{"id":2214,"date":"2007-08-15T11:33:28","date_gmt":"2007-08-15T15:33:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wordpress\/2007\/08\/tipping_point_i\/"},"modified":"2007-08-15T11:33:28","modified_gmt":"2007-08-15T15:33:28","slug":"tipping_point_i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/2007\/08\/tipping_point_i\/","title":{"rendered":"“Tipping Point” In Saudi Arabia?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dana Moss and Zvika Krieger have a short piece<\/a> in The Christian Science Monitor<\/i> on the reforms King Abdullah has attempted to bring to Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n

I’m struck by this curious quote:<\/p>\n

These reforms come at a critical time. Saudi Arabia is barreling toward an economic and social crisis if it does not act fast. Almost 75 percent of Saudi citizens are under age 30 and youth unemployment is approaching 30 percent – a potential breeding ground for terrorists and regime dissidents. Current high oil prices are not enough to paper over the economic ravages of the past two decades. “The oil boom is over and will not return,” Abdullah told his subjects. “All of us must get used to a different lifestyle.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The oil boom is over<\/i>? In one of world’s most oil-rich nations? With oil prices near all-time highs?  Without a broader context, it’s hard to tell what he may have meant by that, but it sounds ominous.<\/p>\n

There’s an ongoing debate regarding Saudi Arabia’s oil production capabilities.  You can see on this chart<\/a> (from this post<\/a>) that Saudi oil production has declined since it peaked in 2006. It’s unclear whether this decline is attributable to (1) a voluntary quota, or (2) the constraints of being at or near a production ceiling.<\/p>\n

Clearly if it’s (2)–which King Abdullah’s comment hints at–the world energy supply is in a disastrous condition, as Saudi Arabia is one of the few nations believed to have substantial excess capacity to meet future global oil demand growth.<\/p>\n

Let’s hope it’s (1).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dana Moss and Zvika Krieger have a short piece in The Christian Science Monitor on the reforms King Abdullah has attempted to bring to Saudi Arabia. I’m struck by this curious quote: These reforms come at a critical time. Saudi Arabia is barreling toward an economic and social crisis if it does not act fast. […]<\/p>\n<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2214","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"h-entry","8":"hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2214\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}