dsmith:
Dershowitz is an insignificant buffoon. But when it comes to tearing up the Iran Nuclear Treaty (JCPOA), an antecedent for war, Trump will have considerable support in the US Congress among those "Israel uber alles" Democrats. The lead choir-boy being none other than the self-declared "Guardian of Israel", Chuck Schumer.
"Irhal" was the ubiquitous protest slogan that I remember when Ali Abdullah was toppled. He might well be gone for good as there are reports that he was killed.
Am not sure about the personal profligacy of Saad Hariri, maybe he is maybe not; but then we shouldn't be surprised at the proclivities of the super rich in the Middle East. It is however also evident that doing business in Saudi can make you a billionaire one day and a pauper the next. When the price of crude collapsed in 2014 the Saudis did what is common- place in KSA: they simply stopped paying their bills to the huge construction companies. Tens of thousands of laborers, mainly from the Sub Continent, were languishing in horrendous conditions for months in labor camps before their own governments had to evacuate them. Two of the the biggest construction companies in the kingdom went belly-up, Hariri's Oger and bin Ladin Construction.
KSA has had access to fabulous wealth in petro-dollars which it can't spend within, in spite of gold plated palaces, gilded escalators on planes, $100m vacations for the king and $600m yachts for MBS. etc. Their main channel to get this wealth out is via Uncle Sam who provides them with military protection and "allows" them to buy expensive toys for their militias.
Prof. Cole:
But is Md. b Salman really TRANSITIONING from petroleum? We need to give this another thought. I would be the first to applaud him if he'd pursue a policy that would keep the petroleum PERMANENTLY under ground. But he is not. He wants his trillions from others... who will do the extracting, so he can invest his riches in markets elsewhere. What that gives him and his family is liquidity and mobility. They would no longer be tied to the land, should a revolution knock on the door. And that incipient revolution scares the bejeezus of the Saudis. Why do you think the Saudis hate Iran with such passion? Because of the Shia-Sunni divide? No. That is a convenient fig leaf to seduce the ignoramuses who go out to fight the rafidis. What the Saudis hate and fear most is how Khomeini showed a path to mobilizing the religious sentiments of a population to topple a thieving, despotic monarch and replacing the regime with a democracy, albeit theocratic, which has survived all these decades in spite of bellicose belligerence from US.
"As for the sovereign wealth fund, let’s say the ARAMCO partial IPO actually realizes $2 trillion. Let’s say it gets 5% on its investments after overhead and that all $2 trillion are invested around the world. That would be $100 billion a year, or 1/6 of Saudi Arabia’s GDP last year. It doesn’t replace the oil."
Are we appraising 5% of Aramco to be worth $2tr? Sounds like a pipe dream to me. I doubt if the entire company would fetch that sum. Who is going to buy it?
dsmith:
Dershowitz is an insignificant buffoon. But when it comes to tearing up the Iran Nuclear Treaty (JCPOA), an antecedent for war, Trump will have considerable support in the US Congress among those "Israel uber alles" Democrats. The lead choir-boy being none other than the self-declared "Guardian of Israel", Chuck Schumer.
"Irhal" was the ubiquitous protest slogan that I remember when Ali Abdullah was toppled. He might well be gone for good as there are reports that he was killed.
Am not sure about the personal profligacy of Saad Hariri, maybe he is maybe not; but then we shouldn't be surprised at the proclivities of the super rich in the Middle East. It is however also evident that doing business in Saudi can make you a billionaire one day and a pauper the next. When the price of crude collapsed in 2014 the Saudis did what is common- place in KSA: they simply stopped paying their bills to the huge construction companies. Tens of thousands of laborers, mainly from the Sub Continent, were languishing in horrendous conditions for months in labor camps before their own governments had to evacuate them. Two of the the biggest construction companies in the kingdom went belly-up, Hariri's Oger and bin Ladin Construction.
KSA has had access to fabulous wealth in petro-dollars which it can't spend within, in spite of gold plated palaces, gilded escalators on planes, $100m vacations for the king and $600m yachts for MBS. etc. Their main channel to get this wealth out is via Uncle Sam who provides them with military protection and "allows" them to buy expensive toys for their militias.
Prof. Cole:
But is Md. b Salman really TRANSITIONING from petroleum? We need to give this another thought. I would be the first to applaud him if he'd pursue a policy that would keep the petroleum PERMANENTLY under ground. But he is not. He wants his trillions from others... who will do the extracting, so he can invest his riches in markets elsewhere. What that gives him and his family is liquidity and mobility. They would no longer be tied to the land, should a revolution knock on the door. And that incipient revolution scares the bejeezus of the Saudis. Why do you think the Saudis hate Iran with such passion? Because of the Shia-Sunni divide? No. That is a convenient fig leaf to seduce the ignoramuses who go out to fight the rafidis. What the Saudis hate and fear most is how Khomeini showed a path to mobilizing the religious sentiments of a population to topple a thieving, despotic monarch and replacing the regime with a democracy, albeit theocratic, which has survived all these decades in spite of bellicose belligerence from US.
"As for the sovereign wealth fund, let’s say the ARAMCO partial IPO actually realizes $2 trillion. Let’s say it gets 5% on its investments after overhead and that all $2 trillion are invested around the world. That would be $100 billion a year, or 1/6 of Saudi Arabia’s GDP last year. It doesn’t replace the oil."
Are we appraising 5% of Aramco to be worth $2tr? Sounds like a pipe dream to me. I doubt if the entire company would fetch that sum. Who is going to buy it?