Runnymede Institute

Hillary Clinton can go on warbling for another year or so, the ugly face of Egypt didn’t include only Mubaraks sorry mug, it’s the unseen one, the face of his brutal security force we should examine. The porky Messalina of the US empire will one day quench her thirst for Egyptian corpuscles but she must wait a while, till the real troublemakers are sorted from the crowds. CIA rendition-to-torture sub-contractors have busywork today. Moving pieces on the global chessboard invites collision, it’s somebody’s job.

Fear of an empty belly is what actually sent people out onto the streets of Cairo and the preposterous claim that millions could fit into a protest in Tahrir Square missed the Al Jazeera setpiece altogether. Revolution’s been in the air consistently since Sadat’s murder but these things require a catalyst to set them off, make fireworks fly. And there has to be a profit in it or it’s not worth the cost or energy expended as all us grownups know, for the same folks who annointed the PIIGS before attacking them.

Egypt’s a simple deconstruct taken by the numbers; some backroom kid in The City gets handed a note that motivates him with a view to promotion, he makes a phone call to a grain dealer in the Ukraine, tells him he’s about to get shafted. But he has a solution for him too, he can call a name and number from the note, they’ll extend him a credit line for the year, better terms. The calls are made, the dumped banker pulls the plug, all Egyptian payments stopped and credit/overdraft overseas gets frozen.

At first it’s a slight panic in Cairo, a few days can pass before the books start going wonky and grain prices might need to rise, they prep for that though and make a few local calls to set up a worst case scenario. Major bakers get a call from insiders at their suppliers and a secretary who has overheard the rumour in it’s entirety carries it home to share with her family at the dinner table, by sundown every phone had rung.

And by then, ten other backroom kids in New York have made the same type phone call and set off small tremors in the region’s business spectrum. A canny Egyptian isn’t so easily fooled, nothing happens without reason and they correctly calculated multi-nationals lost confidence in the dictator, they scrambled for their banker’s attention.

Egypt’s connected check online to verify the rumour and hallelujah, a Facebook page telling them exactly what they need to know and how to protest. They make calls to un-connected friends to make sure all get the message. Next day, everybody with a phone knows all prices will definitely rise and the protestors kick it off. EazyPeazy!

By all appearances, anybody can do it, go out marauding in the financial markets by hiring a group of clued up Cub Scouts at the keyboards or a troupe of Vocal Artistes.  Select the commodities and bet accordingly, they’ll rise on cue when the mob riots.

So Mubarak had his, heart attack was it? Tempers have calmed, there’s cheeriness in the air and cherry blossoms will bloom any day now-hurrah-game over profit banked!

Notice what just happened? A population of 80 some million was panicked through the auspices of a few phone calls from insignificant fellows in London, contrived by the same gents who fabricated the Facebook page, resulting in a change of partnership structures and renewed banking leverage throttling the Egyptian market from afar, revolution over? The bread price went up, fresh violence is afoot, who’s in charge?

Banker Fairy Tales always end in a daze from their baffling baloney!

And their tool Reuters adds the salt to the wound…