Welcome back to Behind the Bastards, a podcast about Muhammad bin Salman for this week and next week with my former colleague and current friend David Pell.

David. Hello. Hi. Where can the good and bad people on the internet find you? You know, before that, I realized I don't think I've said, thank you for having me on. I didn't say that. Oh, you don't need to thank me. I know, it's just the thing you say on podcast, and it occurred to me. I was like, I didn't even say that. Anyway, thank you for having me on. You asked where you could find me. Google,

G-A-M-E-F-U-L-L-Y, Unemployed. It's a movie podcast, mostly, and TV, or watch some

more news hosted by Cody Johnston News show, like a talking head, news show. I am the

head writer over there. I'm bossing people around. Yeah, you're the king over there. Just like

Mahatman Salman. He kind of is in Saudi Arabia. And Dave, I would thank you for being the guest, but actually I'm going to thank you for watching my cat for half a year that one time. Oh, that was a delight. Much bigger of an ask than being on a podcast. Oh, yeah. That cat left a scar on me. I'm pretty sure I still have it somewhere.

That's good. She left some on me too. She was a great cat.

Well, she didn't have, yeah, she got a bite on her.

Yeah, she got a bite on her.

Yeah, she also got along with my cat, way more than my current second cat gets along.

Yeah, she and Ketton were best friends for, well, again, like half a year.

Yeah.

This is an I-Heart podcast.

Guaranteed human.

So by the time Prince Mohammed bin Salman was born in 1985, the Saudi state had reached a level of what we might call catastrophic dependence on oil revenues.

Aramco accounted for roughly 80% of state spending, which meant that any serious drop in oil prices rendered the state insolvent, living off its savings in order to continue spending.

Nearly two-thirds of Saudi men were government employees, right? And that doesn't mean they're working.

It just means they're government employees. Most of them aren't doing real jobs, you know?

Most of the state jobs that they have are lifetime gigs that exist as a form of welfare.

They're a way for the House of Saud to bribe enough of the

free male population to ensure there's never too much unrest because then you'll lose your job.

Like, I would be fine with a government that I guess you could call it bribing, but just paid us

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