Egypt descends into chaos:
Egypt literally will run out of food. It imports half its caloric consumption, mainly wheat (although Egyptians eat less wheat than Iranians, Moroccans, Canadians, Turks and Russians). Egypt spends $5.5 billion a year on food subsidies. Its social solidarity minister wants to change the system (which subsidizes some people who can afford to pay more than the penny a loaf the government charges), but seems deeply confused. “‘We need to change consumer habits so that we are not consuming so much bread. In Mexico, for example, they rely more on potatoes. Why can’t we start shifting toward that?’said Saad Nassar, adviser to the agriculture minister.” Mr. Nassar seems unaware that Mexicans eat more corn than wheat or potatoes. This discussion would be comical if not for the fact that Egypt is about to run out of money to pay for any sort of food.
It’s going to get a lot uglier. Especially for the Copts. And perhaps Israel.
Murphy Law …
Field Marshal Tantawi : Why can’t they eat sand ?
Colonel : Field Marshal, the people are rioting even more … maybe we could ask the Jews for wheat ?
Field Marshal Tantawi : … well prepare the M1 Abrams the Americans sold us … lets ask the Jews for some food.
The Copts can only hide and pray. Israel has nukes and they’ll use them if pushed too far.
When egypt first blew up there was an article on Zerohedge about the Arab spring. this article pointed out that the Egypt problem was one of over consumption and under production. Egypt has no net export and they don’t have the arable land to feed themselves domestically. This is geography and physics, changing the government will not change this basic fact. Their primary hard money export product used to be tourism, however blood in the streets is usually bad for tourism.
People in Egypt really only have a few choices:
1)Find some industry or product that pays enough for them to afford food.
2)Leave.
3)Starve.
4)Pillage neighbors.
5)Reduce their population to the point it can feed itself.
Some bad combination of #4+#5 probably makes the Israelis really nervous.
There has to be a way for Egypt to leverage the Nile to create better farm land.
It is really sad what is happening to the Copts. Too bad the whole world isn’t watching. Can’t wait for Obama’s strongly worded letter.
Didn’t the Aswan Dam mess that up?
Beats me.
Before the Aswan Dam the Nile flooded each spring, depositing rich silt along the banks.
Man dominates man to his injury. The only solution known is to be the dominate man which is not exactly palatable.