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As the US-Saudi 'secret' oil deal continues to depress the price of oil, pressure Russian revenues, squeeze European budgets, and raise doubts about the status quo (OPEC and the rest of the world), not all of The Kingdom's elites are happy. Infamous billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal has written an open letter to Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi and other ministers, as Reuters reports, saying the world's top oil exporter should start worrying about the recent slide in global oil prices and warned against the negative effect of such a drop on the state revenue: "Ninety percent of the 2014 budget is based on it (oil), so to underestimate (these implications) is in itself a disaster which cannot pass unnoticed," he wrote in the letter.

As oil prices continue to fall, analysts and producers are trying to wrap their heads around the reasons and identify a floor price. Even though crude benchmarks like Brent and WTI keep dropping, the cost of finding oil continues to rise. What are some of the key drivers that have created this paradox?

We’ve landed in the next phase of what arguably started in 2007, but what you could place back many years before that, an economic system based on the fantasy that is debt driven growth, inflated by a factor of a trillion, give or take a few zeros.  That system is in the process of dying. And the people who have tried to make you believe, and succeeded, that it would all be fine in the end, are now jockeying for position in the aftermath of the demise of a world built on debt.  And they are the same people who built that world, profited from it to an insane degree, and want to use those profits to hang on to power in a world that will be dramatically different from the one they called the shots in. And that doesn’t bode well; it tells us violent clashes will be on the horizon.

The old adage that if something is repeated often enough it is soon assumed to be true couldn’t be more apt with respect to the Fed’s 2% inflation target.  That Keynesian central bankers peddle this nostrum with a straight face is amazing in itself, but it is at least understandable because it gives them a reason to keep the printing presses humming. That journalists repeat it with no questions asked is even more remarkable. It proves that the impending replacement of financial journalists with robo-writers may not be so bad after all. It won’t make any real difference.

We first exposed the "secret" US-Saudi deal in September which led to the inevitable bombing of Syria. We then progressed to explain the quid pro quo of the deal in lower oil prices (benefiting US consumers into an election and crushing Russian revenues). In today's Wall Street Journal we get the final piece of the puzzle as it is clear that what Saudi Arabia loses in 'price' it will make up in 'volume' as The Kingdon is taking the unusual step of asking buyers to commit to maximum shipments if they want to get its crude. Simply put, "they are threatening [European] buyers" to discontinue sales if they don't agree with the full fixed deliveries. The 'oil weapon' grows stronger...

One would think that after last week's market rout, the worst in years, that Goldman clients would have just one question: why just a month after you, chief Goldman strategist David Kostin said to "Buy Stocks Because Hedge Funds Suck; Also Chase Momentum And Beta", are stocks crashing? No really: this is literally what Kostin said in the first days of September: "investors should buy stocks which should benefit from a combination of beta, momentum, and popularity as funds attempt to remedy their weak YTD performance heading into late 2014." Turns out frontrunning the world's most overpaid money losers wasn't such a great strategy after all. In any event, that is not what Goldman's clients are asking. Instead as David Kostin informs us in his weekly letter to Jim Hanson's beloved creations, "every client inquiry focused on the same four topics: global growth, FX, oil, and small-caps."

Thesis:  Oil supply is where the pressure is coming from and the China-Russian oil deal has not undermined the dollar, but OPEC. 

Another day, another demand by "activist" (which as we have explained patiently before simply means someone who demands companies use moar debt to fund buybacks and/or dividends) Carl Icahn for Apple to buyback it shares. Uncle Carl's bottom line: AAPL stock would be worth a ridiculous $203 (or a $1.2 trillion market cap), if only the board were to "repurchase a lot more" stock "and sooner." Icahn's insight in a nutshell: "the more shares repurchased now, the more each remaining shareholder will benefit from that earnings growth." That's great, but we don't get why waste his precious repeating what he has said so many times before: instead Icahn should just pitch the Fed to monetize AAPL stock in QE 5. Value added Q.E. and well D.

The plunge in the price of crude oil in the last few months has many global-recovery-truthers questioning their assumptions. Between slowing growth expectations, US (and Libya and Iraqi Kurds and Russia) supply, and Saudi Aramco cutting prices (argued as maintaining market share but has the smell of a quid pro quo over Syria), oil prices have broken below $90 today to 17-month lows. However, for some major suppliers there is concern that more pressure is to come, as Reuters reports, Russia's central bank is working on measures to support the economy should oil prices fall by as much as a third or more, as First Deputy Governor Ksenia Yudayeva as saying the central bank was working on a "stress scenario" that was likely to envisage an oil price of $60 per barrel. Of course, as we noted previously, there is always the 'oil-head-fake' and as one analysts noted, "the main OPEC countries would experience budget difficulties long before that and would have to take action to cut supply."

Straight forward discussion of the key events next week.   Weak on bluster.  Strong on analysis.   You've been warned.  

Moments ago, the Goldmanite in charge of the European Central Bank delivered yet another speech, this time seeking to offset some of the hawkish comments over the weekend from his comrades, all of which suggested that no more easing, or public QE, was coming any time soon. It was, as usual, full of the same lies that have pushed European stocks to highs not seen since Lehman even as Europe's economy is now slumping into a triple-dip recession. Here is a choice selection of his comments, properly annotated.

While Janet Yellen and her band of money printers work themselves into a tizzy over whether two buzz words - “considerable time” - should be dropped from their post-meeting word cloud, they might be better advised to just read the newspapers. This morning’s WSJ brings word that the lending boom which our monetary central planners are eager to stimulate is apparently off-to-the-races. Well, sort of. The item in question is a $122 billion globally syndicated loan to facilitate an M&A deal between the world’s two largest beer companies - AB InBev with a 20% global market share and SABMiller with 10%.

Since the inception of Obamacare, Humana up more than 440% because just as cereal manufacturers decrease their costs by putting less cereal in the same box, health insurers have raised the deductibles and co-insurance.

Attending costly games is on the margins of the household budget. When the credit card gets maxed out, attending is no longer an option. We're not suggesting professional sports isn't the greatest thing since sliced bread: we're simply asking if attending pro sports games has become unaffordable to the average American.

• Clearly it's time to bomb Assad (on Qatar instructions): Islamic State executes dozens of Syrian army soldiers (Reuters)
• Ukraine Declares Russian Invasion as Sanctions Threat Raised (BBG)
• Ukraine Reports Russian Invasion on a New Front (NYT)
• German Unemployment Rises as Risks to Economy Build (BBG)
• Ebola spreads to Nigeria oil hub Port Harcourt (BBC)
• FBI Probes Possible Hacking Incident at J.P. Morgan (WSJ)
• FBI, Secret Service investigate reports of cyber attacks on U.S. banks (Reuters)
• If you like your Venezuela, you can stay in Venezuela: Airlines Abandon Fliers Amid Currency Dispute (WSJ)
• Boomer Wealth Dented by Mortgages Poses U.S. Risk (BBG)
• People Aren't Buying Guns (BusinessWeek)