“Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman plans to meet top global executives, including the heads of Apple Inc. and Google, during his first trip to the U.S. since becoming heir to the throne of the world’s largest oil exporter, according to a person briefed on the trip’s details,” Alaa Shahine reports for Bloomberg.
“Prince Mohammed, known among journalists and diplomats as MBS, will hold talks with President Donald Trump and senior administration officials next week in Washington,” Shahine reports. “His itinerary also may include stops in New York, Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Houston, the person said on condition of anonymity because the plans aren’t final.”
“Trump has moved to strengthen U.S. ties with the kingdom since taking office in January 2017, and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has cultivated a relationship with the crown prince. Saudi Arabia was the first foreign country Trump visited after taking office, traveling to the kingdom in May and signing memorandums and agreements for defense spending that totaled about $110 billion,” Shahine reports. “But U.S. relations also have been strained at times over a continuing dispute between a Saudi-led bloc and Qatar, a key ally in the Middle East that hosts a U.S. air base used in the war against Islamic State.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Makes sense for the Crown Prince and Tim Cook, the head of the world’s most valuable company, to meet.
MbS will talk with TC about establishing a Apple research and manufacturing community directly inside the Kingdom of SA. Terms of the “mutual investments” will be revealed during his visit to Los Angeles.!!!
Saudis own quite a good amount of AAPL. It was the Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz al Saud with whom Steve Jobs got major investments to Apple when Apple needed to boost to their capital structure.
The US would not need to meet with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS), the Prince of Hand Choppers (PHC) if the US moved away from the petrodollar and do nearly total renewable energy. Hey, let’d do it!
Sure, just give us a gameplan to switch to a source that is cheap, won’t stifle economic growth and works.
OR…..recognize that we already ARE moving away from Middle East oil dependency and that alternative energy methods will continue to evolve and become more practical over time with government research funding and private capital to realize this dream.
My first two suggestion are more nuclear power and less ethanol waste.
Except the US isn’t moving away from oil is it? Substituting dirty Canadian tar sands for Saudi crude is economically and ecologically foolish. The US offshore drilling is fraught with risks as the BP disaster showed, making its economic outlook uncertain. onshore horizontal drilling is rapidly being played out in the continental US. The time to plan ahead for the future is now.
The world has one generation to move to predominantly nontoxic renewables. Of these, wind and solar are significantly more economical than nuclear even before you account for the endless toxic sludge storage and military security requirements– and uranium is nonrenewable. Hydro is the best if you have a river, which is going to be a challenge as we accelerate the melting of glaciers with co2 emissions. Right now though the biggest problem is energy storage and conversion. No battery can match oil yet … except all your Apple and Tesla and electric drone products of course. Society needs to set its sights higher.
There is zero leadership at the national level putting money and effort into improving:
— battery tech
— upgrades to electric grid to incorporate renewables
— replacement of dirty disposable tar roofs for permanent solar installations
— inner city electrification and banning of oil burners in smoggy urban centers
— renewal of transcontinental railroads to get big inefficient trucks off the interstates
— replacement of dirty fuels for agricultural vehicles
All of the technology in these areas is being paced by private or corporate concerns, deployed only with great effort against the lobbying powers of the dirtiest industry.
When Apple goes and buys foreign solar cells and foreign batteries for its server sites, you know why. Because there is no leadership in the USA making the transition with policy and standards to enable a smooth national transition. Oil is too precious a commodity to burn in cars sitting at red traffic lights in congested cities. The USA needs to find a better answer.
1: I said it is moving away from Middle Eastern oil
2: tar sand oil is a very small amount used and for certain needs
3: Over how many years has there been a disaster like BP? What was learned? By your measure there would be no more passenger ships after Titanic or space ships after Apollo. This also ignores the fact the Gulf of Mexico has pretty much healed itself from this terrible disaster.
4: Horizontal is being played out? HAH!
5: Why only one generation? They said this one generation ago about Global Warming. Both are full of shit and used to maximize fear (while TRYING to make good prose)
6: Solar and wind are more economical? Where are the wind farms powering huge population centers? The solar farms? These only add a SMALL fraction to the grid and are a slow ROI.
7: OK, IF you have a river? Melting of glacial ice will make it a challenge? seems like we’d have MORE rivers, and if your nonsense logic is true, won’t the Earth immediately start cooling itself after you turn off all the coal, natural gas and nuclear power plants year after next when all the wind and solar farms are ready to fire up and power the world? I mean, we only have 20 years we better not fuck around, need to divert all economies onto this NOW like it’s was WW3.
8: Battery tech has come further along last 10 years from the free markets than the 30 years before it.
-The electric grids already has renewable
-Tar roof replaced with, myGod I’m debating a snowflake of 12!!!
Your railroad dream will go to each major city and carry all the cargo by burning…diesel?? They already do this and trucking is still cheaper for smaller loads
YourObamaMomma President tried to push this agenda (behind a wall of slush funds) and it STILL didn’t make it even with all the lies told, just like that stupid 9 billion dollar California train wreck (now 90 billion estimate).
really, kids these daze….
When can the adults walk off their jobs to protest how bad the 14-24’s are being taught??
Sorry but your opinions don’t refute any of the many arguments for implementing clean renewable energy as fast as possible for a variety of reasons particular to each region’s needs. The US becoming addicted to imported nuclear fuel would be just as much a security risk as the decades of oil addiction bought with money and blood from undemocratic Islamic nations that the MDN crew hates so much. The US enriched the enemies it now fights in a crusade without end. It makes no sense strategically to rely on old dirty tech when companies like Apple are proving every day that it is profitable and reliable to power its business with renewables.
Uhh….racist much? We are not in a fight with Saudi Arabia or Kuwait. The Middle East is not one big swath of Islamic Extremism (my fiancé is from Jordan….)
Imported nuclear fuel??? From where, Russia…!!!???
Thank you Billary Clintons.
I guess I mistook you for a knowledgeable person. Seriously, you have no idea of the economics of scale you are dreaming about.
Stick to being an “artist” where you are paid to dream.
There’s no money for you in Reality-ville.
(and those aren’t my opinions, I live in the real world where we know what is going on)
I can go for some nuclear to fuel s hydrogen economy.
Nuclear energy is the future of energy independence. Once we have fusion, the Saudis will exit geopolitics for good and go back to their medieval nomadic ways. We won’t need to cater to their whims any more.
True that fusion is the more distant future, but I can see fission, in remote locations producing hydrogen from water, then we burn hydrogen. Split water, get water. Carbon = zero.
A Trifecta!
“Money doesn’t talk, it swears.”
…and it don’t sing and it don’t walk.
Long as Trumpy’s here with me, I’d much rather be, avoiding the bullshit yeah….
lol
For the record… my bad… it should have said
avoiding HIS bullshit, yeah…
I wish we could edit.
I look forward to Apple et al telling the Saudis they’re homophobic, transphobic and religiously intolerant.
I mean, they tell us don’t they?
Aren’t you accustomed to corporate honchos telling you how it will be? That is the America the people allowed.
The US constitution, written before corporations had unlimited power that accrued without end beyond the life of a citizen – by its silence has been interpreted by corrupt officials to mean that unelected corporate executives have no restrictions and no personal liability. Under the weak sham of shareholder voting, a CEO can use the resources of his corporation as a super citizen. Citizens United proved that with enough money in play, even the SCotUS is corruptable. With billions of dollars and thousands of people at his command, there is nothing that the executive cannot do. If you make a law to stop the corruption, his press will scream and whine about overregulation. Then he will find whatever nation in the world allows him to launder money, pollute, or whatever and he will actively undermine democracy to get his way.
Some executives even claim they could kill a man in NYC without repercussions. They even feel free to brag about sexual assault, practice extreme nepotism, hypocritically flaunt the values and policies proposed in pep rallies. All is forgiven if pockets are lined with the short term proceeds. As long as you deliver short term greed initiatives, the executive today is treated like an emperor, all knowing and above the law. They even demand that the rule of law be ignored because investigators, already having uncovered dozens of crooks, might actually prevail in building a case. Must grab dictatorial powers before this happens, right? Citizens lose when modern Hitlers are allowed to foul the democracy.
Of course the current authoritarian in DC is only a temporary situation. The real concern is the billionaire Mercers who put him in office. Note that the most powerful executives aren’t necessarily the most corrupt, although there is a correlation. Mercers fit the definition of psychotic. The most powerful executives run multinational for-profit organizations with technology capabilities that dwarf what the distractions in the press can even imagine. Some of these companies are just playing along with the current 4 year reality TV cycle since they know that after being given even more power without responsibility, they will soon accrue the ability to nullify the actual impact of any one nation’s laws, including those of a has-been nation with 4% of the world population.
The people are fed divisionism on TV so they don’t see the silent sharks that may be led by social justice warriors today but tomorrow could be led by an unscrupulous maniac. Just look at the net value of AAPL compared to sovereign nations. Apple keeps taking while nations , led by corporate puppets, take on more debt at insane rates. National suicide. The era of corporatocracy is upon us all. Be happy Apple hasn’t gone completely dark side. Yet.
All is not lost. God could become disgusted with us and send a giant asteroid our way, killing us off and giving the dinosaurs a second chance.