Noam Chomsky

[Who2]

Here's a load of crap from Chomsky talking out of his arse again about another Country whilst he sits in his ivory tower at MIT, with absolutely no first hand knowledge other than his highly overated self opinionated views..
http://www.egyptindependent.com//news/c ... tion-egypt

[Glyphdoctor]

Leaving aside his geographic location and your personal animosity toward him, why do you disagree with the specific points he makes?

[Remus]

Yes, why? I'd have thought a serious academic anarchist like Prof Chomsky would have
appealed to you, Dr Who.
I wonder whether you read the interesting comments after this short article.

I'm not sure about anything in Egypt, but my gut feeling is that Chomsky is right - and
possibly sooner than you think.

[Who2]

Well he didn't predict the last two here did he ?….

[newcastle]

A prominent US expert on the Middle East has predicted a new revolutionary outbreak in Egypt under the current government of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi due to its inability to address the country’s problems. A very subjective assessment. Far too early to say this

Noam Chomsky, a renowned political commentator and professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), told Al Jazeera satellite channel on 16 January that what he described as “the military regime” I see the hand of AJ here!in Egypt was unable to handle the real problems facing the state,Says who...again, a bit early to reach such conclusions adding that Egypt was waiting for another revolutionary outbreak, and that the current government can no longer rely on the financial support from the oil-rich Gulf states.Really....and where's the evidence for this?

Chomsky said Egypt witnessed the most important stage in the Arab Spring, with the 2011 uprising against former president Hosni Mubarak being a real revolution that had its beginnings years earlier.

He said that the ‘military coup’, as he put itThe hand of AJ again?, referring to the ouster of former president Mohamed Morsy by the Armed Forces in 2013, had done away with the country’s nascent democratic systemYeah...Morsi was sooooo democratic. Excuse me?. However, he added that Egypt benefited from the uprising, with gains represented in strengthened labor activism and a popular desire for change.

My perception is that the majority of the population have no appetite whatsoever for further unrest....and Sisi has a firm grip on the throats of those who do!

[Glyphdoctor]

Stop living in the past like an old geezer stuck in his ways and think about the fact that the majority of the population is under the age of 23 and will be increasingly younger with the increase in birthrate. If another revolution comes, it will be led by a generation for whom Mubarak is just a name in the history books, the divide between MB and non-MB is a thing of the past, who never watched al Jazeera and for whom the return of Morsi is not a demand because they never voted for or against him. Look forward, think about the contemporary circumstances under which these youth will be living without any personal baggage of the past, for whom stability means nothing because they have no past to continue and only a future to worry about, and there you will find the answer in your crystal ball.

[Dusak]

The one problem with the increased numbers of the up and coming youths is that idle hands make the devils work. They need a release for those tensions and pent up levels of anger as they continually have to do without due to having no work or a higher education with no end placements.

It was stated on the news the other day that the new parallel Suez canal will be completed by the end of August. This will double the revenue and create a lot of jobs. Mr President told them that the original three year construction time was not good enough, he wanted it in twelve and got it. If he uses these powers of persuasion in all manner of things concerning the economical growth of Egypt, I doubt that they will be any need for another revolution. They all have to give the guy a chance and stop taking his time up pestering him about journalists in jail.

[newcastle]

Stop living in the past like an old geezer stuck in his ways and think about the fact that the majority of the population is under the age of 23 and will be increasingly younger with the increase in birthrate. If another revolution comes, it will be led by a generation for whom Mubarak is just a name in the history books, the divide between MB and non-MB is a thing of the past, who never watched al Jazeera and for whom the return of Morsi is not a demand because they never voted for or against him. Look forward, think about the contemporary circumstances under which these youth will be living without any personal baggage of the past, for whom stability means nothing because they have no past to continue and only a future to worry about, and there you will find the answer in your crystal ball.

You don't need a crystal ball to see that the situation will be dire 10-15 years hence if Egypt's socio-economic picture remains as it is today. The 15-40 age group may, by then, be more than half the population.

Presumably this is why the current regime is going hell for leather for economic development and they only have a decade or so to achieve meaningful improvement.

Anyone who now predicts the outcome will be extremely lucky....or wrong.

[Glyphdoctor]

Things can change quickly. A new Suez Canal will only have business as long as pirates from an anarchic Yemen in a civil war aren't menacing the route through the Red Sea. With a new king next door. Expect the unexpected.

[carrie]

Maybe instead of investing the 6 billion dollars that I believe the new canal will cost the money would have been better spent not on prestigious projects but investing in the infrastructure that certainly needs upgrading. I certainly was surprised by the number of power cuts in Cairo.

[Remus]

So you'll be pleased to read this:

By Reuters | Cairo
Friday, 23 January 2015

Six Egyptian banks have reached a deal to fund an electricity generation project worth 3 billion Egyptian pounds ($405 million), the state news agency MENA reported on Thursday.

The deal was led by the National Bank of Egypt, Egypt's largest commercial bank, MENA said.

[newcastle]

Things can change quickly. A new Suez Canal will only have business as long as pirates from an anarchic Yemen in a civil war aren't menacing the route through the Red Sea. With a new king next door. Expect the unexpected.

I was under the impression that the pirates are from Somalia......not Yemen.

Yemeni fisherman are sometimes their victims.

[Glyphdoctor]

Yes, but if Yemen goes the way of Somalia, one has to worry about piracy from Yemen as well.

[A-Four]

Maybe instead of investing the 6 billion dollars that I believe the new canal will cost the money would have been better spent not on prestigious projects but investing in the infrastructure that certainly needs upgrading. I certainly was surprised by the number of power cuts in Cairo.

The money raised for this project Carrie was by public issue bonds purchased by Egyptians in $, so the new canal is owned by share or in this case bond holders. Whether these bonds will be profitable is debatable, last month was a record for revenue from shipping through the Suez Canal to the Egyptian exchequer, so on the idea that there is scope for even greater profit sounds good, however, if we look carefully we discover that shipping can be waiting up to 12 hours in queue form in either direction to pass through the Canal. The new two lane system will certainly improve the situation, though I doubt whether shipping companies will want to pay extra for Egyptian efficiency. With regards to the Egyptian Governments idea that it will increase shipping by 100%, I think not, perhaps 25 to 35% at most.

[Dusak]

It did state on the news that all shipping companies were looking forwards to the opening to increase their shipping by up to 60% and decrease the waiting time, time that has to be paid for. I just hope those in receipt of these extra loads have the cash to pay for them. Yemen pirates? Doubt it, but one never knows.

[A-Four]

It did state on the news that all shipping companies were looking forwards to the opening to increase their shipping by up to 60% and decrease the waiting time, time that has to be paid for.

Well you would expect the state run media and the government to state that, they are in the business to sell bonds,..........even though it seems now, after a short time they have reduced ITS figure from 100% increase in capacity.

[newcastle]

http://www.madamasr.com/sections/economy/too-big-fail

"Work has begun on the canal expansion, and given its high profile and popularity, it is unlikely to fade into obscurity. But its ambitious scale is already causing problems.

Experts have questioned the economic rationale for the project. Officials claim the expansion and development plans will increase canal revenues to $13.5 billion by 2023, compared to a record of $5.3 billion last year. But a wider canal won’t necessarily lead to higher traffic — shipping patterns are highly dependent on global trade trends.

Islam Mamdouh, an engineer with experience managing infrastructure projects throughout the Middle East, estimates that the changes in the canal will bring in an extra $200 million to $300 million per year.

“They are saying it will double the revenue. I don’t see how,” he says.

The project’s compressed timeline will also drive up construction costs, Mamdouh explains. The digging work required is extremely complicated, particularly because the military has pushed to have the new lane of canal be dug no further than 400 to 600 meters from the existing one.

Skeptics note that doing so will create a narrow island with long stretches of very desirable waterfront property. But keeping the waterways close together also makes it much easier for the military to secure the entire waterway.

At the same time, digging so close together means that water from the old canal will seep into the new one, which means contractors will have to do much of the work by dredging rather than simpler and cheaper dry digging.

“In an engineering sense, it’s much better to make it 10-15 kilometers from the old one,” says Mamdouh. With enough distance between channels, almost all of the new canal could be dug dry, saving time and money. "In too wet conditions it’s much more expensive than dry conditions,” he says.

Sisi originally promised that the work would be done by Egyptian companies and the Egyptian military. But wet dredging and a one-year time limit have made that impossible.

All the dredgers in Egypt together cannot shift more than about 250,000 cubic meters of earth per day, Mamdouh says. A three-year timetable would have stretched Egyptian companies to capacity; for them to do it in one year is impossible. With some 300 million cubic meters to dredge by the beginning of August, contractors will have to dredge around 1.3 million cubic meters per day.

As a result, Egypt has had to turn to foreign firms. It is paying over $2 billion to two foreign consortiums to assist with the dredging.

The first consortium, consisting of the National Marine Dredging Company of the United Arab Emirates, two Dutch firms — Royal Boskalis Westminster and Van Oord — and Belgian Jan de Nul group, was awarded a $1.5 billion contract to help dig a 50-kilometer long channel parallel to the original canal.

The second consortium, consisting of Dutch firm Dredging International and the US-based Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Company, will be paid $540 million to deepen and widen a 25-kilometer stretch of the western branch of the Suez Canal at the Great Bitter Lake, Deversoir Reach and Kabreet Reach.

The government is also reportedly in negotiations with German firm Herrenknecht AG to bore tunnels under the canal, another project initially pledged to the military.

With assistance from foreign firms, Egypt may have a chance of completing the canal on time, but it comes at the cost of taking billions in infrastructure contracts away from Egyptian companies."

[newcastle]

Another "interesting" feature of this project is that over 40% of the money (mostly contributed by Egytians personally) came from "under the mattress".

I wonder how much more is lurking there?