Bust and Boom - or Maybe Just Survival

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Hafiz
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Bust and Boom - or Maybe Just Survival

Post by Hafiz »

Bust and Boom.

Egypt hasn’t had a boom since the US Civil War but it has been bust a few times together with long periods of just sad, life-support style, performance.

Its current debt isn’t sustainable and the international market knows this and has refused to loan it anything more since April of last year even though its idiot of the month Central Bank Governor has gone to the international market 3 times only to be told to go home,

Worse is to come. Egypt is likely to be downgraded by the ratings agency from awful to worse. It looks as if this will start to happen in the next month or so with S and P leading. One of the other two, Fitch, the one with the ever glowing opinions of Egypt and a positive outlook in August, might get hit for relying on a local debt rating agency that specializes in real estate to do its work – idiot. Fitch are outrageous – they supply a rating for debt but have not one worker in that country and rely on a local that is a joke and subject to political direction. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-emer ... SKCN1PF1GR

The sovereign debt held by locals at `19% pa is accelerating its acceleration and stands at 2 times external debt. https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/origin ... -debt.html. 19% isn't chep.

Domestic banks are huge lenders to the Government, the biggest in Africa and one of the biggest in the world, and their loans to equity stand at 571% which is a massive exposure let alone a huge concentration of risk to one customer. https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/mar ... index.html. If things go bad with the government the commercial banking system could collapse. Meanwhile there is little spare cash for the local banks (most of them government controlled and none produce even a farce of an annual report/set of accounts audited by a proper firm) to loan to private firms and individuals for commercial or house purchase - let alone to those unconnected to the government.

Western investment except for oil didn’t arrive and the Saudi’s seem to be sitting on their hands, Chinese investment except for contract building work on the New Monstrosity, has been small. Tourism growth has been small and almost of them are low cost/low rent types. If there is going to be a problem in the west even this could slow.

The international economy is looking shaky and if we go down oil and gas prices will also and that affects Egypt’s export earnings. Today I read that car sales in China are down 17.7% - year on year which together with sloppy Allpl/Mac sales looks like trouble.

The currency should be interesting because to date anyone who believes it’s a free and market float is a fool. Its been manipulated and managed in the past 2 years with the likely effect that the government is sitting on a big loss. With a downgrade the currency will drop.

Lebanon is headed for the high jump unless Saudi will shelve out a few score of billions to prevent Hezbollah and Iran getting a grip there.

Of course others, like the absolutely unreliable Standard Chartered (the major financier of all the dirty filthy privatizations/thefts under Mubarak), think Egypt is headed for major growth for the first tier in 150 years and will join the big boys and become the 7th largest economy in the world –no name attached to this riot of a Standard Chartered report and no name attached to the article – wonder why. https://www.news.com.au/finance/economy ... b6668fa2b7

Its 5th riskiest in the world for defaulting on its sovereign debt which explains why world markets have closed in the past 9 months and no one, not even the Saudi’s, will loan them money. This is three years old and it’s a deal worse now.https://madamasr.com/en/2015/08/17/news ... f-america/

Its being talked about by some of the smartest people in the world as a possible failed state – not made better by a bad government.
https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/worl ... the-crisis

At the moment its 36th worst in the world – and deteriorating in terms of falling apart. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... ates_Index

Prior to Christmas ’17 the New York Times did a big op-ed “Actually Egypt is a Terrible Ally”. It documented decades of non-performance – both for the US and for its own people – and suggested the relationship be reduced/closed down. It justified this in part on the basis that whilst Egypt may once have been important in the region it no longer mattered and had lost its leadership role. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/18/opin ... pence.html

Phrases such as ‘vacuous’, ‘major reduction in American military assistance’, ‘profoundly unfriendly behaviors’ (the new military alliance with Russia, backing the anti-western side in Libya and Syria and military relationships with North Korea), ‘Because of its internal decay, Egypt is no longer a regional heavyweight that can anchor America’s Middle East policy’ and it gets worse. (possibly true that its decayed but all the others are useless (for example Saudi doesn’t have a navy but relies on Hormuz for its power/wealth) or fragmented and small – a bit like NATO/EU).

Both authors of this harsh article were senior US government officials in the Department of State and the National Security Council. It is likely that the Coptic Egyptian Dina Powell who was the National Security Advisor to Trump (and who is shunned by the current Egyptian government but might yet be made US Ambassador to the UN) has a near identical view or at least a very negative view of Egypt’s current circumstances. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... b4456f0662

The Egyptian Ambassador to the US wrote a very brief response to the NYT which is both illiterate and illogical and does not even respond to the major arguments in the op-ed. If anything the response illustrates the low level of thinking skills in Egypt’s government and proves to the US leadership that Egypt, even at its peak, is not much good. He should have hired a PR firm to write it – most others would and I think this and other things indicate he should just shut up. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/31/opin ... egypt.html

There is a public view that Sisi and Trump get on well and this means a positive future for Egypt. This may not be true if Woodward’s recent biography of Trump is to be believed. Here are some reports of the book:

‘mocked Egypt's President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and referred to him as a "f***ing killer", according to investigative journalist Bob Woodward.

In an excerpt from Woodward's recently released book, Fear: Trump in the White House, the US leader made the remarks after securing the release of Aya Hijazi, an American Egyptian who was detained by Cairo for three years.
Woodward claimed that Trump was talking to then-White House legal adviser John Dowd about his negotiations with Sisi over Hijazi's release.

Trump reportedly told Dowd: "Remember who I'm talking to. The guy's a f***ing killer. This guy's a f***ing killer! I'm getting it done. He'll make you sweat on the phone.

The book then describes Trump as assuming a "deep grovelling voice" apparently intending to mimic Sisi

According to Woodward, Trump called Sisi's comments, which were apparently in reference to Robert Mueller's investigation into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 elections, a "kick in the nuts". (If itssuitable language for the leader of the free world it should be OK for this forum).

Hijazi was released from jail in April 2017, after nearly three years of imprisonment on human trafficking charges, which were widely dismissed as bogus by human rights groups.’ (the charges against her were likely a shocking fabrication and included allegations of sex, child prostitution and other screaming headlines for the Cairo masses and designed to do a nuclear hit smear on western NGO’s – showing the same self control they used with thrashing Regeni to death around the same time. The loathsome Presidential Advisor, Faiza Abu Naga - has hated BGO's for more than a decade, friend of Mubarak and very close to the Army - awful). The facts seemed to be that she and her husband ran an outstanding and practical program for street kids – the street kids Egypt hates to admit it has and denies having. Such kids seem involved, through little choice of theirs, in child prostitution rackets in Cairo. As ever Egypt hates admitting it has a problem and one that might involve middle class Muslims. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/09/ ... 19643.html and https://www.newsweek.com/trump-called-e ... ms-1115728

Here is the harridan Faiza - 3 failed facelifts for the old bag, no not her handbag, and 4 failed attempts to putt human DNA inside her. She is an authoritarian extremist, nationalist and has about as much democracy inside her as I have Hemlock - is very close to Sisi.

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Re: Bust and Boom - or Maybe Just Survival

Post by Major Thom »

I think just survival Hafiz, a good post pointing out some trinkets people may not know. Would anyone trust Donald Buttbubble though? More fool them if they do!
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