General Discussion

Faisal, the story goes that Faisal's first act was to send a messenger to the treasury to see how much money was left after Saud's lavishly self-indulgent excesses. The messenger returned and said "seventy-two!". Faisal was shocked -- after decades of multibillion-dollar cash flows from SA's oil, they only had $72 million in the treasury ?? Not millions, the messenger corrected -- seventy-two riyals. Eventually, Faisal was able to save the world's largest oil producer from bankruptcy -- and just try to imagine the chaos if he hadn't. We may find something similar becomes part of our national history before long.