Posted on 11/29/2015 11:09:06 AM PST by RoosterRedux
Continued low oil prices and the war in Yemen have hit Saudi Arabia's budget so hard it is creating a special office to oversee government spending and cut waste. On Monday, the Saudi Press Agency published an item noting that Saudi Arabia was "willing to cooperate with OPEC and non-OPEC producers" to maintain a "stable" oil market. WTI retook $42, however analysts remain pretty pessimistic about hopes that the Gulf OPEC nations are in any mood to restrict production, which is hurting budgets but helping with certain political objectives, such as killing US shale and hurting arch-enemy, Iran.
In a Bloomberg report, Zainab Fattah cites two people with knowledge of the matter who claim that the first projected budget deficit since 2009 inspired the decision to create an office to oversee government spending. The project management office will report to the Committee of Economic Development.
*snip*
Standard & Poor's downgrade sparks criticism
The sources cited by Bloomberg said that ministries of housing, municipalities, labor, health, education and transportation will all be affected. The original 2015 budget of $229.3 billion included $49.3 billion in spending on new projects.
This September Saudi Arabia's net foreign assets reached a three-year low as officials dipped into financial reserves. Investments in foreign securities dropped by $23 billion, and the budget woes led Standard & Poor's to downgrade Saudi Arabia.
In 2013 Saudi Arabia boasted a healthy budget surplus of 7% GDP, but the situation has worsened significantly to a projected deficit of 16% in 2015, and could reach as high as 20% next year. According to S&P Saudi Arabia could suffer deficits for the next three years unless oil prices increase significantly.
(Excerpt) Read more at valuewalk.com ...
The partial liquidation of oil exporter investment portfolios is probably one reason that US stocks have been trending sideways for a while now.
I think that's way overstated. The Saudi populace has seen what civil war looks like in Libya and Syria. I doubt they're in any mood to replicate that. The average Saudi got a huge bump in living standards when oil prices went to $!00 and state spending jumped in tandem. I expect he understands that when oil prices tank, spending will have to follow. Besides, there are any number of commodity exporters where prices have tanked and belt-tightening ensued (in Africa and Latin America) without triggering regime-ending armed insurrection.
Libya and Syria were special cases. Without foreign aid, both of these rebellions would have been strangled at birth. Libyan rebels benefited from NATO intervention, just as Gaddafi was about to finish them off. Syrian rebels had the benefit of open checkbooks from the Gulf kingdoms bent on turfing Alawite apostates from their perches. Assad was also in a tough situation because Alawites are regarded not merely as infidels, but apostates (i.e. subhumans deserving of extermination, based on Koranic edict), ruling a majority Muslim country.
In the Muslim world, our problem isn't generally with the rulers. It's with the populace. The problem is mass literacy among the Muslim masses. Imams used to recite the usual pablum about being nice to your parents and not beating your wives (too vigorously) to a bunch of illiterates. Today, Muslims can read the Koran's fire-breathing, world-conquering, infidel-killing verses for themselves. So when the Shah started Westernizing the laws and education system to a newly-literate Iranian populace, the hoi polloi pushed back and put Khomeini in power. The Saudi royal family was in the process of liberalizing the kingdom, when it saw what befell the Shah. They quickly put their plans in reverse.
Note that dominant factions in both the Libyan and Syrian rebellions are Islamist. This is no accident. In Egypt and in Algeria, free elections led to Islamist majorities. In sum, we have a problem with Muslims, not Muslim leaders, who are moderates compared to the people they rule. Successful rebellions would put Muslim extremists in power.
No, I meant T as in Trillion.
I was in Dubai for many meetings. When you travel the world you get an eyeful and earful that you would never get with some slouch crap magazine like Forbes. Arabs know and are proud that their Prince is so wealthy.
He’s probably worth half of the T’s he was about 3 years ago due to his own demolition of oil prices and the correlative value in gold.
I know it’s hard to believe, for most Americans to believe, but all I can say is listen to Donald Trump and trust what he says about international finance and trade. He knows what we’re up against.
When Trump says America is 3rd World, he’s not kidding or exaggerating.
The rest of the world has gotten rich at our expense over the last 2 decades and those that have gotten rich all say that America is in decline. In other words, the magnanimity and generosity of the US is not appreciated. Our weakness and charity minded foreign policy including nation building and so forth have only engendered a disdain and disrespect for us. The recipients actually turn the charity on its head and claim to their people that it is reparations from America who stripped their resources and exploited them. See how that works?
The wealthy of the world see us as stupid and in decline. The only reason they are not more vocal about it is because we are still a huge military power and they want to use our military as a mercenary force to their ends.
Again listen to Trump, he’s telling the truth.
And yes it was T not B. If you don’t believe it, that’s fine. But just listen to Trump and you will get the picture in time.
“Note that dominant factions in both the Libyan and Syrian rebellions are Islamist. This is no accident. In Egypt and in Algeria, free elections led to Islamist majorities. In sum, we have a problem with Muslims, not Muslim leaders, who are moderates compared to the people they rule. Successful rebellions would put Muslim extremists in power.”
So the net effect of our involvement in the ME has been one big fat mess! We have removed criminal leaders and thereby left the door open to radical islamists. So we lost our own lives and treasure, and then left the scene and ISIS is the result. Saddam and Khadafi were preferable, in hindsight to the vacuum we left. I stil grapple with trying to understand what the world should do about Islam. Islam has not had a positive history with it’s attempts at trying to take over the world in the past, and now we’re faced with that prospect once again.
Good. They deserve something for having their citizens fly those planes into the Towers , PA and the Pentagon. I hope they lose all their money and go back to eating camel dung.
That may be true, but there are powerful forces against SA. The Saudi monarchy is a British artifact, not an islamic one. Just as progressives want to erase history here, ISIS, Turkey, and Iran are working to control the islamic narrative. In each of those three narratives, the Saudi monarchy has no right to exist. When one of those narratives becomes dominant, the monarchy can be swept away as easily as the confederate flag.
Are you asserting that if it weren't for the Brits, what is now Saudi Arabia would be part of some pan-Arabic empire? Or that it would be a collection of independent nation states? Whichever one you're asserting, it's equally true that without French support, the thirteen colonies would have remained part of Mother England. And up until the conclusion of the Civil War, it was conceivable that the states might have become independent nations in their own right. I think it will take a significant external force for any rebel group to win in Saudi Arabia. Heck - it took significant external force for the rebels to survive in Libya and Syria, and those pitted apostate rulers (Gaddafi was an atheist and Assad is an Alawite) against Muslims. Whereas the Saudis at least maintain the appearance of being devout Muslims.
So far, no one is cutting back on oil production. American and European energy companies, not to mention the oil rich members of OPEC, are flooding the global market for cheap oil.
It might very well be.
Now imagine this;
the kind of thinking that allowed Trump to have so much money to spend so extravagantly for such an expensive throne in his bathroom,
imagine what kind of thinking applied to getting our government out of the way so that we can begin building our companies, our roads, our airports, our infrastructure to new, 'gold plated' standards.
Only Trump has the experience, the God given talent to do that.
They were the 'strongman' leaders who would stomp the crap out of any opposition to maintain power.
Not nice, in fact, often downright brutal, but what it takes to unite different tribes and factions under one banner.
We didn't have that tribal mentality here, so we didn't need it. Odunga has done more to propel the US toward factions based on race and other considerations than anyone before him: the melting pot isn't melting any more, and the chunks (unassimilated 'immigrant' groups) are starting to bang around in the kettle.
That’s a part of the problem. The numbers of royalty is increasing every day, as does their drain on the budget.
According to Islam, *all* borders are illegitimate and peace will only be established once they're completely eliminated under an all-conquering Mahdi. Actual Muslims, however, are extremely tribal and nationalistic - both in the Near East and North Africa. I don't think it's escaped the notice of foreigners recruited by ISIS that they tend to get the scut jobs - i.e. be assigned suicide bombings. Rebellions tend to fizzle out because the leaders can never agree on who gets to be boss (and gets the associated perks), and spend a lot of time fighting each other, whereas the powers-that-be have already worked it out, meaning they act with one voice.
http://www.forbes.com/profile/prince-alwaleed-bin-talal-alsaud/
Net Worth As of 11/30/15
$21.7 Billion
Camel dung dries to 1-inch diameter round pebbles in the desert sun, is gathered and used as fuel to cook with.
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