What next for North Africa/Middle East?

lostinrates

diable wrote: »

Its screwed my holiday choices for this year................

Its a real issue. For a country that has a decent tourism take. It must be sgnificant but I wonder what tourism does bring in for them?

wiki says ''Tourism is one of the most important sectors in Egypt's economy. More than 12.8 million tourists visited Egypt in 2008, providing revenues of nearly $11 billion. The sector employs about 12 percent of Egypt's workforce.''


That really is a significant factor then.

michaels

It really is 'the economy stupid' - you can repress your people for years and get away with it...until the price of food increases and suddenly they take to the street - as true today as it was when 'if they have no bread let them eat cake'.

The Chinese already believe this to be true and will be having the opinions reinforced which means expect neither a sharp Yuan revaluation nor a refusal to fund the US trade deficit any time ever.

I was am too young to remember what was going on during the Iranian revolution (which I think the Egyptian situation mirrors right down to lots of discussion about what the US state department wants to see happen) - can anyone with recall draw any parallels? Obviously if it does become Tehran part 2 some very strong predictions can be made about what will happen to oil prices for starters and the global economy shortly thereafter...

Generali

gagahouse wrote: »

It seems to me we are witnessing the law of unintended consequences - the FED's attempt to reflate has led to a surge in....food prices.

It's an El Nina year so large parts of South America are experiencing drought and Australia (bread basket and meat platter of Asia) having massive floods. Add to that Russia's grain export ban and the US turning a third of her corn into ethanol for fuel and you have a far more likely cause of food prices rising.

IronWolf

diable wrote: »

Give it a year or so and in England it will be the same, house prices will rise FTB wannabes will riot gold and silver will crash all the London council tenants kicked out of their £4000 pw homes will burn Wigan, Wrexham and Luton to the ground. The Monarchy will rise and the despot regime called the Government will fall.


Happy days.........

lol, if that happens I will eat my hat.

gagahouse

Generali wrote: »

It's an El Nina year so large parts of South America are experiencing drought and Australia (bread basket and meat platter of Asia) having massive floods. Add to that Russia's grain export ban and the US turning a third of her corn into ethanol for fuel and you have a far more likely cause of food prices rising.

I appreciate the supply issues and the unusual weather patterns affecting crops this year, I remain unconvinced that it is purely down to these factors alone and that central banks massively increasing money stocks globally have no consequence on dollar denominated commodities.

Maybe one is just amplifying the other creating the perfect storm for food prices we are witnessing now.

vivatifosi

Jonbvn wrote: »

I won't comment on the politics. However, it is is not difficult to predict the affect these problems will have on the price of oil.

Nor the distribution difficulties that will ensue if the Suez Canal shuts again like it did for a prolonged period in the 1960s. The world is now even more global and won't want its goods being shipped via S Africa or through the Panama and across the Atlantic. Still, it may well put the Somali pirates out of business. Every cloud and all that...

lostinrates

Its interesting that proper paid for pundits are generally more hopeful than we are....

Degenerate

diable wrote: »

will burn Wigan, Wrexham and Luton to the ground.

I suppose every cloud does have a silver lining.

neas

Cheap holidays to tunisia and egypt in a few years time then? :O

lostinrates

neas wrote: »

Cheap holidays to tunisia and egypt in a few years time then? :O

Cheap holidays now to Sharm el sheikh.

Personally, I wouldn't do it.