The clowns over at Moody’s downgraded the House of Saud’s credit rating this weekend, thanks to the price of crude slumping. Taking into account the high expenses of their harems and torture facilities, as well as operating the EPA inside of the United States, Moody’s believes their credit profile to be less than ideal.
While the government has ambitious and comprehensive plans to address the shock by diversifying its economic and fiscal base, those plans are at an early stage of development and their impact remains uncertain,”
It is not yet clear how this cumulative financing need will be met: while Saudi Arabia’s low levels of government debt at 5.8 percent of GDP in 2015 provide fiscal space, no medium-term funding strategy has yet been announced,” Moody’s pointed out.
It’s worth noting that the Obama administration, under the guise of global warming, has just passed new rules to punish American oil companies. This, of course, is a net positive for Saudi Barbaria and will help towards funding their freshly stocked harems, torture chambers, and global terrorist cells.
These are our great friends. We enable them with open eyes.
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I dont think President Obama’s administration looks at it that way — but they should. I agree with you – who wouldn’t rather buy oil from U.S. than Saudis? This scenario hasn’t made sense for a very long time. But then a lot doesn’t with global trade policies. There is no decent energy/trade policy & there should be.
Obama is just a single villain. There is a whole network behind these people.
I’d rather buy form the Saudis. The sooner we drain their resoruces (particularly at low prices), the sooner they lose power.
Let’s say there is a natural resource that you own and that you use. It can be anything, water, copper – or oil. Let’s say that the storage costs are very low.
The best policy is to import it when prices are low and use your own resources when prices are high.
Becuase commodites cannot be *produced* only *recovered*, the economics are much different. If we produce more domestic oil, now , that is less US oil available for future consumption and more Saudi oil avaialble later.
Basically, “Drill, baby, drill” is only a sensible policy whne prices are high.
ABSURD.
I’m sure you can do better than that. Care to explain?
Saudi barbaria is trying to bk one of the sectors that got us going, after coal was essentially wiped out by our own administration.
So when the retarded fed hikes interest rates in June, we can thank Saudi barbaria?
As has been mentioned before, “hiking rates” as a policy tool has been replaced by “threatening to hike rates.”
This makes even more sense when you look at the the fact that in the last month even, at least two financial companies have taken the public view (with dat to back it up) that FED hikes are more conditional on the Stock Market than on either inflation or employment.
I think think they hike. Low volume, easily controlled.
What is the U.S. debt as a % of GDP? That is the question.
halfbloodpope, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, the total public debt as % of GDP, 2015Q 104.16949% of GDP.
BTN
Sometimes money plays a secondary role to human rights violations. By supporting and doing business with these savages, we enable them. I find it funny how everyone is in agreement that doing business with Hitler during WW2 was reprehensible. But, today, doing business with Iran, China, Saudia Arabia, and other regimes that have killed countless millions, is okay.
After all, we must do business with them in order to open up their regimes to democracy, right? That’s the lie being told to keep people in agreement that globalization is good.
Where are the fucking liberals? They’re too busy trying to get Joe Sixpack into the ladies room than to protest our ties with corrupt and backward regimes. It’s disgraceful.
Agreed. Instead of invading countries to install democracy we actually have greater power with our economic policy. We finally get of the tit of foreign oil and get that good old WTI in plentiful abundecy but do we leverage that independence? Maybe Trump will. Maybe Hillary will, but Obama sure ain’t.
Well, that is a good point, Fly.
However, reducing US Saudi-oil demand alone by 20% or less will not make a difference at all. Even reducing direct US Saudi imports by 100% will have a limited effect because then we’d buy more from non-sanctioned oil exporters and other countries (like China) will buy less from non-sanctioned oil countries and more from Saudi Arabia.
If we really wanted to curb Saudi oil sales, we’d have to do what we did to Iran (because of their nuclear program) and Argentina (wn they defaulted): sanction any banks that do business with Saudi Arabia. As Argentina found out, you can’t sell oil if you can’t collect payment.
Of course, going this route is a plus for the US energy industry, but the Defense Companies wouldn’t be happy.
As for the China thing, I bet Millenials don’t even understand what you are talking about. They are more upset at US corps taking advantage of China’s cheap iLabor force than anything to do with disappearing of dissidents.
get swole,
Hillary = corporate-friendly Obama
Sometimes money plays a secondary role to human rights violations.
Not “sometimes,” almost always.
By supporting and doing business with these savages, we enable them.
In the case of Saudi Arabia, I have to disagree. SA is quite able to maintain its current human-rights practices without US trade, weapons, and cooperation.
We can’t harm them much economically, because, unless we are willing to risk global economic disruption with a military blockade of petroleum exports, SA will have no trouble selling its production at normal market prices.
We could tell the world that we won’t defend the SA regime or the nation’s sovereignty until they improve on human rights, but I’m not sure we would be believed. The regime would likely crackdown even harder on any real or potential dissent. Most likely, any successor to the regime would be strongly opposed to cooperation with the US and all the more eager to spread Wahhabism. The only likely threat to territorial sovereignty is from Iran and its allies, so, again, the US could do a lot worse than the current SA regime.
It is usually the case that outsiders can’t exert much influence on how a government treats its own people. Unless the citizens themselves can and do pressure the government, outsiders are mostly impotent. If there is strong public demand within Saudi Arabia for large improvements in human rights, I’ve never read of it.
We could still go the moral high road and cut off trade and other cooperative engagement with the country, but we’d get almost nothing for it and would lose the benefits of our current relationship. Other countries would be happy to step in to provide Saudi’s many of the benefits.
I share your revulsion of the SA government’s behavior, but I believe that, in most cases, successful foreign relations are a matter of remaining engaged for the long term and remaining focused on US interests.
One step I would favor would be to investigate the backgrounds of known/captured/killed terrorists as thoroughly as practical and to raise hell with the Saudis (in private, initially) any time there is a link to a Saudi-sponsored school and to demand Saudi action if a school is linked to more than one terrorist.
Where are the fucking liberals?
Why make this a partisan issue?
But, to answer your question…
Liberals support organizations like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Liberals oppose use of torture and strongly believe that the US government needs to set a good example in that area. Liberals favor increases in fleet-MPG standards for motor vehicles. Liberals favor government incentives and funding to improve renewable energy technologies and electric vehicles, to bring them to market faster, and to speed adoption of them. Liberals oppose the use of religious beliefs and religious texts as the basis for a country’s laws.
The above aren’t done with the goal of changing the behavior of the SA government and are very unlikely to cause any such change. A rapid transition away from petroleum fuels is one development that would give the US much more freedom to exert pressure for its interests in the Middle East, but the technology and infrastructure are far from being ready for such a transition.
Ottnott
You mistake my call for liberals as partisan when it’s a legitimate appeal. There’s nothing wrong with good liberals, only the fake ones who are only appalled by bathroom travelers.
Liberalism should apply to all races, not just white people.
Hey, if you mean straw liberals, say so.
FLY YOU ARE SO RIGHT!
U.S. needs to quit talking out of both sides of our mouth.
The House of Saud is ground zero for Islamic radicalization & everyone knows it.
The House of Saud abuses half their population – women…how ignorant to not let half a country’s population contribute to its growth? – IDIOTS.
They buy all our weapons – Is that the trade?
We don’t need their oil – so why keep kissing their stupid ring?
Macro – Micro – U.S. policy towards SA is STUPID.
I would like to know how all of the production hurts sand companies.