Word: shwadran
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Dates: during 1955-1955
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...Benjamin Shwadran, editor of the scholarly magazine Middle Eastern Affairs, offers the best documented analysis to date of how the government's 50-50 share of oil profits has been lavished on a Saudi Arabian Nights...
...oilmen and the golden flood began to spout out of the Arabian American Oil Co.'s wells, the government received an income in royalties and taxes of about $200 million-and managed to spend it all and $50 million besides. Since World War II, according to Shwadran's calculations, the King of Saudi Arabia has run through $1.4 billion paid him by the oil companies...
Where has it all gone? Certainly not much of it to better the lot of the country's estimated 5,000,000 citizens. Says Shwadran: "Life expectancy in Saudi Arabia is 33 years; tuberculosis is prevalent; 70% of the population have trachoma, and at least 40% suffer from syphilis...
...estimated that the per capita income was only $45." London's Anti-Slavery Society calculates that as many as a quarter of a million Saudi Arabians may actually be living still in slavery. Yet, taking some sketchy budget figures published a few years ago, Shwadran notes that royal household affairs were allotted $27.9 million, compared with $10.7 million for public health, education and social services combined. The estimates also listed $36 million for defense, $27 million to pay debts, and $44 million for "General Development "without, says Shwadran, providing any "clue as to whether it was for wealth-producing...
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