Is there a surefire way you can employ to determine how Egypt is doing?
Yes there is, and it has been around since the early 1950s.
This was the time when Egypt got serious about
transforming itself from an agrarian society to an industrial one. The move
prompted something like a dozen pirate radio stations to spring up and do
nothing but spew propaganda created by haters who did not want Egypt or anyone
in the neighborhood to progress. The goal of these terrible people was to cause
the population to rise and overthrow the government.
Despite the apoplexy accompanying the inciting arguments
that was advanced by the pirates of the airwaves, the population of Egypt did not
rise up. And President Gamal Abdel Nasser lived long enough to preside over the
construction of his pet project, the Aswan
hydroelectric station that kick-started the industrialization of the country.
With it came the dam that produced a reservoir large enough to hold three times
the average annual flow of the Nile . And this,
in turn, protected the country's agriculture against the year to year vagaries
of that flow.
And so, the answer to the earlier question about determining
how Egypt was doing – is to
look for the apparition of the haters of Egypt , and gauge the intensity of
the propaganda they spew. The more numerous they are, and the more severe their
attacks, the more you know that Egypt
is doing well. What's happening now is the apparition of haters more numerous
than a star produces neutrinos, and they spew propaganda more intensely than
the explosive power of a supernova. They are at the highest point of their
apoplexy.
Identified as a member of the “Next Eleven,” Egypt is ready
to assume the role of industrial tiger. It is worth recalling that the first
phase of the tiger series was started by the Asian Tigers who were replaced by
the BRICS who are being replaced by the Next Eleven. The surefire thing has
therefore materialized in the form of hate propagandists who, like their
predecessors, want no one in the neighborhood to succeed. But their method of
attacking Egypt
was modified to suit the times.
They are no longer using pirate radio stations to spread
their message. Instead, they use the internet to propagate noise, fake news,
distortions, misinformation and disinformation. Because they have considerable
influence in the editorial rooms of most Anglophile media, they manage to get a
great deal of that filth picked up and published by the mainstream print and
audio visual outlets.
Though they still hope it will happen, they no longer count
on the population to rise up and overthrow the government. What they wish to
achieve instead, is scare potential English speaking investors from investing
in Egypt .
Out of pity, someone should tell these knuckleheads that their efforts are
wasted considering that the biggest foreign investors in Egypt are the
Brits. They are followed by the Americans. As well, the Australians are not far
behind, and the Canadians are catching up.
An example that shows how the knuckleheads go about doing
their business came under the title: “Sissi's Egypt Is Falling Apart. Will It
Explode?” an article that was written by Tom Stevenson and published on June
15, 2017 in World Politics Review. The writer started with a short introduction
in which he mentioned a small demonstration that was staged to protest the
price hikes that resulted from the devaluation of the currency. Stevenson used
that incident to make a mountain out of a molehill, and went on to talk
economics under a rubric that says “Economic Decay”.
To make his point, Stevenson uses the sayings of two people.
One is Ahmed Ghoneim who is professor of economics at Cairo University Woodrow
Wilson Center 's
Middle East program. The most salient part of
what Ghoneim has said is this: “There appears to be lack of coordination
between the Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank.” The most salient part of
what Ottaway has said is this: “The regime has done little to bring supporters
of the Muslim Brotherhood into the political process … You can't close off the
safety valve and not expect an explosion at some point”.
With regard to the Ghoneim saying, it is not clear if this
professor of economics is advocating that instead of dealing with each other at
arm's length, the Treasury and the Central Bank should work together and
formulate a joint approach to the fiscal and monetary policies of the country.
I would be happy to learn that's what he means because, as far as I know, I was
the first to make this suggestion decades ago … and everybody ignored my
suggestion. Maybe someone will listen now.