The Guardian: A private estate called Egypt (how a thousand families control Egypt's economy)

[highplainsdem]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/06/private-estate-egypt-mubarak-cronies

There is a lot more behind Hosni Mubarak digging in his heels and setting his thugs on the peaceful protests in Cairo's Tahrir Square than pure politics. This is also about money. Mubarak and the clique surrounding him have long treated Egypt as their fiefdom and its resources as spoils to be divided among them.

Under sweeping privatisation policies, they appropriated profitable public enterprises and vast areas of state-owned lands. A small group of businessmen seized public assets and acquired monopoly positions in strategic commodity markets such as iron and steel, cement and wood. While crony capitalism flourished, local industries that were once the backbone of the economy were left to decline. At the same time, private sector industries making environmentally hazardous products like ceramics, marble and fertilisers have expanded without effective regulation at a great cost to the health of the population.

A tiny economic elite controlling consumption-geared production and imports has accumulated great wealth. This elite includes representatives of foreign companies with exclusive import rights in electronics, electric cables and automobiles. It also includes real estate developers who created a construction boom in gated communities and resorts for the super-rich. Much of this development is on public land acquired at very low prices, with no proper tendering or bidding.

It is estimated that around a thousand families maintain control of vast areas of the economy. This business class sought to consolidate itself and protect its wealth through political office. The National Democratic party was their primary vehicle for doing so. This alliance of money and politics became flagrant in recent years when a number of businessmen became government ministers with portfolios that clearly overlapped with their private interests.

-snip-

Enlightening read.

And the description of how "the national wealth passed into a few private hands while the majority of the population was impoverished" sounds a lot like what is happening here in the US.

[Catherina]

1. My last rec of the night is yours Strong recommendation and must read. n/t

[highplainsdem]

2. Thanks, Catherina!

[Skink]

3. Sounds like the good old US of A.

[leftstreet]

4. K&R

Well worth the read

[ancient_nomad]

5. Highly Recommend!

Thank you for posting this! Sounds like the same thing being done here in our country. The only difference being the Egyptians are smart enough to see it and do something about it.

[snagglepuss]

6. +1

[grahamhgreen]

7. THE issue, around the world, is rich VS everyone else. Tax em.

[upi402]

8. I think I see a pattern

Even a blind man could see it. It's fairly new, it has definite order to it, and it's worlwide.

[Catherina]

10. A worldwide pattern. Sad ain't it? n/t

[blindpig]

16. The only thing new is the magnitude.

Same old gang, mostly the same families, it is the extent of accumulation which is new.

The bigger they are the harder they fall.

[JDPriestly]

9. When I read that, it makes me think of the US.

How many families control our country? And who will be buying up all the government assets that states like California will be forced to sell in the coming years? Of course, some of the families that control the US don't even live here. A few of them may even live in the Middle East including Saudi Arabia.

[WinkyDink]

11. "A thousand families"? Better than our half-dozen or so.

[no_hypocrisy]

12. Mubarak may not have a choice whether to stay or to go.

These thousand families control more than wealth. They can take him and his family out any place on Earth he decides to go. If they tell him to stay and "control the mobs", he will do it.

It looks like he's being arrogant, stubborn, etc., but maybe he'd like to be a dictator-in-exile, but for . . . .

[malaise]

13. Bottom line - until neo-con and neo-liberal philosophies

are banished we are collectively fucked.

[Hannah Bell]

14. kr

[blindpig]

15. They are as much the enemy as Mubarak...

as the rich are our enemy here.

[highplainsdem]

17. kick