Sunday 16 July 2017

Bending The Rules for Saudi Aramco

You gotta laugh at all the gnashing of teeth as the City gears up to change the rules for "sovereign-owned" flotations - manifestly, to win the Aramco business.

Many months ago I wrote
the government now needs to conduct itself as if we were at war. Yes, it's big and serious! Full attention and maximum effort required on all fronts. Melt down some of the family silver. Tighten the belt. Grown-ups to the front. Now is the hour.
and
... there'll be many a dark deed done on the road to a successful escape from the clutches of the Commission. It gladdens the heart to see that some proper pragmatists are settling down to their three-year-long task of doing Whatever It Takes. 

Frankly it wouldn't surprise me to see Gib and the Falklands 'sold' as this one pans out.

ND 

6 comments:

DJK said...

I'm with the naysayers on this one. A reputation for probity is a valuable asset and worth defending; trashing your ethics for a fast buck is very short-sighted. Anyway, I suspect that those who sell their souls to help support the cesspool that is the House of Saud will soon regret it.

Nick Drew said...

I know exactly what you mean DJK, and have written in that vein too - e.g. here

http://www.cityunslicker.co.uk/2010/03/in-praise-of-unilateralism-and-high.html

but that was in happier times ...

Steven_L said...

Why would anyone want to 'buy' the Falklands? Anyone who 'bought' it other than the Argies would have to spend hundreds of millions (or billions?) of dollars a year defending it, which would surely cancel out any tax revenue from the fishing and sheep farming?

Presumably the Argies know they would be the only bidder and could therefore 'pay' new to nothing?

dearieme said...

Is there anything in Argentina worth having? I suppose not or the Yanks would have attacked it long ago.

Anonymous said...

Dearieme - Miss Argentina perhaps?

andrew said...

I am not quite sure how 'getting back control' squares with 'giving away territiory'

Perhaps we ought to let the scots go too - or the inside of the M25 to singapore and the remains to romania.