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| Africa North | |
| Denial is still a River in Egypt | |
| 2013-01-23 | |
| By Spengler Denial, it turns out, really is a river in Egypt. I refer not to the world's longest waterway, but the world's largest outpouring of pious expressions of confidence in Egypt by American and European politicians. Infusions of real cash, to be sure, could delay Egypt's deterioration into a failed state, but not by long, because the country requires more than US$20 billion a year simply to meet its basic needs... The country's trade deficit was running at an annual rate of nearly $42 billion as of November 2012, before the central bank allowed the Egyptian pound to sink on foreign exchange markets. That's 15% of Gross Domestic Product ... Egypt's cash position is even worse than it appears. The $7 billion or so in the central bank's liquid cash reserves does not take into account the billions of dollars that Egyptian importers owe to unpaid suppliers. Nor does it take into account new obligations that Egypt has had to assume to get cash up front...
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| Posted by:lord garth |
| #2 Iff Imran Khan is to be believed, ditto in PAKISTAN. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2013-01-23 20:58 |
| #1 The trouble is that the speech exposes Egypt's president as a pre-modern creature of barbaric habits of thought and Dark Age ignorance Just like western pols---except the line of bull he adheres to is different (though equally ridiculous). |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2013-01-23 02:30 |