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Comment by dharma1 | Hacker News Reader

Many oil producing nations require $50+/barrel oil to have a balanced budget. After their foreign exchange reserves are depleted (a few years from now), they will start accumulating more debt at their current spending levels, and will likely have to cut public spending. This might not go down so well in some Gulf states

http://uk.businessinsider.com/imf-regional-economic-outlook-...

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Yes, it's going to be interesting to see how this unfolds politically, particularly in Saudi Arabia.

The IMF thinks Saudi has cash reserves to cover five years - which is more than competing countries have.

So they can play white knuckle poker and out-wait everyone else, then jack up prices again around 2019/20 - just in time to kill any recovery that might be happening by then.

> So they can play white knuckle poker and out-wait everyone else, then jack up prices again around 2019/20 - just in time to kill any recovery that might be happening by then.

The rest of the world better move off of oil quickly then.

is there a way to move off oil quickly?

Provider greater incentives for electric vehicles, place a carbon tax on petroleum fuels.

It's not like they didn't have decades to diversify their economies.

The OPEC sovereign funds have their fingers in about a million pies. The elites are gonna be fine.

What that means for the arab in the street is a different question.

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