Saudi Arabia isn't a country, it's a royal family with vassals. If they run into trouble all they need to do is knock down some of the entitlements for the vassals, or encourage them to go join a jihad, like they did with Afghanistan. The hyperinflation of the ruble is a deliberate move to inflate away foreign debt. They don't even have that much to pitch; it'll be a short-term thing. Meanwhile a crappy ruble makes Russian exports that much more competitive, while also annihilating any pension obligations and driving all savings into market liquidity. China is buying luxury goods and foreign real estate. Anyone who drinks scotch could tell you as much; they drove Laphroag up to $80 a bottle for a while. There are peculiarities associated with upper-middle-class lifestyles in a command economy and China's odd import/export behavior underlines all of them.
> they drove Laphroag up to $80 a bottle for a while How much is Laphroaig in the States, then? It's been $80 a bottle where I live for a decade or more.
$65-$80 is about right. Unfortunately, all that's available these days is 10 year. It used to be that you could find 15. -An amazing scotch and my first real scotch experience thanks to the generous cW. Edit: can I blame the Saudi's for the absence of 15?
Your world sucks. Not sure how they work this out economically, but the Kroger over here (Ralph's) makes you a deal: you buy six bottles of whateverthefuck, they'll give you 30% off all of 'em. So you can do obnoxious shit like buy five bottles of Beringer white zin for $3.99 a bottle and a bottle of Hennessy Millenium for $299 and save $105. They also do weird f'n blowouts sometimes. Not sure how I pulled it off, but I bought a liter of Bushmill's on St. Patty's Day for $15, marked down from $35.
Never heard of Bushmill's. I'll assume it's good value. Lately I've been getting into Tasmanian whiskeys. Check out Lark Distillery for an excellent single malt. Anyway, apologies for derailing the original thread. This article has just appeared on The Conversation, which appears relevant to our original discussion.
It's a flawed film. The problem with it is narratively, all the stories gain impact and the narrative gains strength from eliminating George Clooney's character. Unfortunately, the basis for Syriana were the Robert Baer books "See No Evil" and "Sleeping With The Devil" in which CIA Agent Bob Baer describes his career as a case officer in the South Asia station of the CIA as well as his dealings with Saudi Arabia. In Syriana, Bob Baer is played by George Clooney. Stephen Gaghan was much more interested in portraying the lives around the CIA's involvement in Saudi oil while Bob Baer was more interested in telling you why the CIA fucked up the Middle East. No easy compromise there. Still, the script was nominated for an oscar and George Clooney won for the role I have just described as supernumerary to the plot, so there you go.