...loan officers at commercial banks serving the energy sector are generally a bit more shrewd

Hmm, evidence of the current, ongoing, credit debacle suggests they have less smarts than man on the street - seduced by big numbers and unwilling to do the work to look behind them.

As for the rest of the world not reporting to the same standards, need to take it one step at a time. First get your own house in order, then lean on the 'state secrets' crowd to be more open (probably via the UN). Hell, with the information that countries have you could probably get a good real world estimate without their cooperation - and then publishing it would shame them.

Hmm, evidence of the current, ongoing, credit debacle suggests they have less smarts than man on the street...

You might want to watch the link on money that Cherenkov posted yesterday. It's a bit long, but both entertaining and quite informative.

My take has changed on the sub-prime debacle since watching that link. If you buy into the notion that debt must continue relentlessly to drive capital markets then it's easier to see why the banks and funds went into sub-prime fairy-land. They had no other place to make loans. The U.S. has exported it's industrial base and a great deal of it's middle class jobs. Investing in China has significant repatriation issues.

So we are where we are. And the water is cold and deep.