AW1 Tim; Egypt: When the Money and Food Run Out
Our buddy, AW1 Tim wrote a post at his blog about a subject that’s too complicated for this old brain to comprehend, which is why I’ve pretty much steered away from Egypt since Mubarak stepped down. But Tim does the hard work;
Asia Times has a warning article online today that ought to be read by anyone with a passing interest in current events. It details what is likely to happen when Egypt’s money and food run out, something that is likely to happen sooner rather than later. Hoarding of both hard currency and consumables has already begun and it’s only going to get worse.
You should go read the whole thing.
Category: Foreign Policy
Most revolutions in the world haven’t started over political ideologies per se, but are given popular support because (drumroll) the people are poor/hungry.
Look at the Russian Revolution. 70 years later, look at why the Berlin Wall fell. The French Revolution, etc. History has many examples of people rising up when faced with the prospect of not just living under totalitarianism, but starvation and death.
The only problem is who steps in to fill the void is often worse than the predecessor (see Soviets, Reign of Terror, Cultural Revolution, etc.)
The guy behind this is David Goldman aka Spengler. He’s a well known economist who backs up his articles with much data. In a world with so much depressing news about the radicalism of muslims, Spengler is refreshing reading. Among his contentions is that Egypt is on the verge of a massive famine, Turkey will suffer an economic collapse, Iran’s population is plumeting along with that of several other muslim countries, Pakistan is a failed stated ect. His ultimate contention is that the muslim world is headed toward utter collapse. Many of these things he has said years ago and they are now unfolding before our eyes. You can find his articles at Asia Times Online and Pajamas Media.
I agree. The thing that a lot of folks hate about him and his articles is that he does the leg work to support his claims. His references are excellent and he has the data that others want to ignore.
As I pointed out in my own comments, the part I disagree with him is this: he’s worried about the collapse of several states, especially Egypt, and the Muslim brotherhood trying to leverage that frustration and anger towards the Saudis.
I, rather, see the Muslim brotherhood falling back on their own demonstrable history and turning their sights towards the Jews and Israel.
The MB has already stated they would like to find a way to drop the Egypt/Israel Peace treaty. What better way to inflame passions than to do what history has always done: Blame the Jews.
Being right next door, they have an easy target. the Saudis will be there when the Muslim brotherhood gets done dealing with Israel, provided it survives.