– New King Orders $29 Billion ‘Handouts’, Tells Saudi People: “You Deserve More” (ZeroHedge, Feb 2, 2015):
Because nothing says “we really do fear social unrest… and please stick with the new king” like Saudi Arabia spewing a massive $29.3 billion spending program that include lavish payments of two months bonus salary to all Saudi state employees and a series of subsidies. As al-Arabiya reports, King Salman bin Abdulaziz has issued a number of decrees because – as he wrote on Twitter (which you may remember is considered “the source of all evil” by the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia) “Dear Citizens, you deserve more,” adding “do not forget to include me in your prayers.”
Saudi Arabia’s newly inaugurated King Salman bin Abdulaziz has issued a series of landmark orders that ushered in fresh new faces into state institutions and awarded financial support for many Saudis.
And the king ordered a total of $30 billion (112 billion Saudi Riyals) spending in the oil rich kingdom.
The king ordered a lavish payout to all state employees on Thursday and reshuffled some top government jobs while keeping in place the oil, foreign, finance, defense and interior ministers.
The top oil exporter will pay two months bonus salary to all state employees and pension to retired government workers, he said in a series of decrees read aloud on state television a week after Salman succeeded his brother Abdullah as king.
Included in the handouts was $5.3 billion (20 billion riyals) pledged in subsidies for electricity, water, and housing.
And in a commitment to the arts, King Salman pledged $267,000 for each art club in the kingdom.
There was also good news for students, people with special needs and those on social welfare who will also receive two months income.
* * *
Doing the same thing his father did………..regular handouts to keep the people quiet. Giving bonus’ to the top people, and city workers include all the law enforcement people. Keeping the majority accepting of the status quo is all they know how to do.
Something new is on the horizon, or they would not have kicked the petrodollar to the curb. I estimate Chinese or Russian soldiers will replace US troops in Saudi Arabia within months…………….the dollar and the US are finished over there. When they decided it was more important to dump the dollar than continue their outrageous profits, that tells me change is in the air. The behavior of the US by torturing those in Gitmo and other places has made the social and political costs too high to allow them to remain. The people find that unacceptable…….so, more money, and removing US troops is on the table.
The US dollar now totally depends on the EU. Saudis and other middle eastern nations are now getting much of what they need from China, Russia, India……..they no longer need us, and they hate us with passion. The behavior of people in those torture centers is worthy of Nazis…….and the cost of being in bed with them has gotten too high. Better to take lower prices for a while, this is still a world that uses oil.
40 years ago, they had contempt for us, now, it has evolved into hatred. If Greece follows Russia’s offer, and leaves the EU, and does what Iceland did in 2008, other nations in the EU will follow. That will be deadly for the US, and that has been the object of the financial war against the US since 2010. A war without bullets or bombs, a war of finance…..a chess game, engineered by a smart man (Hugo Chavez) and built into a world economy by a master chess player.
OPEC has chosen BRICS and the Eurasian Union over the worthless US dollar. Now, the US totally depends on the EU, and the entire EU is riddled with debt………….