Posted on 02/11/2011 2:25:29 PM PST by mojito
ping ... read the whole article
Once upon a time Egypt supplied wheat to the rest of the ancient world.
He quotes the ur-Spengler:
“Optimism is cowardice.”
That is indeed food for thought. Thanks for the post.
bookmark
But in fact, Egypt is for sale. And the list of buyers is being constrained by food, if Spengler is correct, and the usual suspect, China, will be unlikely to bid inasmuch as she would be bidding against her own domestic market by enabling the Egyptians to compete. That leaves the U.S., the IMF, which is to a great degree the same thing, the Europeans, and the Russians, to squabble over power and prestige while the common people in Egypt cinch their belts up another notch.
What we will hear from the U.S. media - and this isn't so much a prediction as a tiresome repetition of past performance - is a championing of 0bama for proposing to place the burden on the U.S. taxpayer and a condemnation of the evil Republicans in Congress for failing to bankroll the thing from empty pockets. That 2010 election is starting to appear to have consequences that PR can't wash away. And that's all fine, but who then will bid for the bellies, and hence the hearts, of the Egyptians? Russia? They do, after all, have a long track record in that area. But do they have the cash, and what will they be buying if they do? Iran? A long history of steadily draining support for Islamism in Israel's environs and a ruinous nuclear program have emptied that purse as well. So who has the money?
The Saudis, more specifically the Wahabbi, have. Cleverly spent they might provide a temporary bulwark in Egypt against a similar populist tide in Saudi Arabia. Spent in pursuit of a Sunni Islamism, which is far more likely, it bodes well for the Islamists and poorly for the common Egyptian, because as the latter becomes more desperate, it will take less and less money to procure more and more influence over him. The starving who cannot be fed can still be made to be angry against a customary scapegoat; it's cheap and it worked well in Germany before the war.
That is the theme here, whether one is looking at the Democrats in Washington D.C. or the Iranians in Tehran or the Wahabbi fanatics in Mecca. Where wealth cannot feed, hatred can still confer political power.
ping
Ask an ER doc in a city with a large Somali population. On the International Mutilation Scale, The IMS, male circumcision gets a 1, and female circumcision, a 10. (I made that up)
The UN has even recommended male circumcision as an AIDS prevention protocol.(That's true.)
The only solution . . . JESUS CHRIST
Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom.
Honestly, a military coup was probably going to happen in the next year or so anyway.
Mubarak was getting ready to turn things over to his son, and the military doesn’t care for his son. Rather than allow his son to bring the country down even further over the next year, this just allowed things to speed up a bit, which might be a good thing.
Egypt is socialist. I don’t think they understand what freedom and liberty means. Is it just to be able to vote?
Sounds like Detroit.
Any government meddling in the commodities markets will have a domino effect on all the rest. When corn prices are artificially inflated and purchased for non-edible reasons, first it leaves a void that some other grain will have to fill, and secondly, more land will be devoted to corn production because of the higher return resulting in a net loss of acreage for other crops.
Save the corn for whiskey and tortillas!
That means right now they lead us 4-0.
And not too long ago Zimbabwe (Rhodesia) was the breadbasket of Africa. Now they can't feed themselves.
Socialism leads to economic prosperity for all! Diversity is our strength! /s
A socialist Islamist state has ZERO chance of prosperity. They can vote all they want. They will elect Islamists who do not allow freedom
Egypt’s socialist economy is a reason. Another is population. In 1960, there were 27 million Egyptians. Today, there are 83 million. They’ve more than tripled in population and remain illiterate.
And what if the Chinese move in with their own ‘aid’ and liberate the Suez?
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