One of the main motivators behind the protests in Egypt was the high cost of food. Egypt imports more than 50% of it's food, much of it from the United States, a bulk exporter of food. My guess would be many of the other Countries in the Middle East also import a large percentage of there food and are highly affected by the world market food prices, since a good part of there countries are desert. The desire for a new government had a smaller part of the "revolution", the main driving force was recent spikes in food prices and high unemployment. The ironic part is, all this unrest in the Middle East is pushing the price of gas up, higher gas prices equal a higher cost of growing and exporting food and you guessed it even HIGHER food prices. New Government or not, things are going to get even worse for the common person in the Middle East, at least in the short term.
I guess you could argue that higher gas prices means that the governments/ countries that sell the oil will have more money to buy food. I can't help wonder if its a vicious cycle, higher oil equals higher food prices, which in turn means the government raises oil prices to get more money to pay for the higher cost of food.
People in Countries that do not have significant amounts of oil exports really get the shaft, since they have even less money to buy food and no way for the governemnt to subsidize food prices.
invite response
One of the main motivators behind the protests in Egypt was the high cost of food. Egypt imports more than 50% of it's food, much of it from the United States, a bulk exporter of food. My guess would be many of the other Countries in the Middle East also import a large percentage of there food and are highly affected by the world market food prices, since a good part of there countries are desert. The desire for a new government had a smaller part of the "revolution", the main driving force was recent spikes in food prices and high unemployment. The ironic part is, all this unrest in the Middle East is pushing the price of gas up, higher gas prices equal a higher cost of growing and exporting food and you guessed it even HIGHER food prices. New Government or not, things are going to get even worse for the common person in the Middle East, at least in the short term.
I guess you could argue that higher gas prices means that the governments/ countries that sell the oil will have more money to buy food. I can't help wonder if its a vicious cycle, higher oil equals higher food prices, which in turn means the government raises oil prices to get more money to pay for the higher cost of food.
People in Countries that do not have significant amounts of oil exports really get the shaft, since they have even less money to buy food and no way for the governemnt to subsidize food prices.