Episode 681: The Oil Kingdom : Planet Money For years, Saudi Arabia has been living off one resource and one resource only: Oil. But now, the price of a barrel has plummeted, and the country is scrambling to adapt.

Episode 681: The Oil Kingdom

Episode 681: The Oil Kingdom

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Kamran Jebreili/AP
Employees of the Saudi Aramco oil company. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili, File)
Kamran Jebreili/AP

For years, Saudi Arabia has been living off one resource and one resource only: oil. They have free healthcare, free education, and 6,000 princes. They've never charged taxes. They're a major ally of the U.S., and our most stable partner in an extremely troubled part of the world. But that stability, like everything else in Saudi Arabia, rests on oil money.

But the price of oil has plummeted, and Saudi Arabia is scrambling to adapt. So what happens now?

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