An associated state is the minor partner in a formal, free relationship between a political territory with a degree of statehood and a (usually larger) nation, for which no other specific term, such as protectorate, is adopted. The details of such free association are contained in United Nations General Assembly resolution 1541 (XV) Principle VI, a Compact of Free Association or Associated Statehood Act and are specific to the countries involved. In the case of the Cook Islands and Niue, the details of their free association arrangement are contained in several documents, such as their respective constitutions, the 1983 Exchange of Letters between the governments of New Zealand and the Cook Islands, and the 2001 Joint Centenary Declaration. Free associated states can be described as independent or not, but free association is not a qualification of an entity's statehood or status as a subject of international law.

Informally it can be considered more widely: from a post-colonial form of amical protection, or protectorate, to confederation of unequal members when the lesser partner(s) delegate to the major one (often the former colonial power) some authority normally exclusively retained by a self-governing state, often in such fields as defence and foreign relations, while often enjoying favorable economic terms such as market access.

Nouriel Roubini (born March 29, 1959) is an American economist. He anticipated the collapse of the United States housing market and the worldwide recession which started in 2008. He teaches at New York University's Stern School of Business and is the chairman of Roubini Global Economics, an economic consultancy firm.

The child of Iranian Jews, he grew up in Italy. After receiving a BA in political economics at Bocconi University, Milan and a doctorate in international economics at Harvard University, he became an academic at Yale and a practicing economist at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Federal Reserve, World Bank, and Bank of Israel. Much of his early research focused on emerging markets. During the administration of President Bill Clinton, he was a senior economist for the Council of Economic Advisers, later moving to the United States Treasury Department as a senior adviser to Timothy Geithner, who in 2009 became Treasury Secretary.

Roubini's critical economic views have earned him the nicknames "Dr. Doom" and "permabear" in the media. In 2008, Fortune magazine wrote, "In 2005 Roubini said home prices were riding a speculative wave that would soon sink the economy. Back then the professor was called a Cassandra. Now he's a sage". The New York Times notes that he foresaw "homeowners defaulting on mortgages, trillions of dollars of mortgage-backed securities unraveling worldwide and the global financial system shuddering to a halt". In September 2006, he warned a skeptical IMF that "the United States was likely to face a once-in-a-lifetime housing bust, an oil shock, sharply declining consumer confidence, and, ultimately, a deep recession". Nobel laureate Paul Krugman adds that his once "seemingly outlandish" predictions have been matched "or even exceeded by reality."

Matthew Lee is a public interest lawyer, author, and founder of two non-profit organizations, Inner City Press and Fair Finance Watch.

Both are known for their investigations of the banking industry's treatment of low-income communities of color around the world. Lee produces weekly reports on, and advocates concerning, such global banks as HSBC, Citigroup, Royal Bank of Scotland, Mizuho, and others. In 2005-2006, Lee was engaged in litigation to deem the "citizens-only" provision of the Freedom of Information Act of Delaware (and ten other states) to be unconstitutional.

Lee is the author of the non-fiction book Predatory Lending: Toxic Credit in the Global Inner City and the novel Predatory Bender. Lee is also an accredited journalist at the United Nations.

In mid-2006, Lee's investigative journalism at the UN, published online in Inner City Press uncovered and led to the United Nations Development Programme halting its disarmament programs in the Karamoja region of Uganda in response to human rights abuses exposed in the parallel forcible disarmament programs carried out by the Uganda People's Defense Force. For another view, see the Ugandan newspaper The New Vision, which was critical of UNDP's halt of funding.

Victoria Nuland (born 1961) is the spokesperson for the United States Department of State.

In summer 2011, Nuland became the State Department Spokesperson. She was declared a "consummate professional who proved that Foreign Service officers could be trusted to put professionalism over politics."

She was Ambassador of the United States to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization from 2005 to 2008. As NATO Ambassador, she focused heavily on strengthening Allied support for the Afghanistan war, on NATO-Russia issues, and on the Alliance’s global partnerships and continued enlargement.

A career Foreign Service officer, she was Principal Deputy National Security Advisor to Vice President Cheney from July 2003 until May 2005, where she worked on the full range of global issues, including those relating to Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and the broader Middle East.

Nuland was the Deputy Permanent Representative to NATO from July 2000 to July 2003. There she was instrumental in NATO's invocation of Article 5 of its charter – "an attack on one ally is an attack on all" – in support of the United States after September 11, 2001. She also worked intensively on the enlargement of the Alliance to include seven new members, the creation of the NATO-Russia Council, NATO's first deployment "out of area" to Afghanistan and its defense of Turkey during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.