his father in law. he has never managed money for anyone, how unusual is it for the saudi government to give someone with no background in investing two billion bucks tibet manage. but i think it is pretty unusual i think about soft bank group which started the vision fund and did not have direct experience in this area even though there are a multinational conglomerate. it is very unusual. as you will see from our story staff and from the documents that we looked at, there were a lot of reservations expressed at the senior official a level in this public investment fund which manages 620 billion dollars for saudi arabia s people. they talked about unsatisfactory due diligence, i.e. research and potential investment in all respects. they talked about the lack of experience by the principal, in this case jared kushner. they talked about fears that the p.i. f would bear the bulk of the risk and responsibility
his father in law. he has never managed money for anyone, how unusual is it for the saudi government to give someone with no background in investing two billion bucks tibet manage. but i think it is pretty unusual i think about soft bank group which started the vision fund and did not have direct experience in this area even though there are a multinational conglomerate. it is very unusual. as you will see from our story staff and from the documents that we looked at, there were a lot of reservations expressed at the senior official a level in this public investment fund which manages 620 billion dollars for saudi arabia s people. they talked about unsatisfactory due diligence, i. e. research and potential investment in all respects. they talked about the lack of experience by the principal, in this case jared kushner. they talked about fears that the p. i. f would bear the bulk
the scale that they ve been in post. i mean, central bank sanctions, cutting off the financial system through swift. we did that to iran and so we have a sense of the scale. the currency reserves of the russian central bank are 620 billion dollars, that s larger than the entire iranian economy when we impose the sanctions. it s not a direct military conflict between russia and nato at this point. and look, i think we do need to step back and there is risk of escalation. i agree that one of the hoax here in the unfolding circumstances of people around middle putin and the military. we ll see the futility of what he s doing. but we have not invaded as a country, we are democracy. if we are going to the american people have to come along with that. the united states congress has to have word on that. i just think that president biden thus far obviously thinks that the risk of where that escalation could lead when you re talking about really a person vladimir putin who clearly is a kind
warning, not the kind of warning that biden gave putin in geneva or phone calls that putin obviously ignored, but a real warning. i m not sure they would be willing to die because they know that nato has enough firepower to polarize russian troops in the ground probably within 48 hours. ben, would you agree with that? where do we go from here? his conflicts unavoidable? well we are in a state of conflict and in the sense that the united states is using economic warfare. i mean, stephanie, you understand we ve never imposed sanctions like the ones that have been imposed on russia at the scale that they ve been in post. i mean, central bank sanctions, cutting off the financial system through swift. we did that to iran and so we have a sense of the scale. the currency reserves of the russian central bank are 620 billion dollars, that s larger than the entire iranian economy when we impose the sanctions. it s not a direct military conflict between russia and nato at this point.
senate budget? somebody s going to pay higher taxes because it it doesn t matter how you define that. when you re talking about whether closing loopholes or talking about rates and taxes to pay more taxes, we believe that , but the loopholes, someone got a bargain because someone got a lobbyist to persuade you guys to give that person a loophole? the point is you shouldn t have to raise taxes until you deal with spending and the president s got tax increases, 620 billion dollars in the fiscal cliff, 1 trillion dollars in new taxes with obamacare and now he wants another 1.5 trillion dollars in taxes. when are we going to deal with the spending? and that s what i think the american people want to see. and so when they talk about closing loopholes, we re all for that, but let s do it in the context of tax reform that lowers rates in a revenue neutral way, not in a way that increases the amount of tax revenue coming into the federal treasury at a time when we ve got out of control s