Black Friday in Egypt

I was planing to write on the political conflict and poverty in Egypt for a long time. Today, it became undelayable.

Lets go to back a little bit. Actually, Egypt is a very old state. The unification of the north and south was completed around 3200 BC! However, it has not a long history as a sovereign state. The country was invaded by Ottoman Turks in 1517. The Napoleon's invasion in 1798 interrupted this process. The Turks took the control back shortly but under an Ottoman General called Kavalali Mehmed Ali Paşa, it became a half dependent state of Ottoman Turks in 1805. Kavalali Mehmed Ali Paşa's regime has turned into a dynasty which passed from father to son, has been slowly colonized by Britain.

In 28 February 1922, Egypt has decleared full independence from Britain, followed by the decleration of Republic in 18 June 1953 as a result of 1952 Revolution. The architect of the 1952 revolution, Nasser became the president after the decleration of republic. However, the political instability in the region did not bring the country the peace. In 1967, the country, along with other Arab nations, has lost significant amount of its territory to Israel. Nasser died.

Nasser was succeeded by Enver Sedat. Together with Syria, Egypt has launched a surprise attack to Israel in 1973, called October War. Although militarily defeated, Egypt has regained the invaded territory as a result of the UN-pushed peace process. This brought high popularity to Sedat within Egypt and many protest from the Arabs who was defeated by Israel. The public hero Sedat Enver has been assassinated by a fundementalist in 1981. He was succeeded by Husnu Mubarek who was a war hero during 1973 War, served as the chief officer of Air forces.

Husnu Mubarek is the ruler of Egypt since then. His 30 years of presidency made him the longest serving ruler of his country since Kavalali Mehmed Ali Pasa.

Sözümü yerine getirmezsem milletimin huzuruna çıkamam*

Ben toprak büyütme meraklısı değilim. Barış bozma alışkanlığım yoktur. Ancak sözleşmeye dayanan hakkimizin isteyicisiyim. Onu almazsam edemem. Büyük meclisin kürsüsünden milletime söz verdim. Hatay'ı alacağım. Milletim benim dediğime inanır. Sözümü yerine getirmezsem milletimin huzuruna çıkamam. Yerimde kalamam. Ben şimdiye kadar yenilmedim, Yenilmem. Yenilirsem bir dakika yaşayamam.

* Mustafa Kemal ATATÜRK

Özgürlük ve bağımsızlık benim karakterimdir*

Özgürlük ve bağımsızlık benim karakterimdir. Ben milletimin en büyük ve ecdadımın en değerli mirası olan bağımsızlık aşkı ile dolu bir adamım. Çocukluğumdan bugüne kadar ailevî, hususî ve resmî hayatımın her safhasını yakından bilenler bu aşkım malumdur. Bence bir millete şerefin, haysiyetin , namusun ve insanlığın vücut ve beka bulabilmesi mutlaka o milletin özgürlük ve bağımsızlığına sahip olmasıyla kaimdir. Ben şahsen bu saydığım vasıflara, çok ehemmiyet veririm. Ve bu vasıfların kendimde mevcut olduğunu iddia edebilmek için milletimin de aynı vasıfları taşımasını esas şart bilirim. Ben yaşabilmek için mutlaka bağımsız bir milletin evladı kalmalıyım. Bu sebeple milli bağımsızlık bence bir hayat meselesidir. Millet ve memleketin menfaatleri icap ettirirse, insanlığı teşkil eden milletlerden her biriyle medeniyet icabı olan dostluk ve siyaset münasebetlerini büyük bir hassasiyetle takdir ederim. Ancak, benim milletimi esir etmek isteyen herhangi bir milletin, bu arzusundan vazgeçinceye kadar, amansız düşmanıyım.

* Mustafa Kemal ATATÜRK

Doğudan şimdi doğacak olan güneşe bakınız*

"Doğudan şimdi doğacak olan güneşe bakınız.
Bugün günün ağardığını nasıl görüyorsan,
uzaktan bütün doğu milletlerinin de uyanışlarını öyle göruyorum.
Bağımsızlık ve egemenliklerine kavuşacak olan çok kardeş millet vardır.
Sömürgecilik ve emperyalizm yer yüzünden yok olacak
ve yerlerini milletler arasında hiç bir renk, din ve ırk farkı gözetmeyen
yeni bir ahenk ve işbirliği çağı hakim olacaktır."

* Mustafa Kemal ATATÜRK

(Why and How) China is (macro-economically) the unbeatable leader of the world.

The GDP growth of China is well above of an average of 10% since they switched to open economy by their legendary leader Deng in 1992. There is also no sign of a slow down.
http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=ny_gdp_mktp_kd_zg&idi...m=country%3ACHN&dl=en&hl=en&q=gdp+growth+china

GDP of China has exceed 8.5 trillion usd if not 9, as of 2010 end.
GDP of US is around 14.5 trillion USD.
http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=ny_gdp_mktp_cd&idim=country:USA&dl=en&hl=en&q=us+gdp#met=ny_gdp_mktp_cd&idim=country:USA

This is (purchasing power) adjusted figures, not nominal. Nominal GDP, like nominal growth worths nothing and not usable. Because, especially in fixed exchange rate policies (like China) where government can decide the value of the currency but not the market, nominal value is not a measure. A small island economy could be the biggest economy of the world by simply announcing local currency trades at 1000s of USD. Suddenly, every transaction with local currency multiplied by 1000s of USD would magnify an enormous economic size or namely GDP. However, in reality the value of the total products bought and sold in that country (the definition of GDP) would not have been changed. Therefore, nominal figures are just for official purposes and do not have an economical meaning. By the way, altough the magtitude is exaggerated, this economic model is frequently seen in the world, resulting the collapse of the economy.

China has a fixed exchange rate as well but consciously undervalues YUAN against USD and Euro to increase current account (trade) and budget surplus at the expense of US and Europe. An undervalued YUAN means cheaper Chinese imports for US and European consumers. Therefore, higher demand for Chinese products. Even more production and GDP growth for China. However, bigger current account (export-imports) deficit for the importer countries to finance.

As a result of these policy, China has ended up with 2 trillion USD reserves accumulated from trade surpluss and US has 13.5 trillion usd debt to finance its trade deficit. which is really frightening! and worsens the initial situation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt

Lets forget about the debts and surplusses. Only focus on the size of the economy. There is the rule of 72. It gives the number of the years to double of an economy when you divide 72 into the percentage of growth which is 10 for china. So every 72/10=7 years Chinese economy doubles itself. Really! If you calculate the coumpounded growth rate of 10% for 7 years or simply multiply 10% with itself for 7 times, you can find that it doubles. Chinese economic size is already much more than half of US, and this shows China will exceed US not more than 7 years even if US goes on to grow and does not declare bankruptcy.

When we come to GDP per capita question, Chinese population is around 1.5 billion adn US is around 300 millions. http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=kf7tgg1uo9ude_&ctype=l&strail=false&nselm=h&met_y=population&hl=tr&dl=tr

So when if China would have been at the same economic size with US, an average US citizen would have been 5 times richer than that of China. However, with this growth rate China will double US in mid 2020s and quadrable by early 2030s. By late 2030s an average Sam will consume eqaul to that of a Chinese guy.