Citigroup to be brought back as rescuer.

My second thought about the changing nature of our financial world occurred after reading a superb article in the New York Times headlined "The Capital of Capital No More," by Daniel Gross. A light bulb went off, naturally a long lasting fluorescent one, since we are all going to be conserving big time now.

The third query came into being when, not more than a few days later, the Wall Street Journal reported that Citigroup's board approved a $7.5 billion capital infusion from an investment arm of the Abu Dhabi government. In exchange, the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority will receive a 4.9 percent stake in the form of convertible stock, while receiving 11 percent yield on these convertible bonds.

These facts triggered research into how many other Western businesses have allowed big-resource, cash-rich producers taking large ownership positions in domestic firms, utilities, and the like.

Guess what? I learned that the money isn't with us now, it is with those who have what we need. The media love to list the wealthiest billionaires on the planet. Indeed, Forbes magazine is famous for these kinds of lists: the 50 billionaires, the 25 most influential female CEOs, the world's largest yachts, etc.

We love to read about Warren Buffet and Berkshire Hathaway, sitting on $50 billion in ready cash, or Bill Gates and Micrsoft with a tad more than that, probably around $60 billion. Amazing numbers these, aren't they, but absolute peanuts compared to the size of sovereign wealth funds accumulated by oil producers, and the retail production engines of the far east. It is estimated now that sovereign wealth funds have in excess of $1 trillion (that's $1,000 billion) in cash available at any given time for investment. First class citizens no more, the tables and fortunes have turned. After years, some may say even a century, of watching the US /UK economic money machine dominate the world economy, emulating them, envying them, albeit possibly feeling inferior and intimidated by them, nations with the largest reserves of natural resources now have the economic power and we all know who they are: the oil producers, Middle East, Venezuela, Russia, Norway, Canada, and the mega-global retailer, China. They are hugely flush with cash earned from us now poorer saps. We have been far to dumb all these years to understand that our complete lack of restraint in squandering our precious natural resources on creature comforts, gas guzzling cars, air conditioning, two and a half baths with water flush tanks, multitudes of clothes and electronics would eventually catch up with us.

While we've been busy becoming super-bloated and super-debted, running up high credit card debt and ignoring capital accumulation and savings, these sovereign wealth nations and their incredibly shrewd economic advisors have been practising perfect market theory; buy at the low and sell at the high.

Forget about individual perception of this new, new world since so much of current thinking is focused on how I can get ahead of my neighbour. Collectively, we have yet to fully realise that we need them more than they need us; even so, we are still ready at the drop of a hat to sell off what is left of our birthright.

Stated succinctly by one blogger on Dealbroker, we have to ask the question: At what point will the West (and this includes Bermuda, folks) realise that their dependence upon oil is leading them into indentured servitude by the Sovereign wealth nations' investment groups?

Every dollar that enters your gas tank, every dollar spent on cheap imports, is going out the door, and will return in the form of equity purchases. We all have to ask whenever those with the most cash and clout take equity positions, at what point does economic supremacy become political supremacy?

Next week: More on the largest change in economic power in our lifetime.

Martha Harris Myron CPA -NH1929, CFP® -67184 (US licenses) is a dual citizen (US and Bermuda). She is a Senior Wealth Manager at Argus Financial Limited, specializing in comprehensive financial solutions and investment advisory services for individual private clients and their families, business owners, endowments and trusts. DirectLine: 294 5709 Confidential email can be directed to mmyron@argusfinancial.bm The article expresses the opinion of the author alone. Under no circumstances is the content of this article to be taken as specific individual investment advice, nor as a recommendation to buy/ sell any investment product. The Editor of the Royal Gazette has final right of approval over headlines, content, and length/brevity of article.