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...How? How do you get a diverse and often quarrelsome world to agree on something that huge?
by QAPereo 9y ago
...How? How do you get a diverse and often quarrelsome world to agree on something that huge?
- toomuchtodo 9y agoYou apply pressure on companies taking investment from the Saudis collectively. If you can’t support Uber because of an atmosphere of sexually harassment, how can you support them when their investment dollars are coming from a country that subjugates women? That creates an indentured servant class from imported labor? That sort of argument. It’s blood money, and that’s the narrative you use (if one was so inclined). Failing that, you’ll have to resort to politics.
- QAPereo 9y agoYou apply pressure on companies taking investment from the Saudis collectively. That's just rephrasing it... how do you apply pressure? Everyone needs oil, many don't care about these issues, so how do we make them toe a line? What pressure do we exert? How much political capital do we burn without a hope of return? At the end of the day though, you say "blood money" as though both sides aren't drenched in it. Moreover, whoever the Saudis are killing, it's with our weapons systems. They're newcomers to a game that the US has been playing for centuries, and Europe much longer. They're something between our rogue asset in the region, and our abusive soon-to-be-ex-spouse. Everyone sees it coming, especially the Saudis who are going so far as to clean house and contemplate an Aramco IPO to avoid being reclaimed by the desert.
- toomuchtodo 9y agoDiplomacy is the art of saying “good dog” until you make it to the rock. We’re not to the rock yet. I’d agree with your sentiment that they’re too much of an ally for anything meaningful to be done about their investments, but the winds shift quickly.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- SubiculumCode 9y agoMinimum standards of conduct before a nation is allowed to do trade another nation or to join a trade agreement...or basically like most other negotiations.
- themihai 9y agoJust quoting @l33tbro <<Well if you want to talk sanctions, I'd say selling them $110 billion in weapons a few months back is slightly more concerning than where they invest.>>
- alphakappa 9y agoThis is the same country that the US funnels weapons into, and uses for leverage in the region. Does it make the US complicit in the actions that Saudi Arabia does? Now does it make sense to ask for Saudi Arabia to be sanctioned when it comes to business investments?
- noobermin 9y agoI think we are arguing it is.
- QAPereo 9y agoSo party A has high standards, parties B and C don't and just trade with each other. Party A withers and and its resources are eventually aligned with B and C anyway. This is not an effective way to fight anything, it's just suicide.
- stale2002 9y agoOk, and if one country does that, then other countries have an incentive to ignore the agreement, and accept all that sweet sweet money.