. June 13, 2005 SouthAmerica: In June 2003, I wrote an article regarding âBrazil and Saudi Arabiaâ that caught the attention of the Brazilian State Department in Brazil. As soon as the article was published on Brazzil magazine, on the same day, the Brazilian government posted a copy of my article at the Brazilian State Departmentâs website in Brazil. Later, I also found out that my article had been circulated among members of the Saudi Arabian Royal family, and also among senior members of the Saudi Arabian government. A week after my article was published, I received a letter from the Saudi Arabian government inviting me for a visit to Saudi Arabia. It is my understanding that my article had an impact in the outflow of Saudi Arabian money going out of the United States in the following months after that article was published. Since the Saudi Arabian government got in contact with me, I continued corresponding with the Saudi Arabian official who had contacted me. During the summer of 2004, I had the pleasure of meeting him in person here in New Jersey, when he was in the United States on a business trip doing a road show on behalf of his organization. I told him that the reason that I wrote that article was that I wish there were a way that I could help to bring the governments of Brazil and governments of the Arab countries of the Middle East; including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Oman, United Arab Emirates, and Qatar to a much closer business and economic relationship. When I met my new Saudi Arabian friend, our meeting was very productive in the area of the exchange of ideas. I learned a lot from him regarding Saudi Arabia and the Middle East. My article was an eye opener for a lot of people in Saudi Arabia. He told me that he used to have two bank accounts here in the United States until recently, but he closed both accounts after reading my article, and moved his money to a safer place out of the USA. He also told me that he knew many other people in Saudi Arabia that were doing the same thing; moving their money out of the USA, just in case. Has been two years since that article was published, but today I still receiving emails from people regarding that article, because they found the article only now or because someone else gave them a copy of the article for them to read it. Here is a copy of my article that caught the attention of so many people in the United States, in Brazil, in Saudi Arabia, and around the world. (I said around the world because I received emails regarding this article from people in Europe, Asia, Middle East, South America, Canada, and the United States.) See copy of the article below. Originally published in June 2003 - âDear Saudis, Play Safe, Bring Your Money to Brazilâ By: Ricardo C. Amaral .
. Brazzil Economy June 2003 âDear Saudis, Play Safe, Bring Your Money to Brazilâ If I were the Finance Minister of Saudi Arabia, I would be cashing in, and moving most of Saudi Arabia's assets out of the US for safekeeping. Doing otherwise would be foolishness. Confiscation of Saudi money by the US seems imminent. Brazil is a good place to put at least part of the 2 trillion dollars, which are now in American hands. By: Ricardo C. Amaral When the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia did meet President Lula in Evian, France on June 1, 2003, he invited Lula for a visit to Saudi Arabia later in the year. Here are some of the reasons why the crown Prince of Saudi Arabia was so friendly towards Lulaâin a nutshell: Brazil is one of the major options available to Saudi Arabia to invest a large portion of the money, which will leave the United States for a safer haven. We are talking about 2 trillion dollars, an amount twice the value of the entire Brazilian economy. We don't know how much money the Saudis will transfer from the United States to invest in Brazil. To many readers this article might seem to have very little to do with Brazil, but the truth is: Brazil has a good chance of getting a piece of the 2 trillion dollar Saudi Arabian pot of gold. A major point that Lula has to convey to the Saudis, is that the Brazilian government will guarantee that in the future, the Brazilian government will not freeze or confiscate the Saudi's assets under any circumstances. Another victory for bin Laden The United States government ordered a U.S. military pullout from Saudi Arabia. On April 29, 2003, the decision was confirmed by US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld during a joint news conference with Saudi Defense Minister Prince Sultan. The United States is capitulating to one of Osama bin Laden's central demands by pulling almost all American military forces out of Saudi Arabia by the end of the summer. This is another major victory for Osama bin Laden and the Al Qaeda network. The US government claims that bin Laden was responsible for the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, in which 15 of the 19 suicide hijackers were Saudi nationals. The US military presence in Saudi Arabia was the main grievances given by Saudi-born Islamic militant Osama bin Laden to justify attacks against the United States. Why is the US government giving into bin Laden's demand? Because it is impossible for the United States to win the war on terrorismâa small group of terrorists can cause a lot of damage such was the case on September 11, 2001. These people did not have an armyâwith big guns, the biggest bombs ever made by human beings, including nuclear bombs, or the most advanced missile and communications systems available today. The terrorists came armed with low-tech box cutters and a little ingenuity and imagination, and look at the amount of damageâmaterial, economic, and psychologicalâthese people were able to inflict in the United States. The US spent 1 trillion dollars in defense in the last three years, and 2 trillion in the last eight years. Even with these very large amounts of defense spending the US could not prevent the attack by 19 terrorists armed with low-tech box cutters. Why is the US overreacting and is spending so much money on defense? The sad thing is that the American people have been misled to believe that they can be protected from a terrorist attack by increasing defense spending. When the reality is: it is an impossible task for the government to protect the American people against most kinds of terrorism attacks in US soil. It is impossible to stop terrorism, because acts of terrorism can be performed by a very small group of peopleâin some cases by only one person. The United States can spend 50 trillion dollars in defense, and the US still will not be able to stop in the future, a clever terrorist attack on its soil. Saudi Arabia Collapse On April 29, 2003, the Asia Times Online had an article by Syed Saleem Shahzad saying that: "Over the past few months, sections of the Saudi media, some circles of the royal family and the clergy and intellectuals have speculated that after Iraq, the United States is determined to bring Saudi Arabia to heel. "â¦This will not entail military action, rather political pressure brought to bear in the wake of the new circumstances that have arisen in the region with the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq. Such pressure would include increased action against Al Qaeda members or sympathizersâ15 of the 19 September 11 hijackers in the US attacks were identified as Saudi citizens, a review of the main pillars of power in Saudi society, as well as its relations with the world. "â¦Since the 1991 Gulf War, US troops have been in the country under the pretext of being a part of Operation Southern Watch, which enforced a no-fly zone over southern Iraq. But the US troops have become a potent symbol of Washington's role in the region, and many Saudis see them as proof of the kingdom's subservience to America. "â¦Saudi Arabia is home to some of Islam's holiest sites, and the deployment of US forces there is seen by manyânotably by Osama bin Ladenâas an historic betrayal. This is one of the main reasons given by the Saudi-born Osama to justify violence against the US and its allies. "â¦Being the most holy land of Muslims around the world, it would be difficult for the US to deal with Saudi Arabia as it has with Syriaâwith threats of warâ¦Once the US troops leave Saudi Arabia, the religious segment of Saudi society can be expected to be more outspokenâ¦The Iraq war has already added fuel to the fire and fanned extremism in the country. As a result, Saudi authorities are now caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. "â¦In the past 50 years, Saudi Arabia has maintained a balance in its policies concerning its internal affairs and its external affairs, despite the fact that they were at oddsâinternal policies have been traditionalist and Islamic, while external ones have been liberal and pro-Western. It will become ever more difficult for Saudi Arabia to maintain this balance in the future." The most interesting article about the coming collapse of the government in Saudi Arabia was published in the May 2003 issue of The Atlantic Monthly. The article is called "The Fall of the House of Saud" and was written by former CIA field officer Robert Baer. The article describes in detail the current predicament of the Saudi royal family. The article starts by saying that: "The day of reckoning is here for our corrupt, dangerous, and untrustworthy allies, the Saudi royal family. Americans have long considered Saudi Arabia the one constant in the Arab Middle Eastâa source of cheap oil, political stability, and lucrative business relationships. But the country is run by an increasingly dysfunctional royal family that has been funding militant Islamic movements abroad, in an attempt to protect itself from them at home. A former CIA operative argues, that today's Saudi Arabia can't last much longerâand the country is on the verge of collapseâand much of the global economy could collapse with it." This article describes in detail many of the problems that will bring the Saudi royal family down in the near future. In the last 30 years, there were many sweetheart deals between Saudi Arabia and US companies. The article said: "Just to make sure that no one upsets the workings of this system, perhaps by meddling in internal Saudi affairs, Saudi Arabia now keeps possibly as much as a trillion dollars on deposit in US banksâan agreement worked out in the early eighties by the Reagan Administration, in an effort to get the Saudis to offset US government budget deficits. The Saudis hold another trillion dollars or so in the US stock market. This gives them a remarkable degree of leverage in Washington. If they were suddenly to withdraw all their holdings in this country, the effect, would be devastating." Robert Baer is a former CIA analyst who specialized in the Middle East for more than 20 years and who has just written a book about the region. He's warning that we should be prepared for the eruption of mass instability and terrorism in the Middle East in a very short timeframe, and that instability in Saudi Arabia alone could trigger a collapse in the world economy. See continuation of article below - Part â 2 .
. Continuation of article Brazil and Saudi Arabia â Part - 2 The Inquisition I would like to suggest that people read a book by Edward Burman called âThe Inquisitionâ to learn about the economic and cultural effects that the inquisition had in Europe. Quoting from this book: "...Mariano da Alatri has argued that among all the punishments used by the Inquisition that of confiscation had the greatest social repercussion, and we shall see how the obviously attractive elements of such a policy were soon to be perverted for political motives. One of the most disastrous aspects, especially for wealthy suspects, was the widespread practice of confiscating property even before a trial had taken place...inquisitors held the important privileges of being able to sell goods confiscated from heretics...the possibilities for corruption are evident". Many wealthy people became a target of the Inquisition, and the goal was to confiscate their assets and property. Don't we ever learn any lessons from past history? I guess not! The United States and Asset Confiscating On March 20, 2003 The White House and the Office of the Press Secretary issued a press release that affect and should make many governments from around the world very nervousâ the governments that have investments in the United States. This new policy should put everybody on alert, and raises a big Red Flag, because the US economy is an economy in distress today. Not only the US economy has 8 trillion dollars of cumulative government debt (and continuing to grow), but also the local economies of most states in the United States are not doing well. The most important states in the US economy are California and New York, and their economies are in shambles. It is estimated that the states in the United States will have a combined budget deficit of about 100 billion dollars during the year 2003. According to the Federal Reserve's latest figures, outstanding state and local debt rose to almost $1.5 trillion dollars. When you take a good look at the health of the American economy the total debt of the federal, state and local government with its combined 9.5 trillion dollars debt, it looks like the American government is on its way to become a banana republic. With this kind of debt load, I can see why the US government has adopted a new "Asset Confiscating Policy." Here is an actual example of this new policy, when the United States confiscated over $ 2.5 billion dollars in Iraqi assets here in the United States. The reader can see the document released on Friday, 21 March 2003, by the White House: Executive Order: Confiscating and Vesting Certain Iraqi Property, on the following website: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/realeses/2003/03/20030320-10.html Confiscation can also happen to Saudi Arabia's assets in the US and the Saudi Arabia government probably knows that. The US is a country deep in debt and it is very tempting to confiscate the 2 trillion dollars pot of gold. Remember, Saudi Arabia keeps as much as a trillion dollars on deposit in US banks, and another trillion dollars or so in the US stock market. The Saudi's assets are very tempting. Saudi Arabia would be an easy target for the US, even easier than Iraq. It would be much easier to justify to the American people the confiscation of all Saudi Arabia's assets here in the US, since the US government claims that Osama bin Laden was responsible for the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, in which 15 of the 19 suicide hijackers were also Saudi nationals. If I were the Finance Minister of Saudi Arabia, I would be cashing in, and moving most of Saudi Arabia's assets out of the US for safekeeping. As soon as a revolution starts in Saudi Arabia, I will not be surprised to see the US government freezing and confiscating all kinds of assets owned by the Saudi Arabian government and the assets of the members of the Saudi royal family. You know, to protect these assets and return them, sometime in the future, to the Saudi Arabian people. The entire business will be done with good intentions and wishful thinking in mind. I want to remind the Saudi royal family that the US government has changed many of its policies since 9/11, related to the international court, respect to international law, the United Nations has been declared an obsolete institution, NATO also became obsolete, freezing and confiscating foreign assets became an acceptable policy, and the law of the jungle has been adoptedâsurvival of the fittest. If the Saudis have not grasped as yet the implication and the impact of all these changes on their assets, and if they don't move their assets out of the US to protect them against confiscation, then they deserve to lose it all, because they are a bunch of fools. In the mean time, the US government has to go on record and give all kinds of assurance to the Saudis that such a thing will never happen. Brazil - One of the Economic Powers of the Future Billions of Saudi Arabia's money will be moved out of the US for safekeeping. Maybe some of the money will be moved to Brazil? Billions of dollars will leave the US, because of the economically repressive environment created in the US with the passage of the US Patriot Act and the Homeland Security Act of 2002, plus massive fraud on Wall StreetâEnron, Worldcom etc, etc. And to make things even worse, the latest development is the policy of freezing and confiscating assets of foreign governments. These billions of dollars will find its way to a more friendly, and safer capitalist haven. Could that new option be Brazil? Brazil proved that it has a real democracy today, with many political parties giving voice for most groups of the population. Brazil has a free market and capitalist economy. The major ingredient that is still missing for the Brazilian economy to blossom in a spectacular fashion: is a strong and stable currency such as the Euro. If Brazil adopts the Euro, Brazil will finally have a chance to become one of the major world economic powers. It is imperative that Brazil adopts the Euro as its new currency to give monetary stability to the country and to give confidence to people to invest in Brazil. There are two other steps necessary for Brazil to take to become a major player on international affairs, and become a country able to attract the 100's of billions of dollars that will be leaving the US for a safer place. The first step for this strategy to work: Brazil needs to be able to defend itself from any other country. Brazil needs nuclear weapons to be accepted as a major nation. Without nuclear weapons Brazil will never be able to reach its potentials and become a player among the world leaders. Since I wrote articles on Brazil needing nuclear weapons, I received many emails and spoke with many people about that subject. And I can tell you that the perception is that Brazil don't have the capable minds and the know how to produce such weapons. Most people laugh about Brazil being able to produce nuclear weaponsâI have been told a number of times that Brazil is about samba, Carnaval, and soccer. And that is it. I believe that if very poor countries such as India and Pakistan are able to build nuclear weapons, then Brazil also must be able to build them. Even very poor North Korea with a starving population has nuclear weapons. Before the war, I thought that Iraq had a very weak and small armyâthe leftover of the 1991 war, which was no threat to the countries of the Middle East. But it turned out that they had an even weaker and smaller army than anyone could expect. The US attacked Iraq because it was an easy prey, and also because Iraq did not have nuclear weapons to defend themselves. In the other hand, the United States is not attacking starving North Korea, because they are afraid of the North Koreans nukes. The second step for the strategy to work: Brazil needs to bring crime under control. I will write an article about that subject in the near future. For Brazil to be able to take advantage of this unique opportunity and benefit from the money that will leave the US for safer havens, Brazil needs to adopt the Euro as its new currency, acquire nuclear weapons, and deal with the crime problem. Copyright © 2003 All rights reserved. By: Ricardo C. Amaral Author / Economist brazilamaral@yahoo.com .
. June 13, 2005 Southamerica: As I mentioned in the above article, I wrote various articles about Brazil and nuclear weapons and the articles were published on various newspapers and magazines over a period of time including: âBrazzil magazine,â and âThe Brasilians.â Copies of these articles are scattered in various locations in the internet, but you can find a copy of all these articles in one location as follows: http://northkorea-nuclearweapons.blogspot.com Here are the titles of the articles. 3) âFood for Nukes, the Answer for Brazilâ by: Ricardo C. Amaral Originally published on June 2003. 2) "We Need the Bomb - Part II" by: Ricardo C. Amaral Originally published on February 2003 1) "We Need the Bomb" by: Ricardo C. Amaral Originally published on May 2002. .
. June 13, 2005 SouthAmerica: Reply to Wilburbear, You are right. I did check the location in the White House website where the document released on Friday, 21 March 2003, by the White House: Executive Order: âConfiscating and Vesting Certain Iraqi Property,â was posted, and the document was not there anymore. This document was made public and stayed in the White Houseâs website for a period of time. They must have moved most of the Presidential Executive Orders for the year 2003 to some other archive in the net. Try using Google, if you need to find the new location of the archive in the internet. By the way, after reading your posting on this tread, I went to my files to see if I had printed a copy of that Presidential Executive Order for my file. Usually, when I quote something from any source on one of my articles, I keep a copy of the source of the information just in case if people ask me on a later date where I got the information. Most of the time it takes a lot of research for me to write an article, and by the time the article is ready for publishing, my folder for that particular article would be full of information related to its research. After checking my file for that article, I located a printed copy of the Presidential Executive Order that I mentioned in that article. Here is the information that was posted on the White Houseâs website on March 21, 2003. If you take some information from this letter and use it to search on Google, then you might find the new location where the US government moved this letter. If you need further information on this subject, check the major newspapers such as The New York Times around that date, and you will find reference to confiscation of Iraqi assets by the US government. The newspaper articles at the time gave detail information about the amounts of this confiscation. With a civil war getting worse by the day in Iraq, maybe it will be a matter of time before that mess spreads to other countries in the area including Saudi Arabia. I would not be surprised if there are people in the US government today working, and getting ready all the information necessary to identify all the bank accounts and assets of the Saudi Arabian government and also of thousands of Saudi Princes â the members of the Saudi Royal Family - to freeze them and confiscate them when the Iraqi civil war start spreading into Saudi Arabia. I can see the Saudi assets confiscation coming right here in the USA. If the Saudis donât start cashing in their assets in the USA, and start moving them to a safer place, then they will look like fools when they get their assets frozen and confiscated. They really deserve to lose it all for being so careless with their investments. If I were a Saudi Prince, or the Finance Minister of Saudi Arabia, I would cash in all my assets in the United Sates, and would move them fast to a safer place such as Europe, Brazil, Asian countries, etc. Any place other than the USA. But again: âThere is a new sucker born every day.â Enjoy the reading. ************************************** I am quoting the information that follows from a Presidential Executive Order that was published at the White Houseâs website on March 21, 2003: Office of the Press Secretary March 20, 2003 Executive Order: Confiscating and Vesting Certain Iraqi Property By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.) (IEEPA), the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.), and section 301 of title 3, United States Code, and in order to take additional steps with respect to the national emergency declared in Executive Order 12722 of August 2, 1990, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, hereby determine that the United States and Iraq are engaged in armed hostilities, that it is in the interest of the United States to confiscate certain property of the Government of Iraq and its agencies, instrumentalities, or controlled entities, and that all right, title, and interest in any property so confiscated should vest in the Department of the Treasury. I intend that such vested property should be used to assist the Iraqi people and to assist in the reconstruction of Iraq, and determine that such use would be in the interest of and for the benefit of the United States. I hereby order: Section 1. All blocked funds held in the United States in accounts in the name of the Government of Iraq, the Central Bank of Iraq, Rafidain Bank, Rasheed Bank, or the State Organization for Marketing Oil are hereby confiscated and vested in the Department of the Treasury, except for the following: (a) any such funds that are subject to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations or the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, or that enjoy equivalent privileges and immunities under the laws of the United States, and are or have been used for diplomatic or consular purposes, and (b) any such amounts that as of the date of this order are subject to post-judgment writs of execution or attachment in aid of execution of judgments pursuant to section 201 of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act of 2002 (Public Law 107-297), provided that, upon satisfaction of the judgments on which such writs are based, any remainder of such excepted amounts shall, by virtue of this order and without further action, be confiscated and vested. Sec. 2. The Secretary of the Treasury is authorized to perform, without further approval, ratification, or other action of the President, all functions of the President set forth in section 203(a)(1)(C) of IEEPA with respect to any and all property of the Government of Iraq, including its agencies, instrumentalities, or controlled entities, and to take additional steps, including the promulgation of rules and regulations as may be necessary, to carry out the purposes of this order. The Secretary of the Treasury may redelegate such functions in accordance with applicable law. The Secretary of the Treasury shall consult the Attorney General as appropriate in the implementation of this order. Sec. 3. This order shall be transmitted to the Congress and published in the Federal Register. GEORGE W. BUSH THE WHITE HOUSE, March 20, 2003. .
SouthAmerica: By the way, from what I have been reading in the mainstream press, the money that was confiscated from the Iraqi government "did a disappearing act." Today, the international community should ask and demand the US government to give a full disclosure and account as to what happened to the money that was confiscated from the Iraqi government. The big question is: "Where is the money? .
. June 13, 2005 SouthAmerica: The moderator of the âEconomics Forumâ moved my posting to the âChit Chat Forum,â even though my posting about Brazil and Saudi Arabia was a posting about macroeconomics, and a massive transfer of money from the US economy to other countries around the world. These transfers of Saudi money out of the US economy into the economies of other countries have an economic impact in the various countries involved on these money transfers. That is why I posted all this information on the âEconomics Forum.â By the way, the Chit Chat forum says the following: Yes, there is more to life than trading! Drop in here to discuss things like politics, religion, cars, etc. âThese threads will not appear on the homepage.â I have a question: Does anyone know what they mean by: âThese threads will not appear on the homepage.â Thanks SouthAmerica .
Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan, what the hell are you doing to us southamerica? Now Bush will find some WMD in Saudi Arabia. Now he will demand the liberation off all Saudis. Happy now?!
. SouthAmerica: Reply to WAEL012000 You said: Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan, what the hell are you doing to us southamerica? Now Bush will find some WMD in Saudi Arabia. Now he will demand the liberation off all Saudis. Happy now?! ****** SouthAmerica: By your reply I assume that you are from Saudi Arabia. The Bush family including George I, and now George II are both very good friends of the members of the Rulling Saud Family. The only problem is if the war in Iraq starts undermining the stability of the Monarchy in Saudi Arabia. Things can get out of control very quickly in that area of the world. Revolutions move very fast today - look how quickly the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. (Today these things move at the speed of light.) I just know one thing for sure: Today, Iraq is in the middle of a nasty civil war that is getting worse by the day. I donât know if they will be able to contain the Iraq civil war only in Iraq. That war can spill over to Saudi Arabia very easily. For example: It is my understanding that Saudi Arabia has one major water reservoir that supplies water to a vast area in Saudi Arabia including 25 percent of the population of that country. If the insurgents destroy that one water reservoir in Saudi Arabia the entire country will turn into chaos over night. With all the terrorism that has happened in Saudi Arabia in the last year, I would not rule out a major terrorist attack on their main source of water. I am not predicting that such a catastrophe will happen in Saudi Arabia for the sake of the people who live in Saudi Arabia. If the insurgents were able to destroy that major water reservoir in Saudi Arabia the result would be major hardship for the entire Saudi population. .