” If he’s a bad boy, for any reason, the population will NOT assassinate him—his OWN BROTHERS and other MALE RELATIVES will.”
An interesting form of ‘checks and balances.’
“The KING, by the way, personally owns all the petroleum and natural gas in the KSA. That keeps all the wealthy and prominent families from all FIGHTING over it. Good solution to the problem. “
Good way to prevent chaos. It also prevents foreigners from coming in and buying any form of control over the national economy.
I hadn't thought of it in those terms but you are absolutely correct.
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Good way to prevent chaos. It also prevents foreigners from coming in and buying any form of control over the national economy.
The original owners of the petroleum and natural gas were, of course, the Saudis. But they SOLD all their rights to the "BIG FOUR" oil companies: Exxon, Chevron, Mobile and Shell (which was Dutch) in the mid -1920's. I think that's right. It's been a long time.
In 1982 the King BOUGHT back those rights. Whew. He PROBABLY took the money out of his "chump change."
He started giving away oodles of money in the form of charity. He gave to BOTH Muslim and Christian countries. He never did, to my knowledge, give anything to Hindu countries...only to people "of the Book." (Bible, Koran)
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It has always been hard for me to wrap my mind around: the King made a billion dollars every other day....1982.