Intersection

The regime in Egypt probably has about 24 hours before forced to flee.  The president has already sent away his family.  Live coverage from the Egyptian street via CNN International, Al Jazeera, and others, shows two very important aspects of this revolt that makes a leadership change inevitable.  First, the protesters have been taking time to say their prayers in the middle of the protests.  One might think that means the protesters are religious extremists.  Quite the opposite.  These people are mostly unarmed and praying as usual, they are regular people.  Extremists see injuring riot police during prayer time as a better way to praise God than praying.  Of course so do labor leaders, who have been unsuccessful in their efforts at revolt throughout the region over the past two weeks.  Like in Tunisia, this is a revolution, characterized by the participation of the general population, and not a revolt organized by extremists on either side.  The second important aspect is the behavior of the country's highly respected military.  They are out among the people, doing nothing.  The riot police, completely loyal to the regime, are on their own.  Either the regime is unwilling to ask the military for help, or the military has been asked and declined.  Whichever is the case, this signals the beginning of the end.

The rapid development of the revolution in Tunisia was a huge surprise, and caused quite a bit of angst in France, where support of the monarchy was designed to support stability and repression of extremists. The United States has long been in a similar position respecting Egypt.  Three days ago when he expressed support of the movement in Tunisia, could the president have possibly known that we would be here today, dealing with an Egyptian revolution?

Most of the reporting on this issue deals with the political repression in these countries.  But then we must ask the question: "If political repression has actually lessened over many years (especially in Egypt), why are the people rising up now?"  The answer is that economics has triggered this revolution, the same way economics triggered riots in Greece last year, and large protests in Jordan last week, on and on.  The opening lines of "All Quiet on the Western Front" are instructive:

Yesterday we were relieved, and now our bellies are full of beef and haricot beans. We are satisfied and at peace. Each man has another mess-tin full for the evening; and, what is more, there is a double ration of sausage and bread. That puts a man in fine trim.

In this scene the narrator's German army unit has returned from a fortnight of battle at the front, with half their men left dead on the field.  The cook was shocked at the heavy losses, and had prepared rations for twice the number, which means the survivors enjoyed double.

Staple commodities like wheat have doubled since last June, and many countries like Algeria and Jordan allowed their supplies to tighten to wait for the prices to decline.  Where the average person pays half their income for food (contrasted with around 10% in the US and Canada), governments must play this dangerous game.  They naively believed that prices must retreat since world food supplies are tightening but still plentiful, and demand cannot increase where 20% of the population is unemployed.  They didn't learn the lesson of 2008: The Banksters are in charge, and the only number that matters is their profit margin.  Prices have surged in the past two weeks as several governments have placed huge grain orders from U.S. exporters in order to build their stocks.

The U.S. GDP number reported today was largely influenced by agricultural exports.  The saving grace of our economy in the past quarter was capitalizing on the rising prices of commodities, which has led to revolution in places where the government has encouraged stability for decades.

Where bellies are full, a few will rule.