The hunger to come in Egypt

[GliderGuider]

The hunger to come in Egypt

Egypt is running out of food, and, more gradually, running out of money with which to buy it. The most populous country in the Arab world shows all the symptoms of national bankruptcy - the kind that produced hyperinflation in several Latin American countries during the 1970s and 1980s - with a deadly difference: Egypt imports half its wheat, and the collapse of its external credit means starvation.

The Arab uprisings began against a background of food insecurity, as rising demand from Asia priced the Arab poor out of the grain market (Food and failed Arab states, Asia Times Online February 2, 2011). The chaotic political response, though, threatens to disrupt food supplies in the relative near term. Street violence will become the norm rather than the exception in Egyptian politics. All the discussion about Egypt's future political model and its prospective relations with Israel will be overshadowed by the country's inability to feed itself. According to the country's statistics agency, only a month's supply of rice is on hand, and four months' supply of wheat.

The Egyptian government will go to the International Monetary Fund and other aid agencies for loans - the government reportedly will ask for $7 billion to tide things over - and foreign money at best will buy a few months' respite. The currency will collapse; the government will print IOUs to tide things over; and the Egyptian street will reject the IOUs as the country reverts to barter.

It will look like the Latin American banana republics, but without the bananas. That is not meant in jest: few people actually starved to death in the Latin inflations. Egypt, which imports half its wheat and a great deal of the rest of its food, will actually starve. Half of Egyptians live on $2 a day, and that $2 is about to collapse along with the national currency, and the result will be a catastrophe of, well, biblical proportions.

Add to this the fact that Egypt is no longer a net exporter of oil, but is now a net importer, which severely impacts their national revenue. Their oil production continues to slide while consumption continues to increase, making Egypt a poster child for the Export Land Model.

Egypt looks like it's heading for "failed state" status.

[xchrom]

1. recommend

[pscot]

2. I think these sex threads

belong in the lounge. Just sayin'.

[GliderGuider]

3. I can't believe I didn't see that before I posted it!

:rofl:

[DavidDvorkin]

4. Once the breadbasket of the Roman Empire

There were far fewer people there at the time, of course.