Aramco to Take on More Debt, Says CFO

To anyone from my generation that must be revolting. We grew up knowing that Gulf Arabs swim in cash and that a couple of measly billions are always hidden somewhere under their bedsheet. The very fact that a company like Aramco needs to go to the markets to procure the cash they need to function just like any other company shows us that the good times are over for quite a while. When I was a teenager I read a book about the resource curse. The gist was: that plentiful natural resources enabled rulers to live off the proceeds and also to deny their populations any opportunity as they don’t need their taxes. This comes back to bite hard when the resources go away. It cannot be fixed by big projects. Rich Gulf Arabs might go back to where they were 100 years ago. 

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