Fact Check: USA support of Egyptian Military

I heard a claim that 40% of Egypt's military budget comes from US Foreign Aid.

US Foreign Aid to Egypt consists of $1.3 billion in unconditional "Foreign Military Financing", and an additional amount of economic aid estimated to be around $0.7 billion.  Some argue for including that amount, because it frees up more Egyptian money to be used for military spending.

There are a variety of claims for Egypt's military spending.  Reasonable estimates are  between $7.1 billion (wikipedia) and $7.6 billion (computed from CIA Factbook figures), although numbers from $4.5 billion to $14 billion are seen.  Much of the confusion may come because Egypt's military is very entwined with the rest of the government, and it may be hard to determine which expenditures are for military purposes.

Using $7.1 billion as the number, the percentage is 18% for $1.3b and 28% for $2b.  The 28% is close to a 25% claim from CNN.  The claim of 40% must come from using the $2 billion for aid, and a very low estimate for spending of around $5 billion.

Why is this important?  The current military regime has killed 40 protesters in the past week.  If we are providing between 18% and 40% of the money for the Egyptian military, will the United States be culpable of supporting a military dictatorship, if the Egyptian military turns against the people?

Children are forced into walking through OWS protesters to get to school.

Children were forced in to walking through the occupy wall street protesters to get to school http://www.theblaze.com/stories/follow-those-kids-wall-st-occupiers-heckle-small-children-as-they-walk-gauntlet-to-get-to-school/. Many of the children were scared because many of the protesters were screaming and threatening to follow them. One of the parents said "these guys are terrorists yelling at little kids. The crowds got so bad that many children were late to school. I think that the wall street occupy should not be interfering with children and their education.

Syrian Protests May Oust The Current Regime

An AP Press article discusses the increasing concerns of foreign nations as embassies are stormed in Syria. They say that the riots are coming to a head as violation increases, and that the current regime of President Bashir Assad is going to have to step down. http://www.taiwannews.com.tw/etn/news_content.php?id=1761837

A lesson from the Austro-Hungarian Empire

I particularly like stories which relate historical events to modern problems.  Here is a story from planet money which compares the current economic crises in Greece and Italy to the breakup of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918.  (They lost World War I, and got carved up into several smaller countries.)  Using this historical precedent, they are able to answer the question of what would happen of Greece were to try to leave the Euro-zone and return to its own national currency.

2008 Rice Bubble

In 2008, there was a brief food crisis and bubble in the price of rice.  Planet Money has an audio podcast where they describe the rice bubble and the ways in which governments interfered with the laws of supply and demand to cause the crisis.  They conclude that there was always plenty of rice, but it just wasn't getting to the people who wanted to buy it.

This is another good example of the applications of the laws of supply and demand that we talk about in class, so I highly recommend listening to it.

Welcome

This is the new blog for Scholar School Current Events class.

If anyone can think of a better name for this blog, send me nominations!