In Britain, only 44 days after being elected Prime Minister, Liz Truss was pressured by her own party to resign because she apparently mismanaged the economic issues she was supposed to fix. In America, the Democratic Party stands to lose the upcoming midterm elections because the economy is perceived by the electorate to be doing badly. In Egypt, President Abdel Fattah Sisi has asserted that the economy was doing well, and chastised those who cast doubt on its performance. What’s that about?
Well, what’s happening is that the confusion of the
messages relayed by the political entities, has caused the pundits of a bygone
era to lose their sway on a public that was fast turning apathetic as it listened
to purely political issues. But knowing that topics relating to pocketbook
issues were still relevant to the public, the pundits began to inject economic
and financial messages into their points of view whether they knew what they
were talking about or they did not.
Then it happened that in 1983, a famine befell Ethiopia,
prompting Bob Geldof who is a British musician, to record a song that went: “Do
they know it’s Christmas.” In turn, this prompted the American Harry Belafonte
to assemble a supergroup named “USA for Africa,” and recorded the song “We are
the World,” that went on to become one of the greatest successes of all time,
both artistically and in terms of the money it raised for charity.
Those events cemented the idea in the heads of pundits
that to mention economic issues when discussing politics, had become necessary
to give the impression that the presentation was well founded. The trouble,
however, is that the use of economic issues in a presentation is done by those
who do their homework and those who do not. The first put together delightful
presentations. The second rely on sensationalism to stir up the emotion of their
audiences.
Two visions seem to inspire the sensationalists. On the
one hand, they want to achieve a personal success approaching that of Geldof
and Belafonte. On the other hand, they see nothing happening today, or is
likely to happen that will approach the calamity which struck Ethiopia in 1983
because they know that the United Nations and the world will not let it happen
again. Thus, the most that these pundits can talk about are the food shortages
that affect North Korea from time to time, and the nutritional difficulties
that people of the Sahel encounter on a bad year. So then, what can these
pundits do to become a Geldof or a Belafonte?
What these people do, is believe in the fantasy that’s
formulated in their heads by their ignorance of economics, and go on to describe
something that has no relation to reality. This, in fact, is what prompted the
President of Egypt to assert that the economy of his country was doing well,
and chastised those who cast doubt on its performance by speculating that it is
on its way to becoming another Ethiopia.
You can see an example of that kind of fantasy in an
article that came under the horribly distorting title: “In COP 27, host Egypt,
hunger mounts amid soaring import costs and weather extremes,” and the subtitle:
“The world’s largest importer of wheat is feeling the pain of both climate
change and the war in Ukraine.” It was written by Thin Lei Win and Eman Mounir,
and published – of all the places – in The New Humanitarian on October 19,
2022.
When you read the article, however, you cannot help but draw
the conclusion that the horrible title was not that of the writers who seemed
to do their best trying to describe an accurate picture of what they were
seeing. But if not the writers’, whose fantasy was this? It can only be that of
the editor who is desperate to get attention for his or her publication.
Look what that editor missed. The article says that on
the consumption side, the population of Egypt is 106 million, and that the per
capita consumption of wheat is 146 kilogram. This means the country consumes
15.5 million kilogram of wheat per year. But what about the supply side? Well,
the article says that Egypt produces locally 9 million tons of wheat, and
imports 13 million tons. That’s a total of 22 million tons, which means that
the country would have a surplus of 6.5 million tons of wheat. Where do they
go?
The reality is that in addition to exporting 5 million
tons of fresh fruits, vegetables and seafoods, Egypt exports processed foods
worth at least 4 billion dollars a year, which include baked goods made with
the surplus wheat they end up with every year. This is a reality – if mentioned
– would have changed the perception by much, but was not mentioned in the
article.
How do the sensationalists get away with a mistake of that
magnitude, addressing readers who are knowledgeable enough to at least balance
their checkbooks? They get away with it because people are too busy earning
enough to maintain a healthy balance of their checkbooks, and make ends meet.
They leave it up to the economists and financial writers to point out the
self-serving mistakes that editors make.