Sunday 6 February 2011

FT.com - Lessons from IMF’s Egypt blunder

Some people in Frankfurt and Brussels have greater faith than I in the value of multilateral oversight of stressed euro area countries. Let’s consider how well the International Monetary Fund did on predicting the current toxic mess in Egypt.

By now we have heard enough street interviews with articulate Egyptian rebels to know they are driven to desperation by economic and social stagnation. The last straws were, apparently, the recent rise in food prices, and the example of their Tunisian neighbours.

The risk of a social explosion would have been obvious to educated observers with inside knowledge of the local economy, right?

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