In the Thursday interview he addressed the on-again, off-again IPO of state-run oil company Aramco as well as Mohammed bin Salman's initiative to diversity the kingdom's economy over the coming decade to reduce oil dependency. Addressing the degree to which MbS' own success and survival is tied to the IPO, the ex-CIA director explained:
“It’s a fact that Saudi Arabia is gradually running out of money, they’d be the first to acknowledge that the sovereign wealth fund has been reduced, it’s somewhere below $500 billion now,” Petraeus, who's also currently chair of the KKR Global Institute, told the CNBC host as they spoke in Abu Dhabi.
I've heard that in the Arab world, and especially where money has been easy to come by and plentiful, there is no work ethic among the people, and in fact it is looked down on.
If that is true, the King has his work cut out for him. If no one wants to work and strive, there will be no real non oil industry to develop, as no one will want to work for it. In a highly competitive world, that's not a recipe for success. He'll need to change the culture. Good luck with that, especially in a Muslim country that's steeped in fatalism.
WOW!!! Only $500 BILLION in bank account. So sad :( They might wanna try eating ramen noodles & hot dogs for a while, ya know, until y'all can save a buck or 2.
ReplyDeletethe work ethic thing comes from slavery. how stupid do you have to be, to work hard when you have slaves?
ReplyDeleteI looked up KKR all the honchos are Council on Foreign Relations or Trilateral Commission, basically globalists who will humor the Saudis until they run out of oil.
ReplyDeleteX2
Deletein 1996 the state department reps there started bleating about the saudi-ization efforts of the then king and all agreed then that Saudis had no idea how to work and companies like aramco had to hire 'saudi' workers who never showed up and expected you to mail them their pay check.
ReplyDeleteTCNs and EXPATs are the only people that work in the Kingdom. Kuwait is much the same and so are the emirates.