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| Arabia |
| United States Must Not Neglect Saudi Investment |
| 2003-12-09 |
| Long economic piece on the Saudi-American Forum. EFL: Saudi Arabians have allocated an estimated 60% of their global investments to the United States through passive and direct investments. This commitment has enabled the United States to finance an ongoing trade deficit and produce new economic growth opportunities. Saudi "investments" have sure helped the defense sector. Objections and barriers to Saudi investment in the United States are on the rise. Although most are baseless and even discriminatory, their impact could be multiplied in the current market environment. Promotion agencies across the globe are maneuvering to attract and keep foreign investment. The Kingdom’s own market climate has opened and become highly attractive for Saudi investors. America must eliminate growing impediments to Saudi and other foreign investment in the United States in order to remain competitive. Blah - blah - Be nice or we’ll take our money elseware - Blah - blah - snipped. In February 2003, total worldwide Saudi investment, including investment in the United States and Europe, was conservatively estimated at U.S. $700 billion. The United States received approximately 60% of the global Saudi investment allocation. That’s 60% of all overseas Saudi investment, right where we can seize it, if and when we want to. |
| Posted by:Steve |
| #12 Lucky, I'm not worried about being PC or drawing in Germany or France, but I can't see how W could pull something like that off and still get reelected (and we are NOT going to win with any of the others in that office). My current thinking is SA can wait a bit (unless the internal war w/ AQ heats up a LOT more); I'm more worried we'll have to do something with Iran near term, before Nov. 2004. I think that potentially could be sold to voters and W would still win, but not taking over SA oil fields in the absence of obvious civil war. |
| Posted by: Sharon in NYC 2003-12-12 5:38:34 PM |
| #11 Yea Dot, But only if we want to win this war. Or we could go slowly, checking all the PC boxes along the way. Who's onboard, who's not. Discussions and a shifting time table. France will want some veto power and Germany needs some sort of cover, No. Blair is toast unless he gets some slice of pie. Putin is Putin! Toss him a bone and he'll go along like a good kitty. So 10 years and a few billion in cash. One lost city or so. Add it up and I say it's a go. And I mean it as I've been working through this also. Iran is a tough nut to be sure. So lets take care of one half of the equation. SA oil fields. They are children playing with fire! |
| Posted by: Lucky 2003-12-10 12:32:21 AM |
| #10 Margaret--get my pills! I find myself in agreement with .com and am not feeling right! Of course just wondering where that voice in the wilderness was when GHWB was in the house... |
| Posted by: NotMikeMoore 2003-12-9 10:05:44 PM |
| #9 Sharon in NYC - I hear you. I'm getting the same response here in Thailand from the US expats who aren't refugees from reality - that's about 50% of them. The answer is stealth = fait accomplis (to borrow a phrase from JFM's better heritage). Just use a short rotation of the right mix of forces coming out of Iraq through the Gulf and do it. 90 days afterwards, the results will prove the case. If we don't do it this way, we'll be bled from a thousand small cuts until... LA or SF or Baltimore or Houston or NYC harbor is hit with a dirty bomb, or chemical attack, or bio attack. When we are only inspecting less than 1% of the containers on ships and less than 2% of the trucks crossing our Canadian border (so how's that fence coming?) this is an eventuality. Not a possibility, an eventuality - right off of the AlQ websites. Do we wait for the deed? Must America always wait until it's backed into a corner before it acts? No - Dubya has finally broken that inane rule by saying we must be proactive and pre-emptive due to the lethality of the weapons available. Great, let's employ that brilliant realization and save some of OUR innocent lives, too, in addition to Iraqis and Afghans. My proposition merely acknowledges what we all know is the true source of the majority of the grief in the WoT, and states a pre-emptive move that will deal with that fact more effectively than any other I have been able to come up with. And I have realized that the citizens of the blogosphere who aren't gullible idiotarian tools are at least as smart and creative as the Pentagon Planners and State Dept Dips and, in fact, are more likely to recognize things for what they are because we aren't burdened with their institutional baggage. Sorry to be so windy, but that's what your right-on-the-money response generated cuz I've been having the same discussion around here for the last couple of months. One more reason why I dropped out for awhile - to work it out in my head what I'd do if I was in charge. There are better folks here in RB, though, including those who just read it - so I finally figured I'd start tossing it out until it got a fair hearing. Thx for reading it and responding! ;-) |
| Posted by: .com 2003-12-9 6:08:23 PM |
| #8 I agree with you PD. I just don't see how W can pull it off politically. |
| Posted by: Sharon in NYC 2003-12-9 5:41:03 PM |
| #7 The Saudis haven't invested money in the US because they like us: they've invested the money here because they like the security and upside potential of our markets. If they want to move $500 billion to the Russian stock market, they're certainly free to do so. True. But don't underestimate the short-term economic hit here if they dump $-denominated financial instruments (mostly US bonds, but also corporates and stocks) rapidly. If they are willing to take a hit themselves, they could do sufficient short-range damage that it would threaten Bush's re-election. |
| Posted by: rkb 2003-12-9 5:31:29 PM |
| #6 Oh, almost forgot... watch Iraq finally have a chance to succeed. Whatever follows after the external money for asshat activity dries up will finally be, at least for the most part, an Iraqi issue. Self-determination. What a novel concept. |
| Posted by: .com 2003-12-9 4:24:30 PM |
| #5 SH you're right. The Feds don't do capital budgeting. To them the Abe Lincoln and sisters are treated as dead cold expenses from day one.. not capital assets to be depreciated over 50 yrs. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2003-12-9 4:15:09 PM |
| #4 Keeping it as short as I can... excuse the typos, I'm rattling the keys as fast as I can... A Question: When a nation declares war on another, are not its assets forfeit? A Trigger: Look back to the 1973 oil embargo by Saudi Arabia directed against the US. We were heavily dependent upon SA oil in particular, as they had historically been our "close ally" - which, in point of fact, is better described as our most favored friend: we provided technology and expertise and defense - and they let us buy their oil. Not exactly a sweetheart arrrangement for us, as they and OPEC manipulated our economy almost at will for their own gain in most cases, but it did "guarantee" our oil supply... That is, until the Yom Kippur War. Caught completely by surprise, Israel suffered severe losses and, militarily, was in serious trouble. When the Soviets launched a major airlift to resupply Egypt and Syria, the US did the same for Israel - which was enough to bring about a stalemate and defacto cease-fire. Then we had Kissinger's shuttle diplomacy - which allowed the warring factions to disengage and return lands taken - bring the parties back to the stalemate condition of the post-1967 war. A Fact: The 1973 embargo, which lasted well into 1974, was Saudi punishment of the US for aiding Israel. Just as they've been "at war" with Israel since its founding, they have been "at war" with the US since 1973. The embargo was only the opening salvo. They have waged a low-grade diplomatic and economic war against the US ever since. Hot war against us began outside our borders - so it wasn't obvious to many. 9/11 was not the first military battle against us - just the most obvious. There are many to blame for our slumbering through most of this war, and many will amuse themselves with this for some time. The important fact is that we have begun to awaken to the fact that we ARE at war. Everyone is still playing too nice with this "confabulation of evils" -- nation, country, society - all are far too civil to describe the succubus that is the House of Saud married to Wahhabist Islam. A Cure: Take its toys away from it. Take a strip of land 40 km wide running from Kuwait's southern border to Yemen's fuzzy northern border. This is the Saudi tick-head buried in our flesh - this little strip of land. Take it and amazing shit happens. They no longer get to play jihadi. No more back-stabbing subversion and diplomacy-for-sale. Watch the terror in the world begin to dry up. Watch the Black Hats crawl back into their cave and pull the rock in after - hoping we'll forget about them - but we won't, they are doomed by their overreaching efforts for nukes to kill Israel and rule the ME oil lands - oh, and Islam, right - almost forgot it's about religion with the Black Hats. Watch SE Asian and Pakistani and Paleo terror groups wither, almost overnight. Watch the Taliban become a memory and leave Afghanistan to its age-old joke of Kabul vs. the Warlords. Watch Syria implode and Lebanon try to figure out what to do with itself. Watch Qatar and the UAE suddenly realize that sponsoring Al Jizz and other jihadi mouthpieces is poor business, indeed. There will much to see, from this one small militarily near-trivial move. But don't despair, we'll still have Dear Leader to provide entertainment - for a little while. at least. |
| Posted by: .com 2003-12-9 4:11:57 PM |
| #3 The Saudis haven't invested money in the US because they like us: they've invested the money here because they like the security and upside potential of our markets. If they want to move $500 billion to the Russian stock market, they're certainly free to do so. |
| Posted by: Matt 2003-12-9 2:58:17 PM |
| #2 The SSN reform plans will replace Saudi money rapidly. At worst the US government can cash in mineral rights or sell land it confiscated from citizens. I don't think an actual deficit exists when you really look at some of the saleable assets of the Federal Government. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2003-12-9 2:21:42 PM |
| #1 Steve---Your last comment is the one that hit me when I was reading this article. The Saudi investment is a two-edged sword. The more we keep digging into Saudi money, the more we build a causus belli in regard to 9-11 and global terrorism, at least in regard to how it affects the US. We could also turn over the information to other allies that could use it too in the same way. I do not like veiled threats from the Saudis, they make me angry. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2003-12-9 1:57:59 PM |