The Saudi Prince and the US Economy

A few months old but still relevant...


Among the many comedies of daily life, the one that finds me today seems worthy of note. One of the powers that be in our new world order, High Prince Alwaleed bin Talal al Saud, addressed the public on television today in a Disneyland like affair, surrounded by a meticulously lighted open aired desert, and two well placed horses and a hut behind him. The High Prince himself was wearing an outfit that’s difficult to describe. I found it be a fantastical mix between Gilded Age industrialist, Bono, a European dandy, and a Cowboy cleric. What the hell does all of this mean? It’s one more example of how absurd our culture has become and how out of touch everyone has become from reality.
It’s hard to decipher what this purposeful contrivance represents? What is the Prince trying to convey with these antics? Unfortunately, it reminds me far too much of a modern day Marie Antoinette and what that portends is even more frightening. It seems to be the case that the eternal precipice of all nations hangs before us once again. Inevitably, the winners and losers of the states, regions, nations, and the world rise and fall. The dominos are presently tumbling down, and if I were in the same company as the High Prince, I would be feeling very ill at ease in my position.
What seems to be most lost upon the currently narcoticized people of the major economies is the very real fact that they are not as wealthy as they appear. The incredibly concentrated wealth that exists today may lurk in the Western nations and the United States currently, but wealth is incredibly mobile, far more so than throughout most of mankind’s history. This begs the question whether the typical models of wealth concentration truthfully reflect the real wealth of those countries and whether they can positively serve as a measure of the future fortunes of a nation.
The momentum to continue this cycle is declining. The creation of the Euro has provided the world with an alternative to the dollar and thus a competitor to The United States’ dollar that will lead to a diversification in currencies in general and the spawning of even more regional currencies. Once this occurs, the United States will be forced to pay higher rates of interest to finance its debt load. The dollar’s foreign exchange value will also generally decline. The likely scenario is that the lessons of the Great Depression combined with a government unwilling to significantly decrease its expenditures, will lead to monetization of these costs, inflation and the general debasement of the US Dollar compared to its historical value.