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“The dollar is always going to be the reserve currency. Anyway, for a long time.” 

— Jerome Powell

When the price of oil suddenly quadrupled in 1973, Saudi Arabia was wholly unprepared for the billions of dollars that started flooding in.

Strictly speaking, the money never actually made it “into” the Kingdom: Global buyers of Saudi oil sent their payments to accounts at Citibank and JPMorgan in New York — where the money sat idle because Saudi finance officials barely knew how to move it, let alone invest it.

With billions piling up in non-interest bearing accounts, the…

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