... what is the problem here? Investment is being made and people are better off for it. Isn't this how trickle down works?
It's an exasperating situation to be in. We need Saudi oil so we need to be able to work with them, but they are a grievous threat to freedoms and civil society globally. It's not just MBS either, look at the way gulf rulers have their daughters abducted off the streets of England or international waters and locked and drugged up. Yet the livelihoods of millions of westerners depend on these people.
Shunning them completely isn't practical, nor is turning away their money in every case, but that doesn't mean bowing and scraping to them is acceptable.
How much do we need oil vs wanting to sell them weapons?
The trickle-down theory posits that the best way to get money to poor people is to flatter the rich with more money. It is a goofy excuse for tax cuts. About the only positive feature it has is that it is useful for detecting the economically gullible.
If you do that, what happens that’s good and what happens that’s bad?
Another route is to support private employment (what trickle-down seems to be seeking).
If you do that, what happens that’s good and what happens that’s bad?
Unsurprisingly, people who prefer the government to be more powerful and more directly involved in economic outcomes of people tend to prefer the former. People who prefer a government with less power and less direct involvement tend to prefer the latter.
I find it incredibly hard to believe that increasing the amount by which we tax away the prospective rewards of being successful in a business doesn’t have a negative effect on propensity to form new or expand existing businesses.
The capitalist mentality is becoming deeply unpopular, and I'm curious to see how it will play out. It no longer seems "okay" in a certain sense to simply focus on the money without considering the ethical implications.
I remember this kind of thing being an issue several years ago, when a certain Russian investor was courting a lot of unicorns and offering some pretty incredible termsheets that you'd be foolish to turn down.