Thursday, July 4, 2013

The Economy that Trashed the Stress Test

Perhaps the readers are familiar with the stress test that regulators impose on a bank when they wish to ascertain that it will be able to withstand a financial shock they believe may hit it. What they do is imagine a number of stressful possibilities that could materialize someday, thus put the bank's operation in danger. For example, the regulators may ask: What would happen if the economy turned bad, and the three biggest loans the bank has in its portfolio cannot perform for a prolonged period?

The regulators try to make every stress test as realistic as possible, but no matter how well they do, they can never imagine all the factors that will come into play in every case. Thus, a simulated stress test can never predict an outcome that will exactly match the real world should the bank be subjected to a real situation. From this we conclude that the best test a bank can be subjected to is an actual situation.

Well, the same thing can be said about a national economy. No one can really imagine how well or how badly it will do under a given situation until the situation is actually here. And yet, the rating agencies that do not run tests on the economies they watch, routinely pass judgment on them anyway. They look at a number of factors – all of them financial and political – and determine whether or not an economy will be able to fulfill its obligations toward its creditors. Two things are wrong with this. First, the current factors that the agencies look at do not necessarily reflect the ability of the economy to fulfill its future obligations. Second, these factors become increasingly less relevant in today's demographics and globalized economies.

The financial crisis that started in late 2008 has turned the world into a living laboratory in which the economies were stress tested in a real life situation. Many of them did badly, especially Iceland and Ireland in the North of Europe, as well as Greece, Cyprus, Spain and Portugal in the South of Europe. In addition, Britain, France and Italy suffered to various degrees. All those countries being a part of the European economic zone, their poor performance also affected the countries that trade with them. They too suffered to various degrees but did somewhat better by comparison.

One of those countries was Egypt which is located on the south shore of the Mediterranean Sea. In addition to the woes that were inflicted on it from the north shore and from the world situation in general, the country went through a prolonged revolution of its own. This put a damper on tourism and foreign investment, two ingredients that heretofore had been important earners of foreign currency for the country.

So then, what happened to that economy? Did it crack as did many economies in Europe and elsewhere? No, it did not. In fact, it registered positive growth each and every year since the crisis of 2008. Thus, it can be said with confidence that no one can look at this performance and deny that the Egyptian economy has passed the most severe test with flying colors. It is an economy that trashed the stress test instead of being trashed by it.

Well, Egypt just had what history may come to regard as a second revolution or come to regard as the second phase of the original revolution. In any case, people there are now thinking long and hard about their dealings with the nations of the world. A relationship that is particularly vexing to the general population is the one that the country maintains with the lamentable has-been that used to be superpower America.

Ever since the Jewish organizations began to colonize that nation and mobilize it to serve the interests of the alien entity called Israel, the components that make up the ship of the American state have been altered to make them respond to Jewish commands sent by remote control or done by direct entry. To that end, a virus is now buried in every software waiting to be activated, a potential short is built into every circuit waiting to be connected, and sand sits in every gearbox waiting to be stirred up.

The Jewish use and abuse of America used to have two components; military and economic. The first has almost vanished because it was so badly overworked that when the Jews now send American boys and girls to kick asses anywhere in the world, American boys and girls return home having had their own asses kicked and their heads traumatized.

As to the second component, it happens that the Jewish organizations are forcing America to build a legacy that will eventually come to look like a load of nitroglycerine being transported by a rickety chariot that is traveling on a decrepit road. It is inevitable that the thing will explode at some point, and do so without first giving a warning.

And the way that the Jewish organizations have managed to put this demonic system together is by hook, by crook and by blackmail. They manipulated the American legislative process to have it respond not to every situation as it arises, but respond to a signal they send to it by direct entry or by remote control. Translated into policies, a good example of this would be America going around the world threatening to impose economic sanctions on everyone that the Jews decide to dislike for the day.

In fact, America is now behaving in that manner even at a time when it is fast becoming one of the most vulnerable nations to economic sanctions should someone decide to make it drink from its own cup. And what America will be made to drink when the time will come will be moral nitroglycerine of the most Jewish kind. The thing not only tastes bad, it is very destructive.

And this is why the people of Egypt want to have nothing to do with America anymore, especially with regard to the economic and military arrangements they still have with that country. The fact is that the Egyptians never tested the American weapons because they never had an actual encounter with an enemy since they started buying American weapons. And so they cannot judge how well these weapons will perform.

In contrast, they have relied in the past on their own weapons and those they bought from the Eastern Block. They did well on several occasions and know they will do even better next time – if there is going to be a next time – because they have advanced tremendously in all fields of technology. Thus, many in Egypt are now thinking it is time to go back to what was tried and proven to work.

They view this as being better than rely on a bunch of lunatics who are traveling on a decrepit road with a pot of Jewish nitroglycerine in their lap as they sit in a rickety chariot whose wheels are about to come off.