Brief response to Bill's question:

Bahrain and Oman are small oil producers and have never had the huge cushion that Saudi Arabia has built up. Oman's conservative and sustained development over time has allowed reserves to be accumulated which is why it can manage a defecit in years where the oil price falls. Dubai has negligible oil and gas reserves, hence the massive real estate, banking, commericial and other interests. Abu Dhabi has high oil revenues and one of the largest soveriegn wealth funds, with a relatively small local polulation. According to a prominent banker who I spoke to in Saudi Arabia in the last few weeks, Saudi can go on spending at the current very high levels for well over 30 years if they choose to do so, based on thier massive financial reserves.

Another important point is the population mix of each. Saudi Arabia is around 29m of which 25m are Saudi. Qatar has aound 1.5m of which ~300,000 are Qatari. Oman has 3.5m of which I would guess around 2.8m are Omani. The balance and challenges are different in each.

These are my understanding and not certified figures but give you a flavour of the diversity of the GCC countries - they are all different and should not be considered as a bloc.