Thanks for the clarification Gabe and Jim. The three quarter billion dollars included "other American assets", not just T-Bills as I erroneously mentioned.
Quote It said that Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi foreign minister, delivered the kingdom’s message last month during a trip to Washington, telling legislators that Saudi Arabia would be forced to sell up to $750bn in treasury securities and other assets in the United States before they could be in danger of being frozen by American courts. Unquote. This is from various news sources like Forbes, BBC and NYT besides Reuters. Jim perhaps as you said they may not have that kind of money or even Forex reserves, but they do have those kinds of assets. Also when a threat like that is made, included are not only debt instruments like you are referring to, but also assets in various forms fixed and otherwise. Sure it will be a fire sale but to the proud Bedouins that means little. I have heard many of them say in bravado "we once lived on dates and camels and we can do it again". Maybe, but they are not as important as their royals think they are. Here's the NYT Such a fire sale might roil financial markets or cause problems for companies that lost funding, but experts say it is hard to imagine a significant or lasting impact on the American economy. Global investors continue to shovel money into the United States; if the Saudis go, the experts say, others will take their place. “The world is desperate to lend money to anybody that’s credible at very low rates, so I don’t see this as an issue at all,” said Michael Pettis, a finance professor at Peking University who says that foreign divestment — by China or other nations — poses little threat to the American economy. Roland Francis 416-453-3371 > On May 17, 2016, at 7:03 PM, Jim Fernandes <[email protected]> wrote: > > The Saudi's have 3/4th of trillion dollars in US Treasury bills? No way! > > They don't have that kind of money! > > Their entire foreign reserves amount to no more than 600 billion dollars. > >
