Neither of the two underlying themes currently rocking global financial markets is likely to fade quickly. Given its powerful growth momentum, exceptionally loose financial conditions and emerging inflation pressures, 2010 has to be a year of policy exit in Asia. Ultimately, the evolution of Chinese inflation this year will determine whether a relatively benign normalisation process morphs into the more malign aggressive tightening that de-rails Asia's booming recovery and frothy asset markets. Equally what is clear is that concerns of fiscal solvency in the West are here to stay. What remains unclear is how aggressively markets will impose a near-term and almost certainly premature fiscal adjustment. What is clear is that the unfolding and increasingly self reinforcing logic of the emerging new world economic order means there is increasingly little reason for Asian risk to trade wider than of the developed world. The enormous and rapidly widening gulf in fiscal trends supports Asia's continued economic out performance not to mention sustained upward pressure on the region's real exchange rates.

Eoin Treacy's view There has been a great deal of discussion in the financial press about whether Greece will successfully navigate the crisis it now finds itself in, if the Eurozone will survive a sovereign debt default should one occur and if there is a risk of contagion for countries such as the UK, Japan and the USA. These are all important questions which we will have definitive answers for in the coming months and years but to my mind there is a more important question that needs to be addressed first.

All the issues facing these governments are in essence related to a problem with too much debt and leverage and not enough tax receipts to pay it down. The questions so far have focused on how one country or another might survive this crisis but from the perspective of a judge at an international beauty contest do we want to invest in these countries at all since there are plenty more where these problems are relatively minor if they exist at all?

Commodity producers such as Australia and Canada have come through this crisis comparatively unharmed. Most of the others are primarily in the so-called emerging markets. Brazil is now a net creditor, China has the biggest foreign currency reserves in the world. Large numbers of countries in Latin America and Asia run trade surpluses. If we look at the world with a broader perspective we see clearly where risk and leverage are concentrated.

The outcome of the major challenges facing the USA, UK, Eurozone and Japan are crucial because of the effect they have on the global market. However, we do not have to invest in the debt, currencies or equities of these countries. Others are better equipped to deal with these issues from a position of strength. They have shown to be credible managers of their economies in a truly testing era and it is surely in these countries one should concentrate long-term investments.