IMF Slashes Saudi's GDP Estimate To 0.4% For 2017 -- January 16, 2017

Currently via Twitter:

I thought I had posted this before but apparently not. At least a quick look at previous posts and I did not see it.

But in that exercise I also found this gem I had forgotten about, posted back on August 14, 2016:

Posted today over at Breitbart.

With China’s economic crash driving U.S. oil prices down to $42 a barrel, Saudi Arabia is the oil-exporting nation suffering the worst economic decline.

The 15,000 members of the six branches of the Saudi royal family have been buying national support with massive social welfare spending. But with the oil price plunging by 60 percent, causing a massive budget deficit, the kingdom’s foreign exchange reserves could be wiped out in four years. [That's how long it takes some kids to finish high school.]

Most analysts have focused on Russia as suffering the worst impacts of the oil price crash. The value of Russia’s oil & gas production is approximately $350 billion per year; it accounts for 20 percent of Russia’s GDP, and equals two thirds of all exports. But even at current prices, Russia will still achieve a trade surplus of about three percent of GDP. As an oil exporter, Russia’s is uniquely self-sufficient and a military exporter.

I thought it was four years based on my calculations but did not want to post that; it sounded too crazy, but someone came up with that same number: four years. It fits the narrative that I was trying to articulate just a few days ago. 

"Everyone" is focusing on Russia; in fact, it's Saudi Arabia that is in dire straits.

By the way, no links, but it is being reported everywhere: the current OPEC deal to cut production runs for six months, through July, 2017. Saudi Arabia is now saying that it does not foresee the need to extend the deal past the original six months.

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He Missed It By That Much

President Obama will go down in history as the first US president in modern history (maybe in entire history) to have never presided over even one quarter of GDP growth that hit 3%.  But, wow, it looks like came really, really close (which only counts in horseshoes and nuclear weapons, they say). From GDPNow (a dynamic link):

Latest forecast: 2.8 percent — January 13, 2017.

The GDPNow model forecast for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the fourth quarter of 2016 is 2.8 percent on January 13, down from 2.9 percent on January 10. The forecast of fourth-quarter real personal consumption expenditures growth ticked down from 2.6 percent to 2.5 percent after this morning's retail sales report from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Something tells me his folks are going to be burning midnight oil to squeeze out every bit of GDP growth to hit the 3% threshold. To think it was once estimated to be 2.9%.