The Untold Story Behind Saudi Arabia’s U.S. Treasury Holdings

Post by rqebmm » Tue, May 31, 2016, 7:52 PM UTC

narrator wrote: post #91

advertising wrote: post #36

There's a book called confessions of an economic hit man - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confessions_of_an_Economic_Hit... Essentially U.S. helps impoverished nations with infrastructure and other aid, but saddles them with debt in order to control them politically or otherwise. The interesting part was when it came to Saudi Arabia, which had so much money it didn't need to take on debt to develop their infrastructur…

The funny thing about debt is that it's looked at as a fundamental force of nature and not from a political economic relationship. The debt is owed to someone. Someone, somewhere is getting the interest payments. The duty of a debtor to pay the lender is enforced politically. The creation of fiat currency is controlled by the central bank, etc. The Chinese realize this. On a political basis, they regularly buy up and…

Post by jacquesm » Tue, May 31, 2016, 7:55 PM UTC

justratsinacoat wrote: post #98

yardie wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think about that, the jihadists get the nice jail, because they are rehabilitatable This is infinitely more humane than the current US strategy of drone strikes, "kills terrorists" never mind the collateral damage and disruption it causes. Hell our DOC could learn a few things. Here, if you are ever once a criminal, you're a criminal for life.

I quite agree with you that the Saudis' approach here is much less horrible! >Here, if you are ever once a criminal, you're a criminal for life OTOH, recidivism for sorcery must be pretty low over in the Kingdom, since the punishment for this crime (?) is beheading (!).

Post by milcron » Tue, May 31, 2016, 8:29 PM UTC

strictnein wrote: post #70

SCAQTony wrote: post #37

We pretty much put a price on our morality. Looking at the bond holders graph, it appears we owe about a 1/2-trillion dollars to oil producing nations. It's no wonder we tolerate tolerate gross human rights violations therein. Sort of like that J. Paul Getty Quote: "If you owe the bank $100 that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that's the bank's problem." Makes me wonder if we have a similar deal wit…

We haven't sacrificed our industrial sector: https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/INDPRO

Post by travmatt » Tue, May 31, 2016, 8:38 PM UTC

SixSigma wrote: post #100

s_q_b wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Swinging the election toward a hawkish demagogue with no knowledge of foreign policy does not seem like a desirable outcome for the United States either. It's worth noting that for now the Saudis still retain a bit of leverage. They could potentially start a kamikaze run on the dollar. They are our largest regional ally, and in very close proximity to Israel. We have very little knowledge of their nuclear program. Fi…

> Swinging the election toward a hawkish demagogue with no knowledge of foreign policy At this point that sounds like either of them.

Post by hackuser » Tue, May 31, 2016, 8:42 PM UTC

alanwatts wrote: post #110

hackuser wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes the US takes part in that, but the organization is the IMF. To be clear: The IMF and World Bank are primarily controlled by the Western powers. EDIT: And are seen as tools of Western power by many.

The current US Secretary of the Treasury is the most influential member of the IMF, with 16.66% of the total voting power (Jacob Lew) [1]. He was promoted to his current posts shortly after banking on the 2008 economic collapse with Citi. [1] https://www.imf.org/external/np/sec/memdir/members.aspx#3