As usual, Col’s anaysis is excellent. Under the current circumstances, I’m sure he is right. But what happens if and when the House of Saud falls and is replaced by an Islamic fundamentalist government? Say the new Saudi government decides to refuse to sell us any oil. Our war machine runs on oil. would we be able to extract enough oil from Iraq to keep the tanks rolling? This, I believe, is the real motivation behind the Iraqi invasion.
To address your second comment first: No. Because no doubt whatever cite I might provide, you’d find something wrong with it. I don’t seem to recall you starting a Pit thread about how every reporter during the war went out his/her way during their tours of Saddam’s looted palaces was nuts for claiming that Saddam paid for it with money he managed to siphon away from the Oil for Food program. Perhaps we weren’t watching the same war?
To address your first point, are you trying to claim that there’s very little money flowing into the Mid-East? Then how did the Saudi’s get so damn weathy? 9/11 probably cost Bin Laden/Al Quada a couple of million at most. Bin Laden’s wealth has been pegged at as much as $200 million dollars (not bad for a family owned construction company, doncha think), so Bin Laden could easily afford a few million to kill 3000+ human beings, wipe out two of the largest buildings in the world, damage the HQ of the world’s most powerful military, and send the global economy reeling. Pretty good return on his “investment” doncha think? Considering that you can build a cruise missile for less than $5 grand even if only 1/1,000,000 of oil revenues end up in terrorist hands, that’s still a big enough chunk of change for them to do some damage.
Hell, I worked for a multinational that grossed $2 billion a year, and they didn’t panic when some $40 + million dollars worth of merchandise came up missing, if the Saudi’s make the same amount a year (and I’d be surprised if it was less), and didn’t sweat $40 million going astray, that’s a huge chunk of change for terrorists to “play” with. (Give me half that and I can change the world!)
Well, always nice to see someone blithering on without bother to check on their facts.
On Sadaam, Palaces & OfF program diversions.
Perhaps we were not, I don’t know what second rate news you may or may not watch.
So instead of the whinging dodge that I’ll just pick on your citation, why don’t you do some bloody homework. To my knowledge, depending on the time frame, Sadaam’s main disposable wealth came from the oil smuggling operations, although some funds certainly came from in country diversions. I am happy to be corrected with a substantive citation from reputable sourcing.
If I was claiming there was very “little money” I would have said so. However, I said what I said, in re fantasies.
One needs to look at the actual damned figures instead of blithering on in complete ignorance.
Alphabetically, then, population and income, Gulf and US, France, Germany, Britain.
All figures for convenience are from the CIA Factbook. I personally prefer the EIU estimates but as the CIA source is easiest to source for you all:
Bahrain:
GDP $8.4 billion (PPP)
Population: 656,397 (including non-nationals)
Per Capita, per this est: ~$12.8k
Kuwait:
GDP $30.9 billion (PPP)
Population: 2,111,561 (including non-nationals ~ 50% of pop.)
Per Capita, per this est: ~$14.6k
Qatar
GDP $16.3 billion (PPP)
Population: 793,341
Per Capita, per this est: ~$21.6k
Saudi Arabia
GDP $241 billion (PPP)
Population: 23,513,330
Per Capita, per this est: ~$10.3k
United Arab Emirates
GDP $51 billion (PPP)
Population: 2,445,989 (roughly half of which are expatriates)
Per Capita, per this est: ~$21k
West:
France
GDP $1.54 trillion (PPP)
Population: 59,765,983
Per Capita, per this est: ~$25.8K
Germany
GDP: $2.184 trillion
Population: 83,251,851
Per Capita, per this est: ~$26.2k
And just by comparison, Portugal, of one of the poorer European countries.
GDP $182 billion
Population: 10,084,245
Per Capita, per this est: ~$18k
You’ll note the fabulously wealthy Portuguese are exceeded only by tiny UAE and Qatar (the UAE’s economy largely being Dubai and largely in foreign hands).
Despite the fantasies, despite the imagery of wealthy oil sheikhs, the reality is even the Gulf is not as rich as the fantastical stereotypes. The flows simply are not as great as stereotype suggests.
At a per capita income of, depending on the estimates, $8-9k/year, they’re not so damned wealthy at all, although given truly skewed wealth distribution and past wealth stocks, certain limited classes of people are pretty damned wealthy, but that’s a small number. The imagery of vast Gulf Arab wealth is a hangover of the 1970s and early 1980s when they actually were rolling in dollars. Unfortunately for them that is no longer the case, although they have yet to mentally adjust to this.
And the relevance of this being what?
Bullshit numbers for a bullshit analysis.
First, it’s not at all clear what money Bin Laden actually has left. The $200 mill figure derives from some fairly aggressive estimates of his share in the family pie, and post-divorce from the family businesses. It’s not clear at all what liquid assets he still has nor whether or what business assets might still be passing money to him. Much was spent in other activities, e.g. Afghan activities, some frozen or lost.
In short, the $200 mill figure is a magical number of little to no real relevance, based on dated guestimates and on a fairly illiterate disregard for the difference between liquid and illiquid assets. It’s doubtful he could ever mobilize a sum along those lines for his activities.
I’d note that almost all firms in the region are family, so the family issue is an irrelevancy.
One can build a cruise missile if one has a plant and the scale to do so. Hand assembly is rather more expensive.
Sure, if one millionth of oil revenues or any revenues go off to al-Qaeda that’s not shabby, but terror hardly requires large amounts of money, and insofar as even Mali, one of the poorest countries on the planet has a GDP (PPP) of roughly $9 billion, why if they diverted one millionth of their GDP….
I won’t comment on the shoddiness of a multinational that blinks at stock worth 2 percent of its gross going missing, but instead of throwing around utterly uninformed guesses, why don’t you try researching? That is speaking from a factual basis instead of coulda woulda khayali bullshiting?
You mean a radical government, they already are fundamentalist and always have been.
I am not certain that will happen. More likely a faction in the Saud family will take over.
New Arabian government, if it is post Saudi.
Well, the Saudis sell relatively little oil directly to the US so if it is simply a question of boycotting the US w/o others joining in, we get a little blip in prices and not much else.
If they decide to take their oil off the market period, that’s a big problem, but I doubt any such thing will happen, insofar as they have no way of surviving w/o oil sales.
Rubbish. Complete and utter rubbish. First, ‘extracting’ from Iraq is going to be done either by the Iraqi state company and or Western firms (perhaps in partnership a la Algerian model with Sonatrach).
Their sales will be on a commercial basis.
And I have not said any such change in America’s transportation will occur ‘overnight.’ I am advocating immediate implementation of a program that will lead to weaning the United States from any dependency upon foreign oil. I fully realize that this will take years. I have no problem with this nor the expense of putting it in place. Americans are fairly well blind to the true cost of our oil dependency. When you factor in all of the negative health and environmental effects of pollution, the cost of military aid and intervention in the Middle East and diversion of funds into road building that might better serve construction of mass transit, the true price of using oil is horrendous.
Shrub is so deep in the pocket of oil interests and big business there is no hope that he act responsibly on this issue. His lack of vision will maintain the United States on a damaging course of oil dependency that later historians may well damn him for. It is critical that more intelligent minds prevail in making America aware of its shortsightedness. How much longer should we wait before starting a national program to develop alternative fuel transportation? Another five years of status quo will merely guarantee that we will be further behind the political and economic eight ball. Even worse, lack of action on this issue will merely serve to ensure the recurrance of domestic terrorist attacks. Only the immediate implementation of a substantial effort to marginalize the importance of oil will help to starve out those elements in the Middle East who divert so many of their millions into terrorist causes. Political negotiation and military action will play a role as well but reliance upon them alone is inadequate to the task.
While Saudi Arabia may not be the biggest or wealthiest oil producing nation, their position as an economic and religious linchpin has served to proliferate Wahabbism to an unprecedented degree. Their tacit promotion of such Islamist fanaticism ill serves the remaining global community. The economic backwash of 9-11 is still reverberating in the form of economic recession worldwide. While terrorism has not been the sole cause of this, it has badly impacted many small countries that are largely dependent on the tourism that has taken such a recent nosedive. So long as the Saudi royals are able to profit from such a badly skewed distribution of wealth, they will continue to do so. So long as it serves the House of Saud’s ability to retain power, they will continue to turn a blind eye to the Wahabbist fanatics within their borders. The only way to put paid to their self serving conduct is to make them irrelevant to the world economy.
America has the means to do this and to do it more quickly than any other nation on earth. Our technological resources and ability to innovate are second to none. We have every good reason to end our reliance upon oil and it best serves our national interests to do so immediately. Politicians who are unwilling or cowed by the prospect of promoting what at first may be an unpopular program need to be voted out of office and replaced by those who have the spine to best protect our nation’s long term interests and security. Continuing dependence upon foreign oil protects neither.
And yet, the “electric” car remains a novelty. The technology is there, but those who profit from oil sales have always used their deep pockets to influence our politicians. It’s been this way so long, it makes one wonder if it’s ever going to change.
The elctric car in its current (ha ha) battery powered manifestation will always represent a limited solution to alternative fuel transportation. Recharging times and the massive weight of storage cells able to propel a large vehicle are insurmountable obstacles. Standard internal combustion automotive engines can run on hydrogen gas fuel. Hydrogen is the most common element in the universe and provides the greatest energy release of any burnable compound.
There are significant issues involved in setting up a hydrogen distribution network. Automotive fuel tanks would have to be replaced with appropriately safe pressure vessels to contain gaseous fuel. Our existing natural gas delivery pipelines will need to be rerouted into servicing terminals where tankers could then perform the final leg of transportation to individual retail service stations. Vehicle fill pipes would have to be equipped with special gas-tight locking valves to ensure safe filling practices by the general public. Special sensors will be needed to detect leakage or accumulation of the potentially flammable gas.
Every single one of these requirements have already been met with existing technology. The only thing lacking is politicians with the backbone to implement it. We have the distribution pipelines. We have the fuel tanks. We have the tanker trucks. We have the gas-tight safety valves. We have the low cost solid state electrochemical leak detectors. Existing cars can burn hydrogen and give off water as their only combustion byproduct. While there will remain pollution issues from some engine oil being burnt and other minor sources, emissions will be dramatically reduced.
One of the only limiting factors is the electrical energy required for electrolysis of the water to produce this hydrogen. America has the ability to build safe nuclear power generation facilities. Our military has hundreds of them in boats and submarines. The poor track record of commercial builders (Three Mile Island, Silkwood) has tainted public perception of this extremely clean energy source. Substantial scale of economy will be realized by concentrating the generation and separation facilities. This is the primary benefit of hydrogen technology. It is an inexhaustible energy source that can easily provide a bridge technology until the hydrogen fuel cell is perfected as an electric automobile power source.
It is only because of our spineless and corrupt politicians who remain in the pocket of car manufacturers unwilling to retool their enterprises and oil producers scared of losing their industry’s cash cow that all of this splendid technology is going unused. I cannot but feel that later historians will roundly condemn those who are currently dragging their feet on this issue. The environmental damage being done goes beyond profound. We are rapidly approaching a point of no return whereby species extinction and resource depletion will irreversibly change the delicate balance of our natural environment.
All this so that a very few influential wealthy industrialists and petroleum refiners can continue to profit from the obstruction of progress away from oil dependency and disentanglement from the hideous mare’s nest of religion and politics known as the Middle East. This will go down as one of the great crimes of the twenty-first century and the sooner it is recognized as such the better off we will all be.
You are, most Americans very clearly feel otherwise. Ignorance or not, it is not going to happen.
You continue to misunderstand the relationship between the Saudi Wahhabism and the rather more general salafi fundamentalism in the rest of the Islamic world.
Although the appelation Wahhabi is often applied in a loose and ignorant manner, in fact they are not the same thing. Tamerlane and I have corrected you on this error multiple times. Try to get a clue then.
As for Saudi funding “proliferating” fundamentalist thinking, well it may have an effect but to think they are the main drivers is ignorant and simple minded. Salafi movements are much older and more influential than Saudi style Wahhabism.
Take away the Saudis and you only take away one portion of a large set of factors, and in my opinion not even near the most influential.
It’s actually quite explicit, if one allows their penchant for extremism in interpretation, but hey, so are Church of Christers and such who send missions of to Africa, for example, propagating some nasty ass attitudes towards others.
I guess we need to stop their proliferation too.
Bother. That’s bloody excuse making. the 11 September attacks had an economic effect, and continue to do so, however the main issues in the global economy having nothing whatsoever to do with that brief shock. They are tied to the bubble of the late 1990s and first years of the new millenium. Overinvestment, misdirected investment and an enormous imbalance in US accounts (as well as massive debt levels) are the drivers for the global economic slow down, not two towers and a building in DC.
And this has jack all to do with the Saudi royal family, whatever illogical hand waving emotional claptrap rhetoric you pull out. The structures of the problems run a lot deeper than any potential Saudi Royal connexion, which frankly I consider to be more or less complete crap.
Clap trap. First, the Saudi population is Wahabite and frankly rather more extreme than your Average Mohammed. Collapsing their economy is not going to change that, and neither is changing the Royal family. There are no solutions to SA’s sick society.
Yeah, whatever.
Panic driven policies are rarely very good. I would welcome heavy research and development in alternative fuel sources, as well as public policy aimed at transitioning to a non-oil dominated economy.
However, terrorism is a fuck all stupid reason for this, insofar as the changes will not change the real issues behind terrorism, either from MENA or from other sources.
While I would heartily welcome a transition away from oil on purely strategic grounds, you’re fooling yourself if you think this can be done with just a little research.
The troubling fact is, the reason the world energy economy is largely fueled by petroleum is simply because it’s the cheapest, most effective way we have of getting energy, moving it around, and converting it into useful work.
If the U.S. were to go to an alternate energy system today, it would have to do so at significant cost. The rest of the world economies would get to power themselves with a cheap fuel, and the U.S. would pay more.
There is no conspiracy to keep alternative energy out of our hands. It’s just that the cheapest alternative tends to be the most popular, and oil is still the cheapest.
Now, in the future that will change. I think a hydrogen fuel cycle may be doable, but I don’t think it will be as cheap as oil. But one day it will be. The goal of research today should be to develop and improve the technology so that the rising price of oil curve can be met earlier. Then the U.S. can start a slow transition to other energy sources at the same time the rest of the world does, and not sustain a competitive disadvantage.
Another alternative is to accept more risk with nuclear power. One of the reasons nuclear power is so expensive is not because the hardware and technology is that expensive, but because of the legal and liability issues that drive the price of insurance through the roof, slow down or stop new licenses, and force reactors to run at duty cycles that are uneconomic. As a country, the U.S. could decide that the risk of nuclear power is worth adopting, and the government could spread the cost of the risk to the people by putting caps on liability and streamlining regulations.
But as long as the rest of the world is using oil, the U.S. will use oil. That’s reality. When other energy sources begin to be more inexpensive than oil, the entire world will begin the transition simulteneously.
Well I would differ slightly from Sam insofar as I believe the economic efficiency gains one can foresee – pricing in the hidden economic costs in hydrocarbon consumption-- should be a more powerful motivator than some chimerical strategic gains.
Clearly a problem is the transition, especially if one wants to force the transition forward from its natural evolution (economically speaking). That is going to require not only signficant research into rendering alternative fuels more cost effective and better able to compete on a price basis, but also probably subsidies to early adopters to help move the transition along. Any change from a hydrocarbon economy is going to leave a lot of capital stranded.
Slight digression here, in terms of the alternative fuel debate… but my money is on a large scale Liquid Petroleum Gas industry actually. It seems that the LPG carburettor is finally a very workable and impressive device. Australia is now a net exporter of LPG by a factor of 8:1 in terms of what we consume. A typical 250 cubic inch v8 fitted with an LPG Carburettor delivers slightly higher horsepower than a high octane gasoline equivalent. The only drawback is that the fuel is in a pressurised liquid form and needs to be placed in a large gas tank… as in a cylinder 18 inches by 5 foot.
It seems that LPG deposits are demonstrably more available than crude oil deposits and are as yet, largely untapped due to the inherent historical preference towards crude oil. Certainly, a vehicle using LPG runs astonishingly leaner and cleaner due to the fuel already being vapourised. It’s estimated that 35% of vehicles sold in Australia this year will be full time LPG vehicles.
Obviously, jet fuel would remain kerosene based, but I suspect Australia and the recent Timor LPG discoveries could quite easily supply North America’s vehicle requirements.