Not long ago, an acquaintance from London wished to debate with me on the topic of the uprising in Tunisia and Egypt, and at first I thought, well okay, let's talk, but then I realized that there have always been uprisings in that part of the world, and the folks there seem to love to march in the streets and carry on.
Why would this time be different and why are the people so angry? Well, he started off by explaining; "At the heart of the uprising in first Tunisia and then Egypt was basic economics.
Inflation, low wages and high unemployment appear to be the straw that finally broke the proverbial Camels back.
" In some regards this is true because economic issues often cause civil unrest.
When food prices increase whether it is in Bolivia, Mexico, Ecuador, Argentina, Venezuela, Pakistan, Yemen, South Africa, Zimbabwe, India, China, or anywhere else it will be an issue.
Right now it appears that the United States monetary policy coupled with the fact that the trade flows are so imbalanced that our large economy, the largest in the world, is actually inflating the rest of the world.
Now then, is it the United States fault there's inflation in the rest of world? Not necessarily, one could say that it is actually a defensive move, caused by the unintended consequences of so many nations with unbalanced trade tariffs, rules, and barriers against the United States in the first place.
If the money would flow back the other way again, in durable goods then perhaps we would not see these issues, or not to the extent that they are occurring.
We must also realize that China has invested incredible amounts into Egypt to put in factories, because the labor rates are so low there, and they have such a large workforce.
It's amazing that China with its low labor rates are ready would invest in a country like Egypt, nevertheless some $250 million has already been invested and they are building factories as we speak.
In fact, there were something like 2000 Chinese businesspeople that have been rescued out of Egypt, as China sent some of its airliners to pick them up.
Since when does China care to pick people up? When they are important people, we know that from their last rescue mission to the nation above Afghanistan when it collapsed, they picked up their pipeline, and infrastructure workers remember? There is change afoot in Egypt, and we can expect things to continue, and this is a wake-up call, that Egypt needs to come into the 21ST Century, so, it's up to them to do that, only time will tell now.
Please consider all this.