One country that is weathering the storm....Iraq

Maybe not the ideal posting but one place that has so far avoided the global downturn is Iraq.

This from Time magazine

Iraq's ability to weather the global slowdown at the moment rests in the huge currency reserves it earned in recent years selling oil as prices soared. Iraq has roughly $30 billion in surpluses from previous years. That has allowed the country to maintain minimum standards of services and governance despite depression-scale unemployment (no reliable data are available, but some experts estimate unemployment may be over 20%). Iraq's GDP is growing steadily despite the global financial crisis. Last year, GDP grew in Iraq an estimated 7% to 9%. This year, GDP is projected to rise 5% to 7%. (See pictures of life returning to Iraq's streets.)

But storm clouds are on the horizon.With the global drop in oil prices the country faces a deficit this year of roughly $20 billion,which will wipe out the current surplus.

The country must then look to other sectors to prop it up and

Iraq cannot currently generate cash on capital markets like other countries by the sale of bonds because of hundreds of unsettled claims worth billions of dollars related to Iraq's 1991 invasion of Kuwait. Scores of possible lawsuits by Kuwaitis and Westerners lurk in countries where Iraq might sell bonds, which could be seized by courts deciding cases put forward by plaintiffs allegedly wronged by the former regime.