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Post by graybeard on Jan 30, 2011 9:36:25 GMT -6
(Maybe it's time to rename this group, "Middle East" or something.)
Here are a couple of ways the US has contributed to the upheaval in Egypt:
$22 Billion a year subsidies for corn and soy ethanol that raise the world prices of foods, hurting the poor in countries such as Egypt.
Huge US govt subsidies for cotton that makes unfair competition on the world market. Robt Reich pointed this out when the western world was rallying to provide aid to Africa in the summer of 2006. Without unfair subsidization of US cotton, African cotton would be more competitive, and there would be more prosperity with less aid. Yes, that includes Egyptian cotton.
These are only a couple of examples of unintended consequences, of course.
GB
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Post by jeffolie on Jan 30, 2011 10:33:36 GMT -6
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Post by waltc on Jan 30, 2011 13:03:11 GMT -6
They aren't rioting over food in Egypt but to get rid of Mubarak. Other factors include the Egyptian Pound losing half of it's value which has hurt the country's ability to buy enough imported food and provide it at low cost. Another problem facing Egypt is it's population growth, which is outpacing economic growth by a wide margin insuring that the economy can't absorb it's ever growing number of people.
So even in a best case scenario where Egypt kicks out Murbarak and replaces him with a moderate, the economic problems the country faces aren't going away. A sick Egyptian Pound, ever rising birth rates and the growth of political Islam almost guarantees that the nation will continue to face severe difficulties no matter who is charge.
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Post by jeffolie on Jan 30, 2011 14:57:24 GMT -6
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Jan 30, 2011 15:55:20 GMT -6
Great links. I've been looking for some kind of overall food price index link. There was a spike in food commodity prices in 2008, and then a collapse in prices afterward. Consumer food prices, however--consistent with the "sticky price" theory--did not drop accordingly. Thus the profit margin on food sales to consumers should have risen considerably during that time. And now that prices have risen back to slightly above their 2008 peak levels, there is all this clamoring in the retail sales community that they'll "just have to" raise prices. But until 3 months ago, prices were below their 2008 peak. And since the 2008 "peak" number is actually an average for the entire year, the current average for 2010 is actually lower than the average for 2008. So why should they need to raise them, since they never lowered them as food commodity prices fell? They should be able to sell retail food products at the same price they were sold at in 2008, and obtain the same profit margins as they did in 2008. Below is a graph of food commodity prices> Below is a copy of a World Food Price Index: The charts do indicate, however, that over the last decade food commodity prices have skyrocketed. I'm sure glad inflation has been so "tame."
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Post by jeffolie on Jan 30, 2011 17:36:06 GMT -6
When food prices collapsed in 2008 I reasoned that bankruptcies and maleinvestments would follow thus creating years of higher prices. So I predicted higher food prices. I talked the talk and walked the walk. In 2009 I bought a large freezer. In 2010 I bought an even larger 2nd freezer. So, I have 2 large freezers mostly full of low priced proteins to feed my family that now has 5 adults living in my house. Each time I bought a freezer I posted the freezer purchase. The electricity costs are absorbed by the home electric solar system I had installed in March 2010 (I get an annoying $1.96 SCE electric bill monthly telling me that I have no electric charges). ================================= "...Make predictions for 2010." Here are mine: Throw the bastards out of office is gaining ground. This repeats my year old ascertions made prior to Obama winning the last elections that Obama and the Democrats will lose enough power to fail after the 2010 elections to get anything done. jeffolie predicted...2010 food crisis that I made in 2008. Read more: unlawflcombatnt.proboards.com/in ... z1CZ1jiAkU 2011 jeffolie predictions SCREWFLATION: everything the ‘average American family’ buys goes up in price and everything they own goes down in value. Taxes, fees, charges, special assessment districts from State, Local, etc governments will rise while services from them will decrease. 50 California cities have ‘crash taxes’ charging to respond to car incidents plus ambulance charges. Energy expenses for homes, cars, electricity will rise compounded by additional taxes and fees. Food prices will rise. Health care/insurance expenses will rise over 10%. College Tuition will rise 5 to 15%. Mortgage/house payments will rise because interest rates will rise. Rents will rise as demand will increase because the rate of evict/repossessing house owners will speed up forcing families to rent that currently have not been paying their mortgages. The ‘average American family’ wealth will decline as saving become exhausted because of the end of jobless benefits for those exceeding 99 weeks grows. The ‘average American family’ wealth will decline for those still owning their homes because house prices will continue to decline. Food Stamp use will make new records every period. I prefer screwflation over stagflation because of the regressive impact on middle and lower class families' standard of living and that they have no investments that rise with inflation or money printing and in fact usually have their wealth tied up in declining or negative home equity while the upper 20% of earners usually have investments that will rise in 2011 outside of their home equity. Screwflation is my top 2011 topic because its 2011 increase impacts the most Americans even while joblessness will grow on a percentage basis. Read more: unlawflcombatnt.proboards.com/in ... z1CZ1FiBjI
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Post by waltc on Jan 30, 2011 19:06:32 GMT -6
Better factor in skyrocketing oil prices as well should any serious instability hit the Persian Gulf which is almost a given should Egypt fall. You think consumer goods and utilities are expensive now, just wait when we hit $150-$200 bbl for oil, won't take much for that to happen either. And that's gonna hammer third world and over populated nations like Egypt and Yemen something terrible because high oil prices translates into high food prices. Oh BTW Yemen is running out of water thanks to its exploding population and screwed agricultural policies(half of it's water is used to grow Qat(a narcotic plant)). And here's a excerpt from a article from the Telegraph www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/8291470/Egypt-and-Tunisia-usher-in-the-new-era-of-global-food-revolutions.htmlThe immediate cause of this food spike was the worst drought in Russia and the Black Sea region for 130 years, lasting long enough to damage winter planting as well as the summer harvest. Russia imposed an export ban on grains. This was compounded by late rains in Canada, Nina disruptions in Argentina, and a series of acreage downgrades in the US. The world’s stocks-to-use ratio for corn is nearing a 30-year low of 12.8pc, according to Rabobank.
The deeper causes are well-known: an annual rise in global population by 73m; the “exhaustion” of the Green Revolution as the gains in crop yields fade, to cite the World Bank; diet shifts in Asia as the rising middle class switch to animal-protein diets, requiring 3-5 kilos of grain feed for every kilo of meat produced; the biofuel mandates that have diverted a third of the US corn crop into ethanol for cars.
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Post by jeffolie on Jan 31, 2011 1:27:53 GMT -6
Oil gained merely about 4% with Egypt's political demise.
Oil is not $100 in America merely about $89.23 (Sunday evening spot price). The $100 price is for European delivery as benchmarked by BRENT. America benchmarks to WTI West Texas Intermedia which marks it price to a storage facility in Texas where inventories are abundant right now. Considerable debate exists in the commodities markets as to if WTI remains the best benchmark because only about 40% of crude oil flows through this market as opposed to using Brent.
Oil would be modestly impacted by the closing of the Suez Canal thus forcing shipping to take the long distance around Africa. Egypt is NOT a significant producer of oil, but does supply Natural Gas to Israel's electric utility.
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Post by graybeard on Jan 31, 2011 11:13:20 GMT -6
I finally dug out some data: en.Wikipedia.org under Cotton says: --------- The largest exporters of raw cotton are the United States, with sales of $4.9 billion, and Africa, with sales of $2.1 billion. The total international trade is estimated to be $12 billion. Africa's share of the cotton trade has doubled since 1980. Neither area has a significant domestic textile industry, textile manufacturing having moved to developing nations in Eastern and South Asia such as India and China. In Africa, cotton is grown by numerous small holders. Dunavant Enterprises, based in Memphis, Tennessee, is the leading cotton broker in Africa, with hundreds of purchasing agents. It operates cotton gins in Uganda, Mozambique, and Zambia. In Zambia, it often offers loans for seed and expenses to the 180,000 small farmers who grow cotton for it, as well as advice on farming methods. Cargill also purchases cotton in Africa for export...
The 25,000 cotton growers in the United States are heavily subsidized at the rate of $2 billion per year. The future of these subsidies is uncertain... ---------
Ha! Why should $2Billion in borrowed tax dollars be spent to produce $5Billion of product? Cut that subsidy by 25% a year, and we'll have more land and water for better uses.
"The area of the United States known as the South Plains is the largest contiguous cotton-growing region in the world. While dryland (non-irrigated) cotton is successfully grown in this region, consistent yields are only produced with heavy reliance on irrigation water drawn from the Ogallala Aquifer."
The Ogallala Aquifer is endangered, due to over intensive farming.
GB
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Post by jeffolie on Jan 31, 2011 11:53:50 GMT -6
America's almost $2 billion in foreign aid to Egypt mostly goes to the military.
I am guessing the military wants to keep getting that $2 billion and will not quickly offend America.
Lots of above average military hardware has been sold to Egypt with the assumption it will not be used against Israel. If the military changes its position ala Turkey, then Israel suddenly has a close threat with above average military hardware. Turkey graduate changed from nonsecular government to fundamental Islamic government and sponsored Israel agitating actions.
Egypt may follow Turkey and turn into an Israel agitating border neighbor that has 80 million inhabitants merely a days march away.
Intermediately Egypt has an image problem and a tourism problem. Tourism is Egypt's number one money maker. If Americans and Israelis are afraid of vacationing in Egypt, then Egypt will economically spiral downward over the next year.
Immediately Egypt has a bank run and police problem. The police have withdrawn, stores have been looted, gas stations have not had gas deliveries for days, inventories pile up in the now shutting down ports. Neighborhood residents have set up barriers to prevent intruders without 'the rule of law'. This chaos is street level. Street level chaos will lead to hunger and if there is no change, then Israel's immediate fear is a fundamental Islamic leadership emerging from the chaos.
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Post by waltc on Jan 31, 2011 12:40:24 GMT -6
Egypt is a overpopulated 3rd world Islamic shit hole. Even if becomes a puppet of the Muslim Brotherhood it's not a threat to Israel directly.
It's fate is just a foretaste of what's to come in the ME with the rise of political Islam.
It's threat to Israel and the Western nations will come from it being a base of operations for AQ; giving Hamas American weapons or support for factions who want to topple the KSA. Should the later occur we will all be in deep trouble.
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Post by jeffolie on Jan 31, 2011 14:20:33 GMT -6
In my Jan 18th thread I alerted that Egypt was next to face the FACEBOOK Revolution based on a very big jump in the 'credit spread' for Egypt. Israel increased credit spread is not of the same magnitude and is a small, insignificant rise. I conclude that Israel is not at a significantly higher risk immediately than when Tunisia's FACEBOOK Revolution started. The intermediate risk may rise but that will depend on Egypt becoming hostile as happened in Turkey. ========================================================== Israel risk premium rises on Egypt unrest NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Israel’s risk premium, measured by the cost of insuring the country’s debt against default, rose further Monday in the wake of the unrest in Egypt. Egypt inspires IraniansIranian opposition groups have been inspired by recent uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt. Some Iranian groups plan a Feb. 12 protest against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Tunisians two weeks ago drove out leader Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, catalyzing protests elsewhere in the region, “and we think we have not seen the last of it yet,” analyst Rafael Gozlan at Leader Investment House in Tel Aviv noted. The uncertainty created by the anti-government protests in Egypt, which Reuters reports have killed 100 people and injured 2,000, “and the concern of a spillover effect to [neighboring] countries” are lifting the Israeli risk premium, Gozlan wrote in a note dated Sunday. The spread on Israeli five-year credit-default swaps widened to near 1.5 percentage points on Monday from 1.16 points on Wednesday, before the Egypt protests began in earnest, according to the London data provider Markit. That means that the cost of insuring $10 million of Israel’s debt against default for five years has risen to almost $150,000 a year from $116,000. Egypt’s CDS spread widened 0.12 percentage point on Monday from Friday, to 4.4 percentage points. “But it was Egypt’s fellow Arab countries that saw their cost of protection rise sharply today,” Markit’s director of credit research, Gavan Nolan, said in a Monday note. The Lebanon CDS spread moved 0.3 percentage point wider to 4 percentage points; Tunisia CDS rose 0.13 point to 2.22 points, while the Saudi spread widened 0.29 point to 1.2 points. Turkey’s spread was 1.66 points, little changed from Friday, Markit reported. Concern that Israel would become involved “in the crisis in the near term is very low as the events have nothing to do with Israel directly,” Gozlan wrote. Mubarak swears in cabinetProtests continue in Cairo as Egypt names its new government. But “a change of regime in neighboring countries could tilt” the status quo of recent years, “especially if radical Islamic regimes emerge.” Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who’s ruled for 30 years, is the target of enormous public protests. Mubarak, 82, has named a vice president and a new cabinet but hasn’t quelled the demands that he step down. Read The Wall Street Journal’s account of the anti-government protests in Egypt. On Monday, Moody’s Investors Service downgraded Egypt’s government-bond ratings, citing a sharp increase in political risk from the protests. Read Emerging Markets Report for more on how markets are treating the unfolding events in Egypt and commentary on how he U.S. must now approach providing aid to Egypt’s current and future leaders. Effect on the shekel The analyst expects Israel’s shekel to initially weaken, given the unrest in the region as well as certain rules recently put in place by the Bank of Israel and the Finance Ministry. Nearly two weeks ago, the Bank of Israel acted to quash speculation in the Israeli currency by requiring certain disclosures on transactions by traders in foreign exchange and in government debt. Read the MarketWatch report on the new rules for currency and bond traders. Travelers rush to flee EgyptCars sit in bumper-to-bumper traffic on Cairo's main highway as travelers flee Egypt. Adding to the congestion, tanks and armored vehicles took up positions around Tahrir Square, the focal point of protests. Video courtesy of Reuters. And the Treasury canceled a tax exemption that foreign investors enjoyed when they traded in certain Israeli T-bills and short-term government bonds. On Monday, the Bank of Israel set the shekel’s (USDILS 3.7045, -0.0145, -0.3900%) representative rate at 3.71 to the greenback. That’s weaker than the rate of 3.529 set on Jan. 18, before the rules were announced. Gozlan expects a drop to 3.8, which would give the Bank of Israel room to raise interest rates. That rate rise could strengthen the shekel back to 3.4 to the dollar in the coming year, Gozlan argued. He said he expects little immediate impact on the Israeli economy, and he affirmed his estimate that the country’s gross domestic product would grow 4% this year. “A more positive angle on recent events could be found in the possibility for a friendly regime change if similar events occur in places such as Iran,“ Gozlan wrote. “Such a scenario would lower Israel’s, and indeed the region’s, risk premium.” www.marketwatch.com/story/israel-risk-premium-rises-on-egypt-unrest-2011-01-31
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Post by jeffolie on Feb 2, 2011 16:46:01 GMT -6
Just as in the Star Wars saga: The Empire Strikes Back The military did not fire bomb the protesters, status quo thugs did. The same sort of thing happened in Iran when local, status quo, thugs violently suppressed protests of the last election. Will the Muslim Brotherhood organize a government takedown? ====================================================== Supporters of President Hosni Mubarak charged into Cairo's central square on horses and camels brandishing whips while others rained firebombs from rooftops in what appeared to be an orchestrated assault against protesters trying to topple Egypt's leader of 30 years. Three people died and 600 were injured. news.yahoo.com/
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Post by jeffolie on Feb 6, 2011 15:26:20 GMT -6
"April 6 Movement" FACEBOOK Revolution via US Intell agencies So US and British Intelligence Agencies were part of the FACEBOOK Revolution that took down Tunisia and Egypt. They supported an organization called the April 6 Movement using facebook. ==================================== Washington 'soft' revolutions The protests that led to the abrupt firing of the entire Egyptian government by President Mubarak on the heels of the panicked flight of Tunisia's Ben Ali into a Saudi exile are not at all as "spontaneous" as the Obama White House, Clinton State Department or CNN, BBC and other major media in the West make them to be. They are being organized in a Ukrainian-style high-tech electronic fashion with large internet-linked networks of youth tied to Mohammed ElBaradei and the banned and murky secret Muslim Brotherhood, whose links to British and American intelligence and freemasonry are widely reported. At this point the anti-Mubarak movement looks like anything but a threat to US influence in the region, quite the opposite. It has all the footprints of another US-backed regime change along the model of the 2003-2004 Color Revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine and the failed Green Revolution against Iran's Ahmedinejad in 2009. The call for an Egyptian general strike and a January 25 Day of Anger that sparked the mass protests demanding Mubarak resign was issued by a Facebook-based organization calling itself the April 6 Movement. The protests were so substantial and well-organized that it forced Mubarak to ask his cabinet to resign and appoint a new vice president, Gen. Omar Suleiman, former Minister of Intelligence. April 6 is headed by one Ahmed Maher Ibrahim, a 29-year-old civil engineer, who set up the Facebook site to support a workers' call for a strike on April 6, 2008. According to a New York Times account from 2009, some 800,000 Egyptians, most youth, were already then Facebook or Twitter members. In an interview with the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment, April 6 Movement head Maher stated, "Being the first youth movement in Egypt to use internet-based modes of communication like Facebook and Twitter, we aim to promote democracy by encouraging public involvement in the political process." Maher also announced that his April 6 Movement backs former UN International Atomic Energy Aagency (IAEA) head and declared Egyptian Presidential candidate, ElBaradei along with ElBaradei's National Association for Change (NAC) coalition. The NAC includes among others George Ishak, a leader in Kefaya Movement, and Mohamed Saad El-Katatni, president of the parliamentary bloc of the controversial Ikhwan or Muslim Brotherhood. Today Kefaya is at the center of the unfolding Egyptian events. Not far in the background is the more discreet Muslim Brotherhood. ElBaradei at this point is being projected as the central figure in a future Egyptian parliamentary democratic change. Curiously, though he has not lived in Egypt for the past thirty years, he has won the backing of every imaginable part of the Eyptian political spectrum from communists to Muslim Brotherhood to Kefaya and April 6 young activists. Judging from the calm demeanour ElBaradei presents these days to CNN interviewers, he also likely has the backing of leading Egyptian generals opposed to the Mubarak rule for whatever reasons as well as some very influential persons in Washington. www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article26106.html Read more: unlawflcombatnt.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=noneconomic&thread=8630#ixzz1DDRzAITD
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Post by waltc on Feb 6, 2011 17:35:51 GMT -6
There is no Facebook revolution. That's just the hubris of a bunch of WASPy technophiles talking.
As it stands Egyptian security forces have pretty much contained the incipient revolution with well placed thugs, beatings, etc.
Thugs vs. Internet, thugs win every time.
Mubarak will go, but it looks like at this time that he'll be replaced by another hand picked thug.
BTW technology is value free in and of itself. You can use a cell phone to call a friend or detonate a bomb at parade or even crash a train. You can use the internet to chat or organize people for terrorist actions or teach them how to make bombs.
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Post by jeffolie on Feb 8, 2011 16:34:32 GMT -6
The state-run news media in China warned Monday that the country’s major agricultural regions were facing their worst drought in 60 years and said Tuesday that Shandong Province, a cornerstone of Chinese grain production, was bracing for its worst drought in 200 years unless substantial precipitation came by the end of this month. China's drought = wheat shortage coming Egypt import 50% of it wheat...oops the revolution may have a food problem soon =========================================================== The United Nations’ food agency issued an alert on Tuesday warning that a severe drought was threatening the wheat crop in China, the world’s largest wheat producer, and resulting in shortages of drinking water for people and livestock. China has been essentially self-sufficient in grain for decades, for national security reasons. Any move by China to import large quantities of food in response to the drought could drive international prices even higher than the record levels recently reached. “China’s grain situation is critical to the rest of the world — if they are forced to go out on the market to procure adequate supplies for their population, it could send huge shock waves through the world’s grain markets,” said Robert S. Zeigler, the director general of the International Rice Research Institute in Los Baños, Philippines. The state-run news media in China warned Monday that the country’s major agricultural regions were facing their worst drought in 60 years. On Tuesday the state news agency Xinhua said that Shandong Province, a cornerstone of Chinese grain production, was bracing for its worst drought in 200 years unless substantial precipitation came by the end of this month. World wheat prices are already surging, and have been widely cited as one reason for protests in Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab world. A separate United Nations report last week said global food export prices had reached record levels in January. The impact of China’s drought on global food prices and supplies could create serious problems for less affluent countries that rely on imported food. With $2.85 trillion in foreign exchange reserves, nearly three times that of Japan, the country with the second-largest reserves, China has ample buying power to prevent any serious food shortages. “They can buy whatever they need to buy, and they can outbid anyone,” Mr. Zeigler said. China’s self-sufficiency in grain prevented world food prices from moving even higher when they spiked three years ago, he said. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization said Tuesday that 12.75 million acres of China’s 35 million acres of wheat fields had been affected by the drought. It said that 2.57 million people and 2.79 million head of livestock faced shortages of drinking water. Chinese state news media are describing the drought in increasingly dire terms. “Minimal rainfall or snow this winter has crippled China’s major agricultural regions, leaving many of them parched,” Xinhua reported. “Crop production has fallen sharply, as the worst drought in six decades shows no sign of letting up.” Xinhua said that Shandong Province, in the heart of the Chinese wheat belt, had received only 1.2 centimeters, or about half an inch, of rain since September. The report did not provide a comparison for normal rainfall for the period. The Food and Agriculture Organization, in its “special alert” on Tuesday, said the drought’s effects had been somewhat tempered by relatively few days of subzero temperatures and government irrigation projects. The agency went on to caution that extreme cold, with temperatures of minus 18 degrees Celsius (just below zero Fahrenheit), could have “devastating” effects. Kisan Gunjal, the F.A.O. food emergency officer in Rome who handles Asia alerts, said by telephone that if rain came soon and temperatures warmed up, then the wheat crop could still be saved and a bumper crop might even be possible. On Tuesday, Chinese meteorological agencies were warning of frost for the next nine nights in the heart of Shandong Province, with temperatures falling as low as 21 degrees Fahrenheit. They forecast little chance of precipitation in the next 10 days except for the possibility of a light rain or a dusting of snow on Wednesday or Thursday. Mr. Gunjal said the special alert on China was the first that the F.A.O. had issued anywhere in the world this year. There was only one last year, expressing “grave concern” about food supplies in the Sahel region of Africa, notably Niger. President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, China’s top two officials, made separate visits to drought-stricken areas last week, and each called for “all-out efforts” to cope with the water shortage. Typically, world food reports barely mention China, partly because many details of the country’s agriculture production and reserves are state secrets. But China, in fact, is enormously important to the world’s food supply, especially if something goes wrong. www.nytimes.com/2011/02/09/busin ... .html?_r=1
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Post by waltc on Feb 8, 2011 21:12:33 GMT -6
Egypt is a basket case no matter who runs it. For starters it's overpopulated(average Egyptian family has 7 children!!), has no real industry or jobs base outside of the government which employs %70 of the workers.
And with it's population increasing far beyond it's GDP, there is no way any government can keep pace and feed the people.
So no matter who runs the joint, they are going to be ruling over a perpetual powder keg.
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Post by jeffolie on Feb 11, 2011 11:07:40 GMT -6
The Eguptian military was handed the government as its ruler resigned today.
Just as I posted on Jan 18th, after Tunsisia, Egypt would be the next revolution.
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Post by fredorbob on Feb 11, 2011 16:03:23 GMT -6
Egypt is a basket case no matter who runs it. For starters it's overpopulated(average Egyptian family has 7 children!!), has no real industry or jobs base outside of the government which employs %70 of the workers. And with it's population increasing far beyond it's GDP, there is no way any government can keep pace and feed the people. So no matter who runs the joint, they are going to be ruling over a perpetual powder keg. Somehow they're all on facebook too.
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Post by waltc on Feb 12, 2011 16:42:25 GMT -6
Facebook won't feed the Egyptian people or provide food at a low price so they can keep on overbreeding. Nor will Facebook provide them with potable water which they are running out of.
Egypt will remain a unstable country no matter who runs it because of it's explosive population growth. Eventually they'll need to find something like war to take their people's mind off their sorry state.
That's when the fun will begin.
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