GREED & Fear’s latest newsletter discusses the decline in gold at length. However, the report from CLSA’s Chris Woods has some much more interesting comments about China and the recent slowdown in GDP. GREED & fear has continued to be amazed by the resilience of oil over the past year and more. The best explanation for this continues to be not fundamentals but the fact that Saudi Arabia has desired a higher oil price...
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APCO presents research findings on Western perceptions of Arab Spring. As we have pointed out (both before and after) the West made naive blunders in so many instances involving the uprisings. Although other terms have been coined to describe the uprising, we think we have invented the term which in two words explains almost all of it, the Qatari Winter. Qatar has played a (largely negative) role in every single country which experienced the...
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While the Western media loved to portray the so-called “Arab Spring” as a Western style Democracy revolution the reality was far more complex. One of the largest motivating factors behind revolutions across Libya, Egypt, and elsewhere was the lack of economic opportunity, particularly for younger generations. The battle against high unemployment rates was just as important as the battle for political representation. Now with jobless rates among younger generations at historical highs across Europe...
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The General in charge of Egypt’s defense forces has stated that the country is in danger of imminent collapse. General Abdelfatah Al-Seesi, the country’s Minister of Defense under President Muhamed Morsi, said that ”The continuing conflict between political forces and their differences concerning the management of the country could lead to a collapse of the state and threaten future generations.” Egypt has seen more than a week of violence in the streets of its...
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A Pakistani man has declared a revolution in the South Asian country, telling the nation’s assembly to dissolve. The man, Allama Tahir ul Qadri, leads Minhaj-ul-Quran, a non-profit organization which he founded in 1981. Qadri said that the country’s current administration was corrupt, and incompetent, its mandate was no longer valid, and it needed to dissolve before the country’s coming general election. The 61 year old former professor made the statements to a crowd...
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Food, fuel and water, are among the most heavily subsidized commodities on Earth. These three commodities form “basic” commodities and ensuring access to them is essential for just about every person. Nearly every government works to provide its population has access to these basic resources and many of those governments who have failed to do so have faced populace backlash. Yet as labor markets and wages for working class people have stagnated in recent...
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Egypt’s election results were announced last Sunday, investing the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Mursi as the country’s President. The announcement followed days of turmoil. Egypt’s Supreme Court dissolved the country’s parliament on the 14th of June, and the presidential election results were delayed for days by the electoral commission. After the dissolution of the parliament, and the delays imposed by the electoral commission, turmoil erupted in Cairo and thousands poured into the streets in renewed protest...
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A ruling by a court in Egypt has declared the country’s parliament to be illegitimate and ordered its dissolution. the court also struck down a case that would have seen Ahmed Shafiq, Mubarak’s last Prime Minister, disqualified from running in the presidential race. The ruling was made by the Supreme Constitutional Court in Egypt. The court is made up of justices who were all appointed by President Hosni Mubarak when he was in power....
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The Egyptian electorol commission has released the official results of the country’s first round of presidential elections. The second round run off will see the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohammed Morsi face former Mubarak-era Prime Minister and Air Force Commander Ahmed Shafiq. According to the commission Morsi received 5.76 million votes while Shafiq received 5.5 million. The closeness of the competition in the first round makes the second round look all the more heated. The second...
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The first round of Egypt’s presidential election is over. After the dust cleared there were left two completely opposing candidates set for a run off in a country fresh from political upheaval. The run off which will decide the country’s next president will be between the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohammed Morsi and a veteran of Hosni Mubarak’s ousted government, former Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq. The first round of the presidential elections was held on Wednesday...
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A new report from the Pew Research Center has enumerated some key facts about the mood of the country’s populace as a presidential election approached on May 23 and 24. The report which is made up of 1000 individual face to face conducted between March 19 and April 10. 53% of the population are satisfied by the direction of the country and 52% are optimistic about the future. Those numbers are lower than they were in...
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