Frederick Deknatel

Imagine if Facebook (sorry, Meta, which rebranded itself around this $70 billion boondoggle) spent just a fraction of that money on supporting independent media on its platforms.

Staggering sums of money wasted on cosmically bad ideas—just another day for Big Tech. But don't worry, shares are up!

The Trump administration's soaring economic message:

"Just wait until next year."

(Except for those times, like July, when they said "the Trump Economy has officially arrived.")

Giving Americans what they really want: another Ford Pinto.

Yea everybody’s jobs will be busier correcting AI, asking colleagues if they wrote obvious slop with AI, why they used a crappy AI image instead of a real one, etc.

How a Kansas Republican Became Part of a Racist, Antisemitic Group Chat William Hendrix wanted a life in politics. He found it, with the Young Republicans.

Let me guess, was it because he was racist and antisemitic?

Trump Calls Affordability a ‘Con Job’ as His Edge on the Economy Slips

Affordability “doesn’t mean anything to anybody” in the gilded halls of Mar-a-Lago. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/02/u...

A Trump vanity project that makes little money sense. Less charity than yet another way to curry favor with Trump.

"For most families it doesn’t make sense to add money. 529 savings plans and even custodial accounts are more flexible and have better tax advantages for parents’ contributions."

MBS’ Vanity Projects Are Bleeding Saudi Arabia Dry Saudi Arabia can’t even afford Mohammed bin Salman’s follies, let alone the investment into the U.S. he promised Donald Trump.

"For all their utopian dreams, the megaprojects championed by MBS don’t signal the future, but the trap represented by Saudi Arabia’s political economy."

My @wpr.bsky.social column on MBS and the staggering waste of his development "vision." Gift link: www.worldpoliticsreview.com/mbs-trump-sa...

But megaproject fascos, an overdrawn sovereign wealth fund and speculative, crony real estate schemes won't create the "thriving economy" that MBS promises, especially for the majority of Saudis who are under the age of 30. Instead, Vision 2030 "is generating polarizing wealth effects within what is already one of the most unequal countries on the planet," according to Powers. "A mix of carnival and repression may suffice to keep the country's politics stable," he added. "But a great deal of pain, resentment, and deprivation will fester beneath the surface." Rather than delivering a development dream, MBS may be overseeing the biggest waste of a state's resources in decades. And that may leave the coffers empty when it comes time to make good on his promises to Trump of sky-high investment in the United States.

Megaproject fiascos, an overdrawn sovereign wealth fund and speculative, crony real estate schemes won’t create the “thriving economy” that MBS promises young Saudis.

Saudi Arabia can’t even afford MBS’s follies, let alone the sky-high investment he promised Trump.

MBS’ Vanity Projects Are Bleeding Saudi Arabia Dry Saudi Arabia can’t even afford Mohammed bin Salman’s follies, let alone the investment into the U.S. he promised Donald Trump.

"For all their utopian dreams, the megaprojects championed by MBS don’t signal the future, but the trap represented by Saudi Arabia’s political economy."

My @wpr.bsky.social column on MBS and the staggering waste of his development "vision." Gift link: www.worldpoliticsreview.com/mbs-trump-sa...

“Under MBS’s watch, staggering sums have been sunk into a long list of vanity megaprojects so big they are called ‘giga-projects,’ but already look like boondoggles before they have even been built. They reflect a failed political economy in Saudi Arabia.” hiddencities.substack.com/p/mbss-vanit...

“Under MBS’s watch, staggering sums have been sunk into a long list of vanity megaprojects so big they are called ‘giga-projects,’ but already look like boondoggles before they have even been built. They reflect a failed political economy in Saudi Arabia.” hiddencities.substack.com/p/mbss-vanit...

A question for history will be whether Putin entertained this approach in the interest of ending the war, or as a ploy to pacify the U.S. while prolonging a conflict he believes is his place in history to slowly, ineluctably win.

I don’t think we need to wait for history’s judgement to know the answer to this one.

American oligarchs scheming with Russian oligarchs in Miami about how they can deliver Ukraine for Trump and Putin and cash in on a comically corrupt “peace deal” they wrote for themselves. www.wsj.com/world/russia...

my "current operations are lawful under US and international law" t-shirt has a lot of people asking questions that are answered by my t-shirt

Trump and Hegseth’s Department of War Crimes

Trump’s Thanksgiving message to the nation:

We must strip naturalized citizens of their citizenship and deport anyone I want.

My latest column in @wpr.bsky.social

Could have titled this one, “The Trouble With Trillions.”

MBS’ Vanity Projects Are Bleeding Saudi Arabia Dry Saudi Arabia can’t even afford Mohammed bin Salman’s follies, let alone the investment into the U.S. he promised Donald Trump.

Saudi Arabia can’t even afford MBS’s follies, let alone the massive investment into the U.S. he promised Donald Trump.

A stark and harrowing new essay in Hidden Cities by Yahya Al Masri:

“This is the story of so many of us in Gaza. We couldn’t rescue our brothers.”

hiddencities.substack.com/p/come-rescu...

The Ancient, Enduring Wisdom of Egyptian Aphorisms A Lineage of Brief Counsel From Ptahhotep to Ibn ʿAṭā’ Allāh

“If Egypt has taught me anything, it is that wisdom prefers short paths: a proverb on the tongue, a true measure in the hand, a heart that seeks sincerity and the old confidence that whatever is aligned with truth will last.”

@ysl.bsky.social

hiddencities.substack.com/p/the-ancien...

MBS’ Vanity Projects Are Bleeding Saudi Arabia Dry Saudi Arabia can’t even afford Mohammed bin Salman’s follies, let alone the investment into the U.S. he promised Donald Trump.

“For all their utopian dreams, the megaprojects championed by MBS don’t signal the future, but rather the trap represented by Saudi Arabia’s political economy,” @freddydeknatel.bsky.social writes.

But behind these undeniable social changes is the specter of economic failure rising from giant, doomed construction sites like Neom. For all their utopian dreams, the megaprojects championed by MBS don’t signal the future, but rather the trap represented by Saudi Arabia’s political economy—misallocating resources and investing state funds on white elephant development projects, so many of which are based on speculative, luxury real estate, rather than on social services, like education or public health, or needed public infrastructure that would serve most Saudis. Indeed, it is a trap that much of the Middle East has fallen into. MBS’ vaunted Vision 2030 development agenda was not just a plan to diversify the kingdom’s oil-dependent economy. It was a way to concentrate power in the crown prince’s hands and manufacture a personalist regime around him, something his father and previous Saudi kings, who vested their authority in the monarchy itself, never really constructed. But Vision 2030 was also a bet that Saudi Arabia could “transform itself into a real-estate empire,” as Colin Powers, a senior fellow at the Middle East and North Africa Program at Noria Research, has argued. This is what really underpins Neom and MBS’ other vanity projects: vast speculative real estate, modeled on Dubai and the rest of the United Arab Emirates, which the Saudis see as both their partner and rival. When MBS talks of turning Riyadh into a new Dubai, this is what he means: A Saudi economy transitioned away from oil, according to Vision 2030, but with real estate as its new engine of growth.

"For all their utopian dreams, the megaprojects championed by MBS don’t signal the future, but the trap represented by Saudi Arabia’s political economy."

Megaproject fiascos, an overdrawn sovereign wealth fund and speculative, crony real estate schemes won’t create MBS's “thriving economy.”

As per Okaz, this morning the Saudi Central Bank banned all banks and financial institutions in the country try from discussing topics deemed political or sensitive when participating in conferences and fora inside and outside the Kingdom.

You’ll be shocked to discover that Rubio’s walk-back was a lie. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

MBS’ Vanity Projects Are Bleeding Saudi Arabia Dry Saudi Arabia can’t even afford Mohammed bin Salman’s follies, let alone the investment into the U.S. he promised Donald Trump.

Saudi Arabia can’t even afford MBS’s follies, let alone the investment into the U.S. he promised Donald Trump, @freddydeknatel.bsky.social writes.

MBS’ Vanity Projects Are Bleeding Saudi Arabia Dry Saudi Arabia can’t even afford Mohammed bin Salman’s follies, let alone the investment into the U.S. he promised Donald Trump.

"Rather than delivering a development dream, MBS may be overseeing the biggest waste of a state’s resources in decades."

My new column on MBS, Trump and the trouble with promising $1 trillion in US investments as billions are wasted on vanity projects at home (sorry, "giga-projects"). Gift link:

But behind these undeniable social changes is the specter of economic failure rising from giant, doomed construction sites like Neom. For all their utopian dreams, the megaprojects championed by MBS don’t signal the future, but rather the trap represented by Saudi Arabia’s political economy—misallocating resources and investing state funds on white elephant development projects, so many of which are based on speculative, luxury real estate, rather than on social services, like education or public health, or needed public infrastructure that would serve most Saudis. Indeed, it is a trap that much of the Middle East has fallen into. MBS’ vaunted Vision 2030 development agenda was not just a plan to diversify the kingdom’s oil-dependent economy. It was a way to concentrate power in the crown prince’s hands and manufacture a personalist regime around him, something his father and previous Saudi kings, who vested their authority in the monarchy itself, never really constructed. But Vision 2030 was also a bet that Saudi Arabia could “transform itself into a real-estate empire,” as Colin Powers, a senior fellow at the Middle East and North Africa Program at Noria Research, has argued. This is what really underpins Neom and MBS’ other vanity projects: vast speculative real estate, modeled on Dubai and the rest of the United Arab Emirates, which the Saudis see as both their partner and rival. When MBS talks of turning Riyadh into a new Dubai, this is what he means: A Saudi economy transitioned away from oil, according to Vision 2030, but with real estate as its new engine of growth.

"For all their utopian dreams, the megaprojects championed by MBS don’t signal the future, but the trap represented by Saudi Arabia’s political economy."

Megaproject fiascos, an overdrawn sovereign wealth fund and speculative, crony real estate schemes won’t create MBS's “thriving economy.”

MBS’ Vanity Projects Are Bleeding Saudi Arabia Dry Saudi Arabia can’t even afford Mohammed bin Salman’s follies, let alone the investment into the U.S. he promised Donald Trump.

"Rather than delivering a development dream, MBS may be overseeing the biggest waste of a state’s resources in decades."

My new column on MBS, Trump and the trouble with promising $1 trillion in US investments as billions are wasted on vanity projects at home (sorry, "giga-projects"). Gift link:

Omar El Akkad’s book is indispensable—and now a National
Book Award winner.

Read an excerpt in Hidden Cities:

“It is not so hard to believe, even during the worst of things, that courage is the more potent contagion. That there are more invested in solidarity than annihilation.”