Saudi Arabia Could Sell Off Billions In American Assets

[ghulam muhammed]

Saudi Arabia Could Sell Off Billions In American Assets If US Congress Passes 9/11 Bill

The Saudi Arabian government has threatened to sell of hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of American assets should the U.S. Congress pass a bill that could hold the kingdom responsible for any role in the 11 Sept., 2001 attacks, the New York Times reported on Friday.

The newspaper reported that Saudi foreign minister Adel al-Jubeir told U.S. lawmakers last month that "Saudi Arabia would be forced to sell up to $750 billion in Treasury securities and other assets in the United States before they could be in danger of being frozen by American courts."

The bill, which passed the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this year, would take away immunity from foreign governments in cases "arising from a terrorist attack that kills an American on American soil."

The New York Times, citing administration officials and congressional aides, said "the Saudi threats have been the subject of intense discussions in recent weeks between lawmakers and officials from the State Department and the Pentagon."

It added that the Obama administration had lobbied Congress to block the passage of the bill.

The State Department said it stood "firmly with the victims of these acts of violence and their loved ones."

"We remain committed to bringing to justice terrorists and those who use terrorism to advance their depraved ideology," said State Department spokesman John Kirby.

In September a U.S. judge dismissed claims against Saudi Arabia by families of victims of the attacks, saying that the kingdom had sovereign immunity from damage claims by the families and from insurers that covered losses suffered by building owners and businesses.

http://www.huffingtonpost.in/2016/04/17 ... _ref=india

[Greatest I am]

Saudi Arabia might be shooting themselves in the foot if they do as the West might stop selling them munitions for their aircraft and other major war machines.

I read that England alone sold them over 2 billion in armament just to throw at Yemen.

Regards
DL

[zinger]

Saudi Arabia might be shooting themselves in the foot if they do as the West might stop selling them munitions for their aircraft and other major war machines.

I read that England alone sold them over 2 billion in armament just to throw at Yemen.

Regards
DL

well well well, looks who's back

[alivasan]

Saudi Arabia might be shooting themselves in the foot if they do as the West might stop selling them munitions for their aircraft and other major war machines.

I read that England alone sold them over 2 billion in armament just to throw at Yemen.

Regards
DL

well well well, looks who's back

zinger, most of ur time on forum i suppose is spent on knowing and telling us who's who. Why are this guys posting with multiple avtar's even when not discussing on serious issues like reform, dai, etc where one might not want to be identified and post anonymously ????.i remember talking with you on phone couple of years back on technical snag in BB and pm'ed you and gathered that your first impression to know if i was mischief monger or genuine. I know you are old timer and know better than me.thanks.

[I Rizwan]

zinger, most of ur time on forum i suppose is spent on knowing and telling us who's who.

good point alivasan, I thought to make a meme and dedicate it to Zinger for his amazing capabilities.

[zinger]

well well well, looks who's back

zinger, most of ur time on forum i suppose is spent on knowing and telling us who's who. Why are this guys posting with multiple avtar's even when not discussing on serious issues like reform, dai, etc where one might not want to be identified and post anonymously ????.i remember talking with you on phone couple of years back on technical snag in BB and pm'ed you and gathered that your first impression to know if i was mischief monger or genuine. I know you are old timer and know better than me.thanks.

i think you have mixed me with someone else. you talking to me on the phone is not possible. you dont even know who i am. and you surely dont have my number

secondly, i am the least qualified person to discuss anything on technical snags in BB

thirdly, im not as old a timer as the resident virus

fouthly, the virus deserves to be exposed everytime he comes here. perhaps you are not aware of how hostile and poisonous he is

[zinger]

zinger, most of ur time on forum i suppose is spent on knowing and telling us who's who.

good point alivasan, I thought to make a meme and dedicate it to Zinger for his amazing capabilities.

thank you pal. no one makes anything these days for anyone anymore except rotis for Muffadal bhaisaab

[zinger]

good point alivasan, I thought to make a meme and dedicate it to Zinger for his amazing capabilities.

thank you pal. no one makes anything these days for anyone anymore except rotis for Muffadal bhaisaab

will we see you in another id now that i exposed this one of yours again?

[I Rizwan]

Moron Zinger took 10 years to realize hakikat of kothar and now he calls mufaddal bhai sahab and not mola mufaddal.

he is soo idiot he might take more 100 years to realize that he proves himself stupid when he thinks every other ID is incredible.

lagta hain incredible ne itni bajayi hain abhi tak sadme se bahar nahi aa paa raha ye zinger.

Every where is incredible

[Greatest I am]

Saudi Arabia might be shooting themselves in the foot if they do as the West might stop selling them munitions for their aircraft and other major war machines.

I read that England alone sold them over 2 billion in armament just to throw at Yemen.

Regards
DL

well well well, looks who's back

I am here but I am not back.

Regards
DL

[ghulam muhammed]

Found an interesting post on another forum :-

1. The strange love between the mighty and treacherous lion (the US) and the mouse (KSA) was so far going steady with, of course, a detached attachment. [Now the mouse has a dominant role in commanding and controlling the wonder machine, the computer]. The US was rich in nukes and KSA in petrodollars and each wanted the other’s friendship for mutual benefit and for their survival. The Saudi’s threat to recall billions of dollars might be a hide-and-seek game.


2. The Taliban, Al-Qaeda etc. are the brain-children of the US, while the ISIS is undoubtedly the offshoot of the US misadventures in Iraq and Libya. The indirect intervention in Egypt resulted in the installation of Hosni Mubarak-ii (again the puppet of the US) as the dictator from the back door. The proxy war by the US and KSA is going on in Syria, blowing hot and blowing cold. The Wahhabism and Salafism has simply added fuel to fire and provided fodder to the ISIS to be emboldened and to enable it to
strengthen itself.


3. Terrorism has not taken birth by itself. There is always a cause for anything and everything. There is always an equal or unequal and opposite action (reaction) for each and every earlier action. In plain words, terrorism is a reaction or retaliation to an earlier action, mistakes and blunders, excesses, bestiality and butchery of the super-powers in wilderness, The State terrorism (by the US) had given birth to terrorism by some isolated groups or individuals, mostly the misguided youth, operating jointly or independently. It is mere madness that the cream of Muslim community in young and prime age is blindly drawn to terrorism which will not fetch them the Heaven. The cat is however out of the bag.


4. The US is trying in vain to grapple with the situation it created and to extinguish the fire it has lit in sheer madness. Now Obama has at least the wisdom to repent, unlike Bush, but what’s the use. It’s too late now after the damage had been done. Hitler is condemned in one way and Bush and Obama, will be condemned for what they had given to the world, especially, Muslim world, other than butchery and bloodshed, killing innocent men, women, turning women into widows and children into orphans overnight.


5. What has Saudi government done for the upliftment of Muslims across the world that Muslims may respect them?. The Arabs, except the few chosen by Allah, had remained ‘Jahil’ (ignorant) till this date. Saudis are the custodians of the 2 mosques merely by accident, and the Imam of the Mosque is indeed their chosen appointee in which politics had played its part. Muslims have been
killed, their houses destroyed and devastated and their future crushed and trampled with by the triumvirate of Yahud (Jews), Nasara (bad Christians) and Saudi kings , including nobles and princes who will be the kings of tomorrow, waiting and standing in a long queue. Islam doesn’t perceive monarchy or diarchy, but why there is monarchy still in Saudi Arabia. Is it not absurd and ridiculous?


6. On Hiroshima: Obama and John Kerry are simply shedding crocodile tears and acting as a holy cow, for the wrongs done by their forefathers, who tested their atomic power by destroying a part of humanity by bombing on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Has the leopard changed its spots, that the US will. It’s strange that a butcher is pained for the victims in Japan after killing them, and have no qualms or regret for the Muslims killed by the Western powers.


7. Saudis are mistaken and in a deep slumber that they can continue to rule over the Sunnis of the world including the fundamentalists among them to always keep the Sunnis submerged in religion and religious tenets and forget the purpose for which they were sent to this earth by Allah, ignore the duties and responsibilities they have to perform towards self-improvement, family-management, and upliftment of fellow-brothers, and keep the Shias in dire fear.


8. Hardly one hour is needed to perform 5-times prayers, and we have solid 15 hours (24 hours minus 1 hour + 8 hours for sleep) to devote our time to shape our future, to shine in life, to compete in the world, to become IAS, IPS, IAAS, IRS, IFS officers, Chartered Accountant, doctors, engineers, lawyers, bureaucrats and fall into the mainstream in India and not remain alien to those who have gone to the peak in some area or the other. There is no sense devoting the whole time to the religion, which is part of the life and not the whole of life.


9. The time is changing, with Saudi’s economy dwindling and Iran recouping and rising as a power to challenge Saudis in more than one way. I feel all the evils in the world and with the Muslims is due to none but the triumvirate I had mentioned above. May Allah save the Muslim community. What will happen to Muslims if Donald Trump comes to trumpet and trample like the mad elephant?

[Greatest I am]

Found an interesting post on another forum :-

1. The strange love between the mighty and treacherous lion (the US) and the mouse (KSA) was so far going steady with, of course, a detached attachment. [Now the mouse has a dominant role in commanding and controlling the wonder machine, the computer]. The US was rich in nukes and KSA in petrodollars and each wanted the other’s friendship for mutual benefit and for their survival. The Saudi’s threat to recall billions of dollars might be a hide-and-seek game.


2. The Taliban, Al-Qaeda etc. are the brain-children of the US, while the ISIS is undoubtedly the offshoot of the US misadventures in Iraq and Libya. The indirect intervention in Egypt resulted in the installation of Hosni Mubarak-ii (again the puppet of the US) as the dictator from the back door. The proxy war by the US and KSA is going on in Syria, blowing hot and blowing cold. The Wahhabism and Salafism has simply added fuel to fire and provided fodder to the ISIS to be emboldened and to enable it to
strengthen itself.


3. Terrorism has not taken birth by itself. There is always a cause for anything and everything. There is always an equal or unequal and opposite action (reaction) for each and every earlier action. In plain words, terrorism is a reaction or retaliation to an earlier action, mistakes and blunders, excesses, bestiality and butchery of the super-powers in wilderness, The State terrorism (by the US) had given birth to terrorism by some isolated groups or individuals, mostly the misguided youth, operating jointly or independently. It is mere madness that the cream of Muslim community in young and prime age is blindly drawn to terrorism which will not fetch them the Heaven. The cat is however out of the bag.


4. The US is trying in vain to grapple with the situation it created and to extinguish the fire it has lit in sheer madness. Now Obama has at least the wisdom to repent, unlike Bush, but what’s the use. It’s too late now after the damage had been done. Hitler is condemned in one way and Bush and Obama, will be condemned for what they had given to the world, especially, Muslim world, other than butchery and bloodshed, killing innocent men, women, turning women into widows and children into orphans overnight.


5. What has Saudi government done for the upliftment of Muslims across the world that Muslims may respect them?. The Arabs, except the few chosen by Allah, had remained ‘Jahil’ (ignorant) till this date. Saudis are the custodians of the 2 mosques merely by accident, and the Imam of the Mosque is indeed their chosen appointee in which politics had played its part. Muslims have been
killed, their houses destroyed and devastated and their future crushed and trampled with by the triumvirate of Yahud (Jews), Nasara (bad Christians) and Saudi kings , including nobles and princes who will be the kings of tomorrow, waiting and standing in a long queue. Islam doesn’t perceive monarchy or diarchy, but why there is monarchy still in Saudi Arabia. Is it not absurd and ridiculous?


6. On Hiroshima: Obama and John Kerry are simply shedding crocodile tears and acting as a holy cow, for the wrongs done by their forefathers, who tested their atomic power by destroying a part of humanity by bombing on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Has the leopard changed its spots, that the US will. It’s strange that a butcher is pained for the victims in Japan after killing them, and have no qualms or regret for the Muslims killed by the Western powers.


7. Saudis are mistaken and in a deep slumber that they can continue to rule over the Sunnis of the world including the fundamentalists among them to always keep the Sunnis submerged in religion and religious tenets and forget the purpose for which they were sent to this earth by Allah, ignore the duties and responsibilities they have to perform towards self-improvement, family-management, and upliftment of fellow-brothers, and keep the Shias in dire fear.


8. Hardly one hour is needed to perform 5-times prayers, and we have solid 15 hours (24 hours minus 1 hour + 8 hours for sleep) to devote our time to shape our future, to shine in life, to compete in the world, to become IAS, IPS, IAAS, IRS, IFS officers, Chartered Accountant, doctors, engineers, lawyers, bureaucrats and fall into the mainstream in India and not remain alien to those who have gone to the peak in some area or the other. There is no sense devoting the whole time to the religion, which is part of the life and not the whole of life.


9. The time is changing, with Saudi’s economy dwindling and Iran recouping and rising as a power to challenge Saudis in more than one way. I feel all the evils in the world and with the Muslims is due to none but the triumvirate I had mentioned above. May Allah save the Muslim community. What will happen to Muslims if Donald Trump comes to trumpet and trample like the mad elephant?

Do you really believe that so many Muslims would be traitors to their various cults and get into bed with Western forces?

To be truthful, I am not fond of Muslim and Sharia ideology but I did think that a Muslim quality that I did admire, loyalty, was a duty that spoke to Muslim honor.

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

3. Terrorism has not taken birth by itself. There is always a cause for anything and everything. There is always an equal or unequal and opposite action (reaction) for each and every earlier action. In plain words, terrorism is a reaction or retaliation to an earlier action, mistakes and blunders, excesses, bestiality and butchery of the super-powers in wilderness, The State terrorism (by the US) had given birth to terrorism by some isolated groups or individuals, mostly the misguided youth, operating jointly or independently. It is mere madness that the cream of Muslim community in young and prime age is blindly drawn to terrorism which will not fetch them the Heaven. The cat is however out of the bag.

?

This makes a lot of sense to me as I agree that we are all products of our environment and all that we perceive.

The article seems to blame the West for much of it's woes and I have no argument against that but how do you reconcile the above with the fact that more Muslims are killing Muslims than what the West is presently doing?

Regards
DL

[SBM]

To be truthful, I am not fond of Muslim and Sharia ideology

Finally Truth Are you even a Muslim then?

[zinger]

Moron Zinger took 10 years to realize hakikat of kothar and now he calls mufaddal bhai sahab and not mola mufaddal.

he is soo idiot he might take more 100 years to realize that he proves himself stupid when he thinks every other ID is incredible.

lagta hain incredible ne itni bajayi hain abhi tak sadme se bahar nahi aa paa raha ye zinger.

Every where is incredible

Awesome meme pal, keep it up

[Greatest I am]

To be truthful, I am not fond of Muslim and Sharia ideology

Finally Truth Are you even a Muslim then?

No.

I label myself a Gnostic Christian.

Regards
DL

[ghulam muhammed]

The Saudi Role on September 11 – An Analysis

Part I – Classified Pages

On 27 November 2002 a bipartisan commission was established by Congress to investigate the 11 September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. By the time the commission was created, President George W. Bush had characterized the attacks as “acts of war,” adding that “freedom and democracy are under attack.” It was therefore to be expected that anyone who was actually, or even imagined to be, involved in these attacks was going to be labeled as an enemy.

However, when on 22 July 2004, after two years of investigation, the 9/11 Commission’s report was released, something was missing. Twenty-eight pages had been withheld from publication. These pages specifically discussed the connections between the 9/11 hijackers and individuals working in the U.S. for the government of Saudi Arabia. The withholding from publication of these specific pages was apparently ordered by the same George W. Bush who was ostensibly willing to confront anyone who would, in his worldview, threaten the U.S. – “Bring ’em on!”

For the next 12 years, that is, between July 2004 and July 2016, the 28 pages remained “classified” and therefore unavailable to the public or the press. They were available to members of Congress if they would travel to a “secure location,” one person at a time, to read the document. They could take no notes nor reveal to anyone what they learned.

So what was going on here? According to Senator Bob Graham (D-FL), a long term advocate of declassifying the pages, what all these years of suppression came to was a

“carefully orchestrated campaign to protect our Saudi “‘friends,’” from the public revelation of “ample evidence of Saudi Arabia’s intimate ties to al-Qaeda and the 9/11 attacks.” If Graham is correct, Saudi Arabia received a free pass despite being involved in acts of war against the United States.

Part II – Leverage

How was this possible? Well, consider the following: there exists a long-standing commercial relationship and personal friendship between the Bush clan and the Saudi royal family. Even more important, Saudi Arabia has long managed the oil market to keep prices in the West at affordable levels. Presently, the Saudis have hundreds of billions of dollars invested, in various ways, in the United States (the exact figure is kept secret).These include stocks, bonds, real estate and currency holdings. And finally, Saudi Arabia is the top purchaser of US weapons, periodically buying as much as $60 billion worth of armaments at a time from U.S. defense contractors.

This puts Saudi Arabia in a very strong economic position in relation to the United States. Consider the hypothetical consequences of a rapid withdrawal of Saudi funds from the U.S. At the very least this would send the stock market into a tailspin. The U.S. would be forced to freeze Saudi assets, and not only the American and Saudi economies would suffer, but the world economy as well.

The Saudis have been known to assert what can only be called economic blackmail against the U.S. government to hide embarrassing facts about themselves, including their dealings with terrorist groups ranging from off-shoots of al-Qaeda to ISIS. They can and do argue that if Saudi agents do at times act against U.S. interests, even to the point of aiding terrorists, they do so as rogue agents and not under the authority the central government. The problem is that, just like America’s “rogue” agents, they never seem to suffer punishment.

Part III – Lobby Power

The government of Saudi Arabia has gathered together in Washington, D.C., a broad coalition of lawyers, public relations firms, and ex-diplomates-turned-lobbyists that collectively function as a Saudi special interest group.

It is through the leverage applied by this lobby that the 28 pages of the 9/11 Commission report stayed below the radar for for 12 years. This happened even while the official Saudi line was that that country had nothing to hide and would welcome the publication of the pages. Finally, Barack Obama, drawing near to the end of his presidency, decided to declassify the document. It is possible that he and his advisers, in consultation with the Saudis, had come to the conclusion that after all these years, the U.S.-Saudi relationship could weather any belated disturbance that might result.

Thus, on 15 July 2016 the 28 pages were made public. Now anyone can read them. Or can they? Many of the sites at which they were initially posted strangely going blank.

For all the good it might now do, it turns out that Senator Bob Graham was right. At least two Saudi individuals (Omar al-Bayoumi and Osama Basnan) working for the Saudi government possibly as “intelligence agents” gave financial aid and other assistance (including identifying flight schools) to at least two of the hijackers soon after they arrived in the U.S. Al-Bayoumi is the prime conduit here. The amount of money he was receiving from the Saudi government went up substantially the same month he began aiding the hijackers and then was reduced by the same amount once he and the hijackers parted company. Al-Bayoumi left the U.S. one month prior to the 9/11 attacks. A full reading of the 28 pages indicates that this is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

The Saudi government has put out a reply to the release of the 28 pages. It declares that since 2002, U.S. government agencies, including the CIA and the FBI, have investigated the allegations and established that no one “acting on behalf of the Saudi government provided any support or encouragement for these attacks.”

This statement is Riyad’s effort to obfuscate matters. It goes hand-in-hand with the weak response of CIA Director Brennan, who has said that the recently declassified allegations have not been “vetted” (established as true or false) and fail to prove that the Saudi government “as an institution” was involved in 9/11. There are troubling contradictions here. If, as the Saudis say, a thorough investigation of the allegations has been carried out, what is with Brennan’s claim that the information in the 28 pages has not been “vetted”? If the CIA and the FBI have not vetted the allegations, despite having 14 years to do so, how can Brennan so readily exonerate Saudi Arabia? Only the gullible, the ignorant, or the indifferent would see this as adequate.

Part IV – Allies Who Wage War on the U.S.

The Saudis are not the only “ally” that has committed acts of war against the United States and then, with the help of lobby power, got the actions covered up.

The other, equivalent miscreant is Israel, which in recent years has rendered assistance to al-Nusra, the al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria. Perhaps more significantly, on 8 June 1967 Israeli forces knowingly attacked the U.S. Intelligence ship Liberty ostensibly because it had picked up information of a pending unprovoked Israeli attack on Syria’s Golan Heights. The resulting combined sea and air attack on the Liberty killed 31 Americans and wounded 171. In this incident the Bush clan’s role as protector of a foreign enemy was played by President Lyndon Johnson. He was a great admirer of the Israelis, whom he likened to the early U.S. settlers of his native Texas. This admiration was so great that he actually ordered the rescue flight of U.S. military jets coming to the aid of the wounded ship to turn around and return to base. Even though numerous naval officials were never satisfied with the Israeli explanation (it was all a mistake) or the obviously superficial investigations carried on by both sides, much of the vital material remains classified and Congress refuses to revisit what was, after all, an act of war.

As I have said many times, the United States is not a democracy of individual citizens. It is a nation of competing interest groups – including foreign ones who have hired themselves Washington lobbies. It is also clear that powerful interest groups can, quite literally, get away with murder. How is this in the American national interest? Those of you reading this who are American citizens might put the question to your congressional representatives and senators. Let me know if you happen to get a serious response.

http://www.intifada-palestine.com/2016/ ... lestine%29

[ghulam muhammed]

US Congress passes bill to let Americans sue Saudi Arabia for 9/11 attacks

The House of Representatives of the United States on Friday, Sept. 9, passed by voice vote a bill that would allow U.S. citizens to sue Saudi Arabia for the terror attacks on American soil on Sept. 11, 2001 that shook the whole world.

With the Senate having passed the bill in May, the bill has now cleared the hurdle that was the U.S. Congress, and the only person standing in its way is President Barack Obama, who is opposed to it because he believes if Saudi Arabia is sued, it may open the floodgates to American citizens being counter-sued by Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia has been blamed for various components of the attack. For starters, the country was used by the 9/11 attack mastermind and al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden for years. In fact, he had issued a fatwa in 1996 against American soldiers in Saudi Arabia. Secondly, several of the attackers reportedly obtained fake Saudi passports, which they used to board the planes without raising suspicion and carried out the attacks.

Matters were worsened by many Saudis privately supporting Laden and his cause. It did not help that 15 of the 19 attackers were from Saudi Arabia. A Congressional enquiry would later hint at the involvement of government officials from Saudi Arabia in the attacks. Although Saudi Arabia was never formally implicated for the attacks, a plotter had confessed last year that a Saudi prince had financed the attacks. Riyadh has nixed any such claim.

Now, with the bill being passed by the U.S. Congress, only Obama's nod is needed to turn it into a law. However, he may veto the bill, for fears that Saudi Arabia -- currently a key ally of the United States -- could retaliate with lawsuits of its own. It could be particularly detrimental to U.S. citizens living in Saudi Arabia, which has strict laws on a bunch of topics, but does not always enforce them.

However, as the 15th anniversary of the attacks is just around the corner, Republican lawmakers in the U.S. will look to overrule Obama's veto with the right number of votes in favour of the bill. A victory in this regard would be just the right kind of populist foundation for its presidential candidate Donald Trump to seek votes, although Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, who was once secretary of state for Obama himself, also supports the bill.

https://in.news.yahoo.com/us-congress-p ... 27289.html

[ghulam muhammed]

IMF Predicts Saudi Arabia Bankrupt by 2020

The IMF just confirmed Breitbart News’ October 5 warning that Saudi Arabia’s cash reserves are in free-fall, with a new estimate that the world’s richest kingdom may be bankrupt by 2020.

Each October, the International Monetary Exchange issues its World Economic and Financial Regional Surveys. For the first time since the 1960s, the region set to suffer the worst financial agony over the next five years is the Middle East. Ground Zero for that pain is Saudi Arabia.

The reason for Saudi Arabia’s reluctance to balance its budget is that the 15,000 members of the six branches of the Saudi royal family buy national support through massive social welfare spending that requires a crude oil price of $103 a barrel to balance their budget.

The vast majority of the 30 million residents enjoy their standard of living due to government handouts. Saudi citizens tend to lack employable skills and are culturally not inclined to work. Of the 5.5 million that do have jobs, 3 million work directly for the government. The small private sector tends only to employ foreigners.

Although other Middle East nations are engaged in “active consolidation measures,” such as lower investment, hiring freezes, or energy price reform, Saudi Arabia’s government stated that they will make no austerity “tax increases and spending cuts.”

The IMF points out that “Large fiscal spending packages were announced in January and April,” as new King Salman Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud distributed $32 billion to the people to celebrate his coronation. As a result, the IMF predicts the kingdom will suffer a negative 21.6 percent “General Government Overall Fiscal Balance” in 2015 and a 19.4 percent negative balance in 2016.

Breitbart News in August predicted that the kingdom’s foreign exchange position would fall by $130 billion, from a peak of $750 billion in August 2014 to $620 billion by the end of 2015. But we were actually too optimistic regarding the cash burn rate, with the kingdom’s central bank reporting net foreign assets fell in August “for a seventh month in a row to $662.3 billion, the lowest since February 2013.” With post-summer U.S. and E.U. seasonal oil demand falling, Saudi FX could be down over $150 billion this year.

While OPEC has argued that oil prices should recover to $80 a barrel by 2020, the IMF predicts an average of $60 per barrel, because the “the oil price drop is likely to be large and persistent.” But Goldman Sachs predicts crude oil prices will remain low for fifteen years because “Libya and Iran will add significant amounts of oil to the market of up to 2 mb/d, in the next couple of years, and Iraq (including Kurdistan) could meet as much as one-third of global demand growth for years to come,” according to Forbes.

Even more ominous for Saudi Arabia, the U.S. Energy Information Agency just reported that “Weekly Ending Stocks of U.S. Crude Oil and Petroleum Products” hit a 25-year high of 2.003 billion barrels, up 183 million barrels from the same week a year ago. That record rise came despite a 46 percent plunge in crude oil prices over the same period.

The wild card in trying to predict how long Saudi Arabia can remain solvent is the nation’s surging military commitments. The kingdom passed Russia in 2015 to take over the world’s third spot in military spending, with a defense budget of $80.8 billion, behind only the U.S. and China, according to IISS. But that was before invading Yemen and dramatically increasing Saudi secret funding of Islamist groups in Syria.

http://www.breitbart.com/national-secur ... rupt-2020/