Like the rest of the Arab monarchies, the Saudis will do whatever it takes to stay in power and to enhance that power and wealth. They have had much success selling out their own people to US interests in the past, and probably calculate that they will do so in the future also.
Quite possible they're planning on using potential BRICS membership as a bargaining chip in future Middle East alliance building which is coming up. Trump admin is going to push hard for normalization between KSA and Israel.
Well, partnering with BRICS would assure that. If they stick with the US and Israel, their citizens will revolt. Kissinger said to be an enemy of the US can be dangerous but being it's friend is fatal. Just look what happened to Ukraine.
I haven't seen any credible indication of Saudis preparing to revolt if their country doesn't join BRICS and/or sticks with the US and Israel. All that I've read about that is social media speculation from pro-Resistance accounts and none of it has ever materialized despite them making variations of this prediction for years.
I don't know, will they really allow the Palestinians to be ethnically cleansed though? They have to know they'll be next, right? Will the Arab ruling elites actually allow themselves to be subjugated?
They didn't do anything while Israel was collectively punishing them. I know that forcibly expelling them into other countries' borders is a whole other matter but I can't imagine Saudi Arabia waging war on Israel over this.
I'm referring to them cowtowing to the US, they have to know that never works out for the vassal state by now, right? Just look at Ukraine, Germany and pretty much the rest of Europe right now. All are experiencing economic declines and Ukraine may cease to exist by the end of this year.
Actually, I think that there are sometimes economic benefits to being a vassal, such as access to the US market and protection from regional adversaries. It doesn't mean that I approve of it or think it's always better than not being a vassal, just that I disagree that there aren't any benefits to that status.
Saudis aren't rioting, their economy isn't declining, and they're actually courting more US investment for IMEC and "Vision 2030" more broadly. Just because someone might disapprove of a country being a vassal, or in Saudi Arabia's case an unequal partner, doesn't mean that they or their people agree.
Not very likely. If they do that, who will they rule over? You can't be a king without subjects. And even the crime syndicate masquerading as a "democracy" hasn't been stupid enough to do that yet or the vast majority of US citizens would be dead by now. They just do it slowly and call it "policing."
Not going to happen. Do you really think the Saudi ruling elite will allow themselves to be wholly subjugated by the US and Israel? They'd end up like Zelensky🤦♀️
With respect, where have you been for the past 5 decades? Saudis have been beholden to the US since at least the 1970s, when the aftermarket of the oil crisis made them filthy stinking rich. Since then they have become one of the United States' most stalwart allies in the region, though not without hiccups along the way.
Granted, they want to play both sides to some degree, but if given a choice between the will of their people and the US gravy train, they will pick the latter 100% of the time, even if that means brutal crackdowns at home.
I wonder if it is best for KSA to remain in its "strategic ambiguity" for now. That neutral stance is not only good for KSA, but also good for the Five-Eyes, Europe, and BRICS. My reason is that geopolitical alignment had better occur slowly, like glaciers. Somebody said that it took 100 years for the British and the French to change from their historical feuds to become solid allies during WW1 and WW2. Whether we face angry imperialists or redneck presidents, it is better that things go slow. No BRICS currency. No BRICS military alliance. Just aim for free trades using respective currencies. Things will slowly work out.
It is kind of difficult to go slower than this. Besides, if the trades do not go through SWIFT, how would Uncle Sam know? There are too many ways around the you-must-use-USD restriction. Most importantly, as long as KSA takes mostly USD for oil, USD will have the number one position. The payment for energy dominates over all other kinds of trades. The problem for the USA is, even if 5% of the world trades move from using USD to using local currency, the amount of unneeded USD can cause enough problems. With alternative payment and clearing systems coming up, USD will gradually lose its dominance. While many acts of DJT will eventually strengthen the national power for the USA, his showmanship may create enough headwinds for the supposed revived USA.
The BRICS have been working on an alternate payment system for at least ten years now. These are countries that have the best and most engineers, programmers, scientists, etc. Does anyone actually believe that they cant accomplish this relatively simple task , or is the more probable answer that they dont want to, for whatever reason ?
Just the mere fact that they have to secretly tip toe around US sanctions, and publicly disavow dropping the dollar tells me alot. These are nuclear powers but behave like scared girls at a horror movie. I know the peanut gallery will say , " but the US might go nuclear !!" but thats faulty logic , which I dont believe. Even if the US was that suicidal, that also means they would have no problem going nuclear when its obvious the US dominance was collapsing. There's something more sinister going on , that should be obvious.
Very true. However, the difficulty is not writing the computer programs. A couple of graduate students can give you that in a couple of months if not weeks. The real difficulty is to use it without incurring the wrath of the Empire and its minions. Small countries do not have economies strong enough to handle the sanctions, so they have to go slow. The whole change will take a long time, but that does not mean the first baby step is useless. No matter if one assumes the peak of the US empire to be 1945, 1965, or 2025, it still has many years to go.
Most people under-estimate Russia but over-estimate China. When the British won the Opium War by an expeditionary force sent to the other side of the earth, British marines/army onboard was only a few thousand. Yet China still had a huge economy, even if not as big as the British Empire. I know it is difficult to persuade you on certain things as there are many things so obvious. Yet those misc. stuff beneath the table does make a difference. By my unscientific judgment, China has to face another 100 years of chaos to the minimum. YMMV.
It has been happening with RU, India, China, Cuba, Venezuela, Turkey and likely others already. With Saudi Arabia though I agree with Andrew - too great a risk. SA probably only significantly trades with USA, EU and China, which can pay in US$s.
Turkey's economy is one gentle US push from collapsing. Venezuela just folded an agreed to take its illegals back. China still gets paid by by everybody in dollars for its goods, India is a economic paper tiger which wouldn't survive without the US allowing it into its markets. I wont even talk about Cuba.
Turkey depends on the USA more than on others? VZ didn't lose anything - probably will jail & use many of them as an example. CHN has divested greatly in US$ & T-bills but still holds much - gets paid in various currencies. India's survival is a mystery at the best of times. No 1 is expecting nor wanting you to talk about Cuba.
You are right-on with this analysis! The long game is the better game. Much is changing & there's no point to jumping around when unnecessary, as you've clearly pointed out.
Couldn't it be that SA will find that it's increasingly difficult not to make a choice?
There's no doubt that SA is trying to become the Turkey of the region. Never one thing nor the other.
The issue is it will have to make a choice. Neither US nor Israel will allow this stance for a long time.
Brics doesn't care who you trade with. They just will use other currencies than the dollar. So yes - they will dollarise because they collectively want to lessen the impact US sanctions are having on them. No country in Brics wants to be in a position where they have to jump to US demands for eternity. It's already happening that the world is beginning to turn from the dollar. US bluster won't do a thing to stop it. SA doesn't need to dollarise. It can trade with both blocs using requisite currencies.
The longer they leave it, the harder it will become.
This wouldn't be an issue if SA was already a member. It will become more of one the longer they delay as the pressure on them will only increase.
My dude, Germany's economy contracted 2 years in a row and I said the German GOVERNMENT collapsed not their economy. What I said was the GOVERNMENT collapsed because the ECONOMY sucks. Germany obeyed the sanctions against Russian oil and they've been paying 4x as much money for imported LNG. The German auto companies have been laying off people left and right. Pretty sure if they didn't obey the US inflicted sanctions against Russian gas they wouldn't be in this mess.
I call bullshit on the BRICS. The saudis can take any currency they wish for payment. Dumbass Biden killed the petrodollar which made that possible. BRICS is then for what? Why bother at all with the rise of bitcoin and other crypto payments? BRICS was created to sink the dollar and no amount of explaining by anyone would convince me other wise. Right now it’s a fledgling currency but should it ever get a bond market behind it the dollar will be in big trouble.
The blurb says there are 15 comments, I can see 7, counting this one. Whatever.
Anyway, the Saudi conundrum is that they are sitting on an immense pile of cash but need to be able to invest it somewhere. Hence, harebrained stuff like building ginormous linear cities.
You also could buy a huge pile of dollars and store it in a great big money bin out in the desert somewhere.
In either case, it's not like your investment is working for you. It's not like the billionaire equivalent of cash or gold bars under the mattress is generating returns.
Massive purchases of gold would drive its price up astronomically making it the ultimate investment. It is also the only true, viable, time proven store of wealth. I'm not sure I follow your logic.
Probably not, as demand for gold would remain constant. Same reason attempts to corner bullion markets have failed in the past. The people who would make out are existing gold holders and producers. Not the Saudis.
Anyway, once you buy gold or any other commodity, it does not do anything. If, for example, you buy farmland, it throws out lease payments or crops. If you buy stocks, you buy the net present value of anticipated future payouts.
Like the rest of the Arab monarchies, the Saudis will do whatever it takes to stay in power and to enhance that power and wealth. They have had much success selling out their own people to US interests in the past, and probably calculate that they will do so in the future also.
Quite possible they're planning on using potential BRICS membership as a bargaining chip in future Middle East alliance building which is coming up. Trump admin is going to push hard for normalization between KSA and Israel.
Well, partnering with BRICS would assure that. If they stick with the US and Israel, their citizens will revolt. Kissinger said to be an enemy of the US can be dangerous but being it's friend is fatal. Just look what happened to Ukraine.
I haven't seen any credible indication of Saudis preparing to revolt if their country doesn't join BRICS and/or sticks with the US and Israel. All that I've read about that is social media speculation from pro-Resistance accounts and none of it has ever materialized despite them making variations of this prediction for years.
I don't know, will they really allow the Palestinians to be ethnically cleansed though? They have to know they'll be next, right? Will the Arab ruling elites actually allow themselves to be subjugated?
They didn't do anything while Israel was collectively punishing them. I know that forcibly expelling them into other countries' borders is a whole other matter but I can't imagine Saudi Arabia waging war on Israel over this.
I'm referring to them cowtowing to the US, they have to know that never works out for the vassal state by now, right? Just look at Ukraine, Germany and pretty much the rest of Europe right now. All are experiencing economic declines and Ukraine may cease to exist by the end of this year.
Actually, I think that there are sometimes economic benefits to being a vassal, such as access to the US market and protection from regional adversaries. It doesn't mean that I approve of it or think it's always better than not being a vassal, just that I disagree that there aren't any benefits to that status.
Saudis aren't rioting, their economy isn't declining, and they're actually courting more US investment for IMEC and "Vision 2030" more broadly. Just because someone might disapprove of a country being a vassal, or in Saudi Arabia's case an unequal partner, doesn't mean that they or their people agree.
KSA is a brutal absolute monarchy, they aren't concerned about revolts, they'll just kill them.
Not very likely. If they do that, who will they rule over? You can't be a king without subjects. And even the crime syndicate masquerading as a "democracy" hasn't been stupid enough to do that yet or the vast majority of US citizens would be dead by now. They just do it slowly and call it "policing."
I didn't say they'll kill everyone, they'll just suppress the revolt. That's probably a couple of thousand dead before they get the message.
Not going to happen. Do you really think the Saudi ruling elite will allow themselves to be wholly subjugated by the US and Israel? They'd end up like Zelensky🤦♀️
With respect, where have you been for the past 5 decades? Saudis have been beholden to the US since at least the 1970s, when the aftermarket of the oil crisis made them filthy stinking rich. Since then they have become one of the United States' most stalwart allies in the region, though not without hiccups along the way.
They have shown no hesitancy to crack down on pro-Palestine protests in the past: https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/saudi-arabia-says-no-place-political-slogans-hajj
Granted, they want to play both sides to some degree, but if given a choice between the will of their people and the US gravy train, they will pick the latter 100% of the time, even if that means brutal crackdowns at home.
I wonder if it is best for KSA to remain in its "strategic ambiguity" for now. That neutral stance is not only good for KSA, but also good for the Five-Eyes, Europe, and BRICS. My reason is that geopolitical alignment had better occur slowly, like glaciers. Somebody said that it took 100 years for the British and the French to change from their historical feuds to become solid allies during WW1 and WW2. Whether we face angry imperialists or redneck presidents, it is better that things go slow. No BRICS currency. No BRICS military alliance. Just aim for free trades using respective currencies. Things will slowly work out.
" Just aim for free trades using respective currencies. "
However, thats the biggest sin in the eyes of the US. Go slow you say ?
It is kind of difficult to go slower than this. Besides, if the trades do not go through SWIFT, how would Uncle Sam know? There are too many ways around the you-must-use-USD restriction. Most importantly, as long as KSA takes mostly USD for oil, USD will have the number one position. The payment for energy dominates over all other kinds of trades. The problem for the USA is, even if 5% of the world trades move from using USD to using local currency, the amount of unneeded USD can cause enough problems. With alternative payment and clearing systems coming up, USD will gradually lose its dominance. While many acts of DJT will eventually strengthen the national power for the USA, his showmanship may create enough headwinds for the supposed revived USA.
The BRICS have been working on an alternate payment system for at least ten years now. These are countries that have the best and most engineers, programmers, scientists, etc. Does anyone actually believe that they cant accomplish this relatively simple task , or is the more probable answer that they dont want to, for whatever reason ?
Just the mere fact that they have to secretly tip toe around US sanctions, and publicly disavow dropping the dollar tells me alot. These are nuclear powers but behave like scared girls at a horror movie. I know the peanut gallery will say , " but the US might go nuclear !!" but thats faulty logic , which I dont believe. Even if the US was that suicidal, that also means they would have no problem going nuclear when its obvious the US dominance was collapsing. There's something more sinister going on , that should be obvious.
Very true. However, the difficulty is not writing the computer programs. A couple of graduate students can give you that in a couple of months if not weeks. The real difficulty is to use it without incurring the wrath of the Empire and its minions. Small countries do not have economies strong enough to handle the sanctions, so they have to go slow. The whole change will take a long time, but that does not mean the first baby step is useless. No matter if one assumes the peak of the US empire to be 1945, 1965, or 2025, it still has many years to go.
Most people under-estimate Russia but over-estimate China. When the British won the Opium War by an expeditionary force sent to the other side of the earth, British marines/army onboard was only a few thousand. Yet China still had a huge economy, even if not as big as the British Empire. I know it is difficult to persuade you on certain things as there are many things so obvious. Yet those misc. stuff beneath the table does make a difference. By my unscientific judgment, China has to face another 100 years of chaos to the minimum. YMMV.
It has been happening with RU, India, China, Cuba, Venezuela, Turkey and likely others already. With Saudi Arabia though I agree with Andrew - too great a risk. SA probably only significantly trades with USA, EU and China, which can pay in US$s.
Turkey's economy is one gentle US push from collapsing. Venezuela just folded an agreed to take its illegals back. China still gets paid by by everybody in dollars for its goods, India is a economic paper tiger which wouldn't survive without the US allowing it into its markets. I wont even talk about Cuba.
Turkey depends on the USA more than on others? VZ didn't lose anything - probably will jail & use many of them as an example. CHN has divested greatly in US$ & T-bills but still holds much - gets paid in various currencies. India's survival is a mystery at the best of times. No 1 is expecting nor wanting you to talk about Cuba.
You are right-on with this analysis! The long game is the better game. Much is changing & there's no point to jumping around when unnecessary, as you've clearly pointed out.
Couldn't it be that SA will find that it's increasingly difficult not to make a choice?
There's no doubt that SA is trying to become the Turkey of the region. Never one thing nor the other.
The issue is it will have to make a choice. Neither US nor Israel will allow this stance for a long time.
Brics doesn't care who you trade with. They just will use other currencies than the dollar. So yes - they will dollarise because they collectively want to lessen the impact US sanctions are having on them. No country in Brics wants to be in a position where they have to jump to US demands for eternity. It's already happening that the world is beginning to turn from the dollar. US bluster won't do a thing to stop it. SA doesn't need to dollarise. It can trade with both blocs using requisite currencies.
The longer they leave it, the harder it will become.
This wouldn't be an issue if SA was already a member. It will become more of one the longer they delay as the pressure on them will only increase.
My dude, Germany's economy contracted 2 years in a row and I said the German GOVERNMENT collapsed not their economy. What I said was the GOVERNMENT collapsed because the ECONOMY sucks. Germany obeyed the sanctions against Russian oil and they've been paying 4x as much money for imported LNG. The German auto companies have been laying off people left and right. Pretty sure if they didn't obey the US inflicted sanctions against Russian gas they wouldn't be in this mess.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/chriswestfall/2024/11/25/europes-richest-economy-struggles-as-layoffs-rock-global-auto-industry/
You forgot to mention the $800 BB that the Saudis have at the Fed that are SURE to be CONFISCATED/STOLEN if he pulls towards bricks.
I call bullshit on the BRICS. The saudis can take any currency they wish for payment. Dumbass Biden killed the petrodollar which made that possible. BRICS is then for what? Why bother at all with the rise of bitcoin and other crypto payments? BRICS was created to sink the dollar and no amount of explaining by anyone would convince me other wise. Right now it’s a fledgling currency but should it ever get a bond market behind it the dollar will be in big trouble.
BRICS was created to examine means to escape western financial control and counter WTO dictates.
Why does BRICS need a bond market to trade in each others respective currencies ?
Why have a bunch of comments disappeared?
I see 14, how many are you expecting?
Saudi Arabia is throwing nearly as many lives and money into their line city project that's sure to fail, so disappearing seems to be a thing.
The blurb says there are 15 comments, I can see 7, counting this one. Whatever.
Anyway, the Saudi conundrum is that they are sitting on an immense pile of cash but need to be able to invest it somewhere. Hence, harebrained stuff like building ginormous linear cities.
" the Saudi conundrum is that they are sitting on an immense pile of cash but need to be able to invest it somewhere"
Gold would like a word with you.
You also could buy a huge pile of dollars and store it in a great big money bin out in the desert somewhere.
In either case, it's not like your investment is working for you. It's not like the billionaire equivalent of cash or gold bars under the mattress is generating returns.
Massive purchases of gold would drive its price up astronomically making it the ultimate investment. It is also the only true, viable, time proven store of wealth. I'm not sure I follow your logic.
Probably not, as demand for gold would remain constant. Same reason attempts to corner bullion markets have failed in the past. The people who would make out are existing gold holders and producers. Not the Saudis.
Anyway, once you buy gold or any other commodity, it does not do anything. If, for example, you buy farmland, it throws out lease payments or crops. If you buy stocks, you buy the net present value of anticipated future payouts.