My comments in a Podcast on China's geo-political strategy

https://www.thenational.ae/business/business-extra-podcast-episode-36-china-s-belt-and-road-initiative-and-what-it-means-for-middle-east-trade-1.630451

My comments on the John Batchelor Show regarding the appointment of Muhammad Bin Salman as the new Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia

Published on KTRH Radio

So far, the best economic experts can do is tell investors to buckle up for what could be a bumpy ride ahead.  "Gold is probably the only thing that's going to be going up in the near term, for the simple reason that there's going to be a big amount of uncertainty for the foreseeable future," says Omar Ahmad Al-Ubaydli, senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.  He tells KTRH that the effects of the Brexit vote will be far-reaching.  "Now, there is a serious threat that the United Kingdom will disintegrate and the European Union will disintegrate, and the repercussions for investment, global trade and finance are all negative," says Al-Ubaydli.

British Prime Minister David Cameron has pledged to step down by this fall and allow a new leader to oversee Britain's transition out of the EU.  That negotiation between Britain and the EU will have a big impact on the global markets.  "The European Union will want to play hardball and try to make (leaving) look as undesirable as possible, while at the same time the U.K. will try to get as good a deal as possible," says Al-Ubaydli.  He predicts that transition will also have major geo-political implications.  "NATO will be in disarray as well, because all of the existing treaties will have to be revised, and the economic resources of the European Union which were already weak and declining, are going to be declining at an even greater rate now."

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Published on Marketplace.org

For one, struggling Petro-states could benefit from sending key signals to domestic audiences back home.

"The citizens are wondering, 'there must be something you can do,'" said Omar al-Ubaydli, international studies director of the Bahrain Center for Strategic International and Energy Studies and affiliated professor of economics at George Mason University. "So, just like when you get a crisis in any country, it's not acceptable for the government to look like it's doing nothing. So they have to at least look like they are doing something."

And he said it's important to keep signaling to the market that prices are going up and may continue to. The price of crude has risen for three months now, from less than $30 a barrel to more than $40.

I appeared on Tim Constantine's Capitol Hill Show to discuss recent trends in oil markets