Oct 142009
Meanwhile, in crazy-land, the Saudis want oil-consuming nations to compensate them for all the oil we won’t be buying in our efforts to reduce climate change.
It’s like that bit in Catch-22 wherein Major Major’s father is paid generously by the US government for not growing alfalfa. Throughout Major Major’s childhood, his father buys up more and more land so as to get more and more money from the US government for the increasing amount of alfalfa he’s not growing.
And as Megan McArdle points out, crazy-land is not so far away from home:
Commenter Mike in DC adds “The sad thing is that if it were Midwestern farmers making this argument rather than Saudis, it would be taken seriously.”
I have had a little trawl for facts showing how Saudi is screwed and can only get as far as official figures for 1994 (!) and Wikipedia :(.
Oh well, oil and derivatives seem to account for 90% of Saudi’s GDP, with an enormous consuming service sector (unlike the UKs, not particularly providing services out of country), 12% unemployment amongst Saudi men and some ?40%? of the working population being non-citizens … I think they’re fcuked.
Apart from oil, what are the raw materials? Dates and sand (the latter being unsuitable for most building uses.)
And, so, they need to rely on their education system to make the most of their human talent. Well, as it blithely disregards 52% of their population off pat, and then spends most of its time teaching the remainder how great the 7th Century was, how evil everybody was to them in the 11th to 13th Centuries and how all that evil is now concentrated in Israel … They’re still fcuked.