Tuesday 13 September 2011

Egypt's failures will bring it down, not the Muslim Brotherhood.

Author Photo
David P. Goldman, "Spengler"

"The conclusion will be the collapse of the Egyptian state. The misnamed "Arab Spring", really a convulsion of a dying society, began with food shortages.  Egypt imports half its caloric consumption, 45% of its people are illiterate, its university graduates are unemployable, its $10 billion a year tourism industry is shuttered for the duration, and its foreign exchange reserves are gradually disappearing ....  A country that can’t teach half its people to read, and can’t produce employable university graduates, and can’t feed itself, is going to go down the drain... The Egyptian street has nothing to do but rise up against perceived oppressors, because nothing good awaits them".
More at the link. 
He expands on "food shortages" in this February 2011 article:  Food comprises half the Egyptian CPI and countries like China are bidding away the wheat Egyptians used to afford.  Egypt only grows 56% of what it eats.

This material is embedded in a larger article he wrote under the name "Spengler" in Asia Times:  "Israel as the Dutch Republic in the Thirty Years War".

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