‘Business as Usual’ – Peace / Safety / Destruction / Economic Collapse
Jesus said the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah (Matthew 24:37-39). The thing about the days of Noah is that even in the midst of terrible apostasy, evil, violence, and rebellion against God, the people went ahead with their normal lives. They planted fields, they harvested crops, they built houses, they got married, and they had children. They went about business as usual, until the very day that Noah entered the ark, and then destruction came and took them all away
1 Thessalonians 5:3 For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.
Revelation 13:16-17 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
Business as Usual? Convergence of Economic Signs: Saudi cut interest rates after Fed. Economic Dominoes.
Gulf Business. August 1, 2019
Saudi Arabia’s central bank said on Wednesday it had cut key interest rates to preserve monetary stability, after the Federal Reserve lowered US interest rates for the first time in over a decade.
The central banks of the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain also cut their benchmark interest rates, but the Kuwaiti central bank kept its key policy rate unchanged.
Unlike other Gulf central banks whose currencies are pegged to the U.S. dollar, Kuwait’s currency is pegged to an undisclosed weighted basket of international currencies of its major trading and financial partners.
The Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority said in a statement it had cut its repo rate, used to lend money to banks, to 275 basis points from 300 bps, and the reverse repo, the rate at which commercial banks deposit money with the central bank, by the same margin to 225 bps.
The Saudi riyal is pegged to the U.S. dollar and the central bank follows the U.S. Federal Reserve on interest rate moves.
Analysts expect rate cuts to hurt the margins of Saudi banks, which made record profits of around SAR50bn ($13.3bn) in 2018 following several interest hikes over the past few years.
The stock market had priced in the expected impact. Saudi banking shares fell sharply last week before strong quarterly earnings gave the index another boost.
Saudi economic growth has been sluggish this year, hit by output cuts by oil producers to support prices.
On Tuesday, Saudi Arabia posted a budget deficit of SAR33.5bn ($8.9bn) for the second quarter of this year, reversing a surplus in the first quarter, its first since 2014