The Saudia are very smart businessmen. They will find a way around the problem. They have plenty of money to spend. They have a sophisticated and well schooled upper class. They can do financial manipulation with our bankers and make tons of money without producing a thing.
Der Trihs: Agreed, we will need oil for the foreseeable future. If not for our cars and power plants, then for plastics, asphalt, and jet fuel.
But suppose that we are able to make a large enough dent in our oil consumption to put these nations’ collective tit in the wringer. Yes, they’ve certainly had us over a barrel for the past few decades, and for the most part they have little to show for it–isn’t schadenfreude wonderful?
Let us say that all of this happens in the space of 15-20 years. A wildly optimistic and highly improbable timeline, I know. But just suppose. Isn’t it within our interest to help them? At least to the extent that the entire region doesn’t devolve into anarchy? And isn’t it better to err on the side of caution? An ounce of prevention and all of that.
Oh. Well. If they can make tons of money without ever producing a thing through financial manipulation, I don’t see what could *possibly *go wrong. Let’s just hope their regulators are a little more vigilant than ours. 
Seriously, though. Is that really a healthy economic model? It sounds like a helluva gamble to me. It’s possible they could make it work short term, but I don’t think it’s a long term solution. And what of the other heavy hitters in OPEC from the Middle East?
No they don’t. They have a tiny, tiny proportion of people with useful educations. A ton of aristocrats who went to Sandhurst doesn’t do you much good unless you can build your economy around military parades somehow.
Dubai, Oman and the more forward thinking Gulf states have done a very good job of diversifying in preparation for the day when the oil runs out. The Saudis are trying to- they’re even pouring money into green tech- but they’re not doing it very well.
Help them, sure. But not by refraining from conserving a limited resource or by sacrificing a stable climate to them.
ISTR some statistic that a very large fraction of, if not the large majority of folks in that region got college degrees in stuff like philosophy and religious studies.
Yeah, you need a few of those. But if thats what MOST folks are going to college for, that just a waste for the society. Particularly in a region where the non college people are probably more lacking in practical fundamentals of running a modern society than non college folks in more “advanced” societies.
They need people with “practical” degrees.
Anybody know the stats that I am thinking of ? Or is it a figment of my imagination? And of course the stat I am vaguely recalling was probably only for one of the countries over there.
And with all the religious tension over there, years of religious study for a large fraction of the population probably isnt helping the overall climate either.
The Saudis have poured money into developing a good school system. They have done it. They also send students abroad for education. They are fully capable of understanding and meeting the future . They have a lot of oil. If we actually do slow down the use in the world, it will last much longer. For their own use, I doubt they will ever run out.
Again, sending students abroad to be educated is not in itself a good sign. As noted above, it doesn’t do you any good if you send your best and brightest off to England and the US and they come back with doctorates in classics and military history.
Saudi Arabia currently produces only enough science and technology graduates to meet one fifth of its petrochemical industry’s requirements, and things are even worse in the non-oil-related disciplines, like medicine.
Things are so bad that the government last month allowed foreign resident research scientist to apply for citizenship whether or not they are Muslims, which is essentially an unprecedented move.
I don’t think he’s saying we should keep guzzling oil to help them, but help them diversify their economy.
The question is do they have enough MONEY to do that ?
IF they do and they are just too damn stupid to do it, frack em I say.
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Yup.
Wasn’t there once a thriving industry in the making of buggy whips? Cars sort of trashed that. The Saudis will be in the same boat some day. I guess they better plan ahead, or they too will eventually become irrelevant.
If they don’t plan ahead, it’s their own fault.
True, but as already mentioned, their fall would hurt us. We’d have yet another Middle East country with a poor economy that would hate the West. And this one has had people who were able and willing to fly planes into our buildings and cause a national tragedy.
We have to get out of this “it’s their fault, so they should suffer” mindset, and into a “what’s best for us and the rest of the world” one.
As for my opinion on the OP: I agree with the speculation that they have enough money to do this on their own. It would seem their problem is not knowing how to do it. Start selling a few shares, and I’m sure a lot of nations would help out.
You make sense, but that can only work IF they are interested and willing to plan ahead. You can’t really force it on them, they have to want it. The oil won’t last forever.