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A comment on Oil plunges below zero for first time with May contract ending. Parent comment

Re:Oil plunges below zero for first time with May contract e... by fmajid on Monday April 20, 2020 @10:50AM (#22924263)
The gold bars are already in the US, as part of the Nixon-Faisal agreements. That should not be a comfort to the Saud kleptocracy, as the Shah of Iran discovered.
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Re:Oil plunges below zero for first time with May contract e... by jdxcode on Monday April 20, 2020 @10:50AM (#22924272)
technically wasn't the ayatollah that had to pay that price?

You're talking about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_frozen_assets right?

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Re:Oil plunges below zero for first time with May contract e... by fmajid on Monday April 20, 2020 @10:56AM (#22924341)
Yes. He thought he’d be able to live his exile in luxury, but what he thought of as his assets (really belonging to the Iranian people he looted, of course) were frozen by Carter.
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Re:Oil plunges below zero for first time with May contract e... by aspenmayer on Monday April 20, 2020 @12:02PM (#22925106)
Not just Carter, the Supreme Court too. After Congress made a law to specifically make the seizure legal, the bank challenged the constitutionality of changing laws to be interpreted against the bank only when applied to that bank’s seized Iranian linked account. The Court sided with the government 7-2.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_Markazi_v._Peterson

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Re:Oil plunges below zero for first time with May contract e... by lonelappde on Monday April 20, 2020 @10:54AM (#22924307)
Does the Saudi kleptocracy have any reason to distrust the US klpetocracy? After 9/11/2001 the US was quite loyal in a difficulty time.
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Re:Oil plunges below zero for first time with May contract e... by fmajid on Monday April 20, 2020 @10:59AM (#22924374)
The Saud were still in power. If they lost power, all bets are off. It’s certainly not their sterling moral character that gets them so many free passes today.
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Re:Oil plunges below zero for first time with May contract e... by chasd00 on Monday April 20, 2020 @12:57PM (#22925750)
Without a stable government in SA the Middle East would be even more chaotic than it is now. I think that's why after 9/11 a priority was made to keep the SA monarchy stable and in power.
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Re:Oil plunges below zero for first time with May contract e... by y-c-o-m-b on Monday April 20, 2020 @04:01PM (#22927873)
If that were true, wouldn't it be counterproductive to destabilize the rest of the region (Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Libya to name a few) at the same time? I think the stability or instability of the Middle East is a function of how the US leaches resources off of it; in that if destabilizing the region gives U.S. interests more $$$, then so be it, chaos be damned.
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