A Cowboy and Arab Talk Frankly
Bill,
With gold capped again at 1% with oil approaching $134 I thought I would imagine what a fly on the wall heard when President Bush visited King Abdullah last week.

GB: “A lot of folks in America are upset over, you know, the high oil prices.”

KA: “Need I remind you your dollar is worthless? Have you brought me any more collateral?”

GB: “Paulson said to tell you that IMF gold should have held you over for a while.”

KA: “400 tons? You already owed us that from previous years.”

GB: “We’re having some, uh, difficulty obtaining more.”

KA: “Is your Fort Knox not full?”

GB: “I’m told it’s… encumberated, or something like that.”

KA: “What about your Catholic boy? Did you not invite him to Washington last month?”

GB: ” Uh, yeah, his Holiness, sir, but he wasn’t very, uh, cooperatative.”

KA: “Did you remind him another church scandal wasn’t in his best interest?”

GB: ” Yes I did, but he said the Vatican’s gold was what saved their financial bacon in the first place”.

KA: “You are in a predicament. What other collateral can you offer?”

. GB: “My generals say there’s new weapons in the pipeline- you know, really scary stuff. You can have first dibs”.

KA: “We’re already up to our eyeballs in weapons, and half of them don’t work anyway”.

GB: “Benny-Ben over at the Fed said there’s some good deals on some banks he’s getting ready to repo”.

KA: “That Citi deal didn’t exactly work out you know. How do you Americans say- it was “a pig in a poke”?”

GB: “I’m still working on a port leasing deal. It’s politically, uh, still sensitive”.

KA: “Your endless wars against my people’s nations are becoming tiresome, besides unprofitable. Who can say how much longer we can support your dollars?”

GB: “(big gulp) I don’t think Cheney’s gonna like this. He made me come here anyway, I thought it looked, uh, too humblifying.”

KA: “Stay in touch. Maybe you’ll find some gold in Jerusalem next week”.

GB: ” I’m glad we had this frank exchange of, er, views. One decider to another”.
James Mc