Continuing my effort to help Donald Rumsfeld find some "metrics" by which he may gauge how well the war is going, I find that The Economist has a measure that should be of interest to capitalists everywhere: investment risk. The Economist reports that

Iraq is a riskier destination for foreign investment than any of the emerging markets tracked ..., according to the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), a sister firm of The Economist. The EIU's country-risk ratings ... take account of 77 indicators of political stability and other measures of credit quality.

Iraq is hovering at 90% of "maximum risk."

The world must be getting safer for capital. Amazingly, of the 27 "emerging markets" that the EIU tracks, only the Philippines and Thailand have become riskier over the past year. They even find some marginal improvement in Iraq. I'd love to know in which of their 77 indices Iraq has shown improvement.

Investment risk in "emerging markets"

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