Tuesday Tidings

It Was the Best of Times, it was the Worst of Times...

There are two cats inside me…

I noticed this post on Zerohedge this morning about the Egyptian president telling his people that progress is starvation. This is so meme worthy it literally writes itself:

“Don’t you Egyptians dare say you would rather eat than build and progress,” Sisi said. “If the price of the nation’s progress and prosperity is to go hungry and thirsty, then let us not eat or drink,” he added…

In a meandering and times informal dialogue, the Egyptian president suggested ways in which he could “destroy” Egypt, if he were so inclined, by distributing pills to foster chaos in the country. 

Sisi said that he spoke with the Supreme Judicial Council regarding how easy the country would be to destroy and had concluded that giving 100,000 people in “difficult circumstances” tramadol, a strong opioid, would do the trick at a cost of no more than $30m. It is unclear why he publicized such remarks but his comments were widely condemned online...

Egypt has been gripped by an economic crisis for years, a situation exacerbated by the war in Ukraine which has severely affected food prices in the country.

Official figures showed annual inflation in Egypt reached a new record 39.7 percent in August, while the Egyptian pound has been on a dramatic slide against the dollar. A dollar buys 30 Egyptian pounds today compared to just under 20 exactly a year ago.

Egypt has been dependent on bailouts from its wealthier allies in the Gulf and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in recent years, as investors pull billions out of the country.

While the financial crisis has a range of causes, many opposition figures have pointed fingers at the increasing grip the military has held over the economy following the 2013 coup that ousted the elected government of Mohamed Morsi.

What kind of clown world am I living in?

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