$944,143,000,000: Social Security Administration Spending Hit Record in FY2015; $6,345 For Every American With a Job

$944,143,000,000: Social Security Administration Spending Hit Record in FY2015; $6,345 For Every American With a Job:

(CNSNews.com) - Spending by the Social Security Administration--which includes payments for Social Security and disability benefits as well as Supplemental Security Income payments and the administrative costs for these programs--hit a record $944,143,000,000 in fiscal 2015,according to data published by the U.S. Treasury.

Even in constant 2015 dollars (with adjustments made using the Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator), that was up $33,748,280,000 from the $910,394,720,000 the Social Security Administration spent in 2015 dollars in fiscal 2014.

Missouri protest: List of demands issued to university | Fox News

Missouri protest: List of demands issued to university | Fox News:
Members of the University of Missouri football team raised awareness of the school's racial turmoil Saturday, joining forces with the student protesters and threatening to boycott football activities until president Tim Wolfe is removed from his position.

The student group leading the protest, Concerned Student 1950, issued its list of demands, which the Columbia Daily Tribune published, to the university last month. 
It's unclear if the university has taken steps to adopt any of the proposed changes, or if the striking football players want all of these demands met.

Muslim Flight Attendent Refuses to Serve Infidel... But What Happens Next Is Even Worse

Muslim Flight Attendent Refuses to Serve Infidel... But What Happens Next Is Even Worse:

"Welcome to Obama’s America, ladies and gentlemen, where, according to Breitbart contributor Pamela Geller, Muslims feel free to “chip, chip, chip away at the establishment clause, and in doing so, impose Islam on the secular marketplace.”

It used to be that people would do everything in their power to abide by the rules of their employer, but apparently, these days it’s all about making the employer abide by their rules instead.

Or at least it is for radical Muslims."

Missing Man Formation Done By WWII's Finest Warbirds

Missing Man Formation Done By WWII's Finest Warbirds - World War Wings
The Ultimate Homage To Fallen Pilots
In 2015, the Planes of Fame Museum of Chino California held a very special event displaying the rarest and most iconic warbirds of World War II.
In addition, they were paying their respects to all the pilots who never flew back home with the Missing Man Formation.
This formation was first seen in the movie Hell Divers in 1932 and it was then adopted by the Untied States in 1938.
These flypasts are typically done at funeral or memorial events.
There are many variations of this formation, but in all of them one of the aircraft pulls up or splits off, representing the missing man that’s going into the heavens.
This awesome display you’ll see in the video also has a very special treat as well. As it was a meticulously planned event, all the planes were equipped with cameras.
That footage was then expertly edited using the different vantage points for your viewing pleasure.
As for the warbirds in the video, you’ll see the P-38 Lightning, P-36 Hawk, North American Harvards and a P-47 Thunderbolt.
This doesn’t leave much else to be desired.

PHOTO: Chick-fil-A Proves Once Again That They're An "Evil" Company... This Is Incredible

PHOTO: Chick-fil-A Proves Once Again That They're An "Evil" Company... This Is Incredible:

"A growing anti-cop sentiment has swept the nation over the last several months, leading to police officers being attacked and killed simply for wearing the badge, retailers selling anti-cop apparel, and celebrities issuing vile statements against our nation’s officers.

Even some restaurant chains joined in on the anti-cop rhetoric, as we saw in West Hartford, Connecticut, when a police officer stopped in Dunkin’ Donuts to grab a hot cup of coffee before his Saturday morning shift and was denied service for being “a cop.”

Feminization of America Is Bad for the World

Dennis Prager: Feminization of America Is Bad for the World — The Patriot Post:
"Last week, The New York Times published an article, “Sweeping Away Gender-Specific Toys and Labels,” that contained three sentences that explain one of the most important phenomena in American life.
In discussing the increasing move to do away with gender-specific toys — something The New York Times approves of — the article quoted Tania Missad, the “director of global consumer insights” at one of the world’s largest toy manufacturers, Mattel:
“Mattel’s research showed some differences in what girls and boys wanted in their action figures, Ms. Missad said. ‘For boys it’s very much about telling a story of the good guy killing the villain.’ … 
[Girls] would tell us: ‘Why does the good girl have to kill the villain? Can’t they be friends in the end?’”
Very little academic research on sex differences is likely to be as accurate as research conducted by businesses and advertising agencies. 
The reason is simple: Businesses and advertising agencies have no social or political agenda; their agenda is profit.
Their assessments must be accurate or they lose money; and those providing wrong assessments are fired.
Academics, on the other hand, have nothing on the line. 
When they publish studies that purport to show that boys and girls want the same types of toys, they lose nothing for asserting something so patently false.
In business there is a very big price paid for believing what is untrue.
Among academics, there is no price — certainly not their reputations, because other academics want to believe the same nonsense.
The Mattel research reveals that male nature wants good guys to kill bad guys (of course, in bad societies the definition of “good guy” and “villain” may well be inverted, but that is a values issue, not a male-nature issue); and that female nature wants the good guy and bad guy to “be friends in the end.”
This difference may be the most important of all the sex differences. 
Indeed, it can actually shape the future of America and of the world..."

Obama..."If you like your happiness, you can keep your happiness".....Americans over 30 are more miserable than they’ve ever been

Americans over 30 are more miserable than they’ve ever been - MarketWatch
It all goes downhill after 30 — at least when it comes to happiness.
“Adults over 30 are less happy than their predecessors,” concludes a study published online Thursday in the journal Social Psychology and Personality Science...
From 2010 to 2014, adults over 30 had an average happiness score of just 2.18, compared with 2.24 a decade ago.
That’s significant considering happiness scores were measured on a tiny scale from just 1 to 3, with 1 being “not too happy” and 3 being “very happy.”
(The data used five-year cohort periods so that single year fluctuations were smoothed out.)
What’s perhaps even more interesting is that, for the first time ever, adults ages 18 to 29 were happier than adults over 30.
“The happiness advantage of mature adults over adolescents has dwindled,” write the authors of the study, entitled “More Happiness for Young People and Less for Mature Adults: Time Period Differences in Subjective Well-Being in the United States, 1972 - 2014.”

Gone baby, gone-----'Traditional' family only 7% of households, and 8 other facts on Michigan families

'Traditional' family only 7% of households, and 8 other facts on Michigan families | MLive.com
Of the 2.5 million families in Michigan, only 7 percent fit the traditional stereotype: A married couple with children under 18 where the husband works and the wife stays home, according to data recently released as part of the U.S. Bureau's 2014 American Community Survey.
One factor: A shrinking number of Michigan families include children. In 2005, 47 percent of Michigan families had children under 18; in 2014, it was 41 percent.
Here's some other highlights about the latest Census data on Michigan families with children and on parents in the workforce:

Database: Family characteristics by county

Online Database by Caspio

Search Again   County Number of families w/ children under 18 % headed by married couple % families with stay-at-home parent Muskegon 16942 61% 26% Details

Noon-toon

Pentagon Asked Why It Took $43 Million To Build 1 Gas Station...Their 'Answer' Is Something Else -

Pentagon Asked Why It Took $43 Million To Build 1 Gas Station...Their 'Answer' Is Something Else 

"The Obama administration is no stranger to charges of wasteful spending, but shelling out $43 million to build a single, useless gas station in a foreign country half-way around the world really takes the prize for pouring federal dollars down the drain. Adding insult to injury for the American taxpayer, Obama’s Pentagon is now refusing to explain itself to government investigators.

Why did it cost $43 million to build one gas station in Afghanistan, when the same sort of facility cost taxpayers only $300,000 in Pakistan?"

Veterans Day parade rejects ‘Confederate Lives Matter’ float, but accepts CAIR

Veterans Day parade rejects ‘Confederate Lives Matter’ float, but accepts CAIR | The American Mirror:
The organizers of the Tulsa, Oklahoma Veterans Day parade think a group remembering the Confederacy is too controversial, but the radical Muslim group CAIR is okay.
The group “Confederate Veterans Lives Matter” applied to be a part of Wednesday’s parade, flying their Confederate flags, but the organizing committee denied their request, News On 6 reports.
“Just a regular old float, have the Confederate flag up there like we have mounted on our trucks, and have some people on the float, and wave our flags and have some visibility,” Confederate group Arlene Barnum says, describing the presentation of the float.
Parade organizers rejected Barnum’s request, saying it was submitted too late and the event doesn’t allow “any group that pushes its own personal agenda.”
Organizers deemed Confederate Veterans Lives Matter “is a political message in itself.”
But parade organizers are allowing the Council on American Islamic Relations, a group critics say is closely aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood.
“It’s something we have been wanting to do for years,” Adam Soltani, executive director of the Oklahoma Chapter of CAIR tells the Tulsa World.

Freedom in great danger!---Important Read of the day!-----Prosecuting Climate Dissent

Prosecuting Climate Dissent - WSJ:
Sheldon Whitehouse got his man.
The Rhode Island Senator has been lobbying for prosecutions of oil and gas companies over climate change, and New York Attorney General and progressive activist Eric Schneiderman has now obliged by opening a subpoena assault on Exxon Mobil.
This marks a dangerous new escalation of the left’s attempt to stamp out all disagreement on global-warming science and policy.
Progressives have been losing the political debate over climate change, failing to pass cap and trade even when Democrats had a supermajority in Congress.
So they have turned to the force of the state through President Obama’s executive diktats and now with the threat of prosecution.
This assault won’t stop with Exxon.
Climate change is the new religion on the left, and progressives are going to treat heretics like Cromwell did Catholics.
We mention Mr. Whitehouse because he has been the lead Cromwell in calling for the use of the RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) statute, a law created to prosecute the mafia, to bring civil cases against companies that fund climate research of which he disapproves.
After we called him out in a recent editorial, Mr. Whitehouse denounced us on the Senate floor and compared everyone who disagrees with him to tobacco companies.
The tobacco analogy is instructive, though not in the way Mr. Whitehouse intends...
...Even with the fearsome power of the Martin Act, this investigation appears built for media consumption more than courtroom success.
There are no “facts” about the eventual extent and impact of climate change that Exxon or anyone else can hide, because inside or outside the company there are only estimates based largely on computer models.
And if the Exxon files reveal various competing conjectures, even in New York it still isn’t illegal to conduct scientific research.
Exxon says its scientists have published more than 50 papers on climate-related research in peer-reviewed publications.
Exxon has also been explicit in its financial disclosures that the politics of climate change poses potential risks to investors.
By the way, in 2013 the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reduced the lower end of its forecasted range of global temperature increases due to carbon emissions.
Will Mr. Schneiderman subpoena the U.N. to find out when officials first learned that climate change might not be as dramatic as they expected?
Read on and see into a possible "Brave New World" of government control.

The Curious Reaction to NASA's Antarctic Ice Growth News

The Curious Reaction to NASA's Antarctic Ice Growth News:
"So as you may have heard, NASA just released satellite data showing that — contrary to the official narrative — Antarctic ice is not only growing, but has been growing rapidly and consistently as long as anyone can discern. 
At a rate of 112 billion tons of ice per year net.
That rate of growth slowed down briefly last decade and then picked back up.
And all this new ice is canceling out virtually all hypothesized sea-level increase.
You would think this would be cause for rejoicing among those most concerned about the effect on our planet of Global Warming (now rebranded “Climate Change”). 
But in fact, it is not. 
Quite the opposite: it has been a cause for great consternation and a lot of, er, denial.
Which brings me to this.
In all seriousness: if Global Warming is going to doom us all, why aren’t its proponents celebrating at this news, regardless of its political implications?
Wouldn’t that thrill them, if they weren’t more bought into silencing all political opposition than into pursuing science and “following the truth wherever it leads”?
This has always been my issue with the whole thing.
Is the Earth warming?
Are people responsible?
Will we all die horribly if we own an SUV?
How can I possibly know these things?
But I do know that the people I see promoting these ideas — and claiming to worship at the altar of science — seem a lot more like worshipers and a lot less like scientists. 
And they demand the same political solutions (and grant money) they demanded when they were promoting a “new ice age” (for those of you too young to remember).
Oh, one other thing.
About that “we’re all going to die” part..."

SPREAD THIS: KFC Bows Down to Shariah Law With INSANE New "Rule"

SPREAD THIS: KFC Bows Down to Shariah Law With INSANE New "Rule":

"Judging by what Steve Mitchell, a 45-year-old British man, recently experienced at a KFC in Derby, England, it appears that Shariah law has, unfortunately, infected one of the most popular fast-food franchises in the world."

Instapundit advises journo lab how NOT to push climate change stories twitchy.com

Instapundit advises journo lab how NOT to push climate change stories twitchy.com:
"The Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University is examining ways to get more people to read about climate change:"

Nieman Lab 

✔@NiemanLab

Climate change is depressing and horrible. Is there a way to make people read about it? http://nie.mn/1RKbq41 

10:36 AM - 7 Nov 2015

 Nieman Lab

Climate change is depressing and horrible. Is there a way to make people read about it?

By Laura Hazard Owen @laurahazardowen

"A lot of coverage goes straight for the 'we are 100 percent doomed' jugular."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Instapundit.com @instapundit

Well, lying doesn't seem to have worked. https://twitter.com/NiemanLab/status/663017070947266560 …

 Follow

Trigger Warning @joelfine

@instapundit Re-education camps are the traditional tool of the left, why not try them here? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reeducation_camp …

10:45 AM - 7 Nov 2015

 
•  1717 Retweets
 
•  66 likes

History for November 9

History for November 9 - On-This-Day.com
Ed Wynn 1886, Hedy Lamarr 1913, Spiro T. Agnew 1918 


Mary Travers (Peter, Paul & Mary) 1936, Tom Fogerty (Creedance Clearwater Revival) 1941, Lou Ferrigno 1951 


1906 - U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt left for Panama to see the progress on the new canal. It was the first foreign trip by a U.S. president. 


1918 - Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm II announced he would abdicate. He then fled to the Netherlands. 


1923 - In Munich, the Beer Hall Putsch was crushed by German troops that were loyal to the democratic government. The event began the evening before when Adolf Hitler took control of a beer hall full of Bavarian government leaders at gunpoint. 


1935 - United Mine Workers president John L. Lewis and other labor leaders formed the Committee for Industrial Organization. 


1938 - Nazi troops and sympathizers destroyed and looted 7,500 Jewish businesses, burned 267 synagogues, killed 91 Jews, and rounded up over 25,000 Jewish men in an event that became known as Kristallnacht or "Night of Broken Glass."



1961 - Major Robert White flew an X-15 rocket plane at a world record speed of 4,093 mph. 


1965 - The great Northeast blackout occurred as several states and parts of Canada were hit by a series of power failures lasting up to 13 1/2 hours. 


1997 - Barry Sanders (Detroit Lions) became the first player in NFL history to rush for over 1,000 yards in nine straight seasons. In the same game Sanders passed former Dallas Cowboy Tony Dorsett for third place on the all-time rushing list.

Why Global Warming Science is NOT Real Science

Why Global Warming Science is NOT Real Science - Eagle Rising:
"Global warming models have made many long term predictions, almost none of which have been accurate. 
The “tipping point” predictions about how urgently we need to turn the CO2 boat around before its too late?
They have been continuing to extend further and further out like the icy shores of Antarctica. Predictions of the extraordinary frequency and power of mega-super storms?
Quite the opposite actually.
Rising sea levels?
Not consistent.
Hiatus in global temperature increases?
Never saw it coming."

Ben knows only wimps apologize

Carr: Ben knows only wimps apologize | Boston Herald
It took Carson a while to figure out that there’s no upside to saying he’s sorry.
But after all those hours standing next to Trump under the klieg lights, he’s got it straight now.
Friday night, he was in Palm Beach Gardens talking to a bunch of Hillary Clinton partisans carrying press credentials.
...See, anyone demanding an apology doesn’t like you to begin with, and whatever you say will just be used to keep the story going.
If they catch you, say, committing perjury, and you have to say something, just put your statement in the passive voice.
...Just ask Hillary Clinton. 
Her husband used to employ George Stephanopoulos. 
Her daughter’s mother-in-law gave CNN’s Jake Tapper his start in politics.
Steffie makes $13 million a year.
In return, he asks crazy out-of-left-field gotcha questions of every Republican candidate crazy enough to go on the Democrat infomercial known as “Good Morning America.” 
Nothing is on the level.
Trump and Carson know this, but the self-evident truth is beyond Juan’s feeble grasp.
The next GOP debate is Tuesday night.
How many groveling apologies will Bush have to issue afterwards?
The over-under in Vegas is three.

What could possibly go wrong? More "staffing" will fix it?-----LA Unified Teachers: Suspension Ban Creating Unruly Classes

LA Unified Teachers: Suspension Ban Creating Unruly Classes - The New York Times:
"LOS ANGELES — Teachers in the nation's second largest school district say a new policy aimed at reducing suspensions is also having another effect: More unruly students in their classrooms.
Los Angeles Unified School District was the first to ban suspending students for defiance in California and began instituting restorative justice policies that emphasize counseling and conflict resolution.
Teachers now blame LA Unified for failing to provide the necessary staff and training to effectively implement those policies, the Los Angeles Times reports (http://lat.ms/20Dac0I ).
...Suspensions across the district declined to 0.55 percent last year compared to 8 percent in 2007-08. That reduction came amid a nationwide push to eliminate zero-tolerance policies that emphasize harsh discipline for even minor misbehavior.
..."We're now carrying the consequences of ... not enough staffing to make it work and a lot of frustration," said Alex Caputo-Pearl, president of United Teachers Los Angeles."

VIDEO: Watching Obama Lie 15 Times In A Row Is Worth Watching Twice... Spread This Everywhere

VIDEO: Watching Obama Lie 15 Times In A Row Is Worth Watching Twice... Spread This Everywhere:

"President Barack Obama lying is nothing new. In fact, we’d probably save ourselves some time if we told you when he told the truth.

However, Obama lying 15 times in a row on something he just recently changed course on? That’s pretty impressive."

Mob rule!-----Missouri football players to boycott season until university president steps down

Missouri football players to boycott season until university president steps down | Fox News:
"A group of black University of Missouri football players announced Saturday night on Twitter they will not participate in team activities until the school’s president resigns.
President Tom Wolfe has drawn fire on campus over what some Mizzou students say is his failure to address at least two incidents where black students have been called racial slurs, the St. Louis Post Dispatch reported Saturday.
...The Post-Dispatch said defensive backs Anthony Sherrils and Finis Stribling and linebacker Clarence Greene all retweeted the statement along with Hansbrough.
Sherrils is a starter; the others are backups, according to a Nov. 5 depth chart on ourlads.com.
...The message reads: "The athletes of color on the University of Missouri football team truly believe "Injustice Anywhere is a threat to Justice Everywhere" 
We will no longer participate in any football related activities until President Tim Wolfe resigns or is removed due to his negligence toward marginalized students' experience. 
WE ARE UNITED!!!!!"
...Student groups have been critical over how Wolfe has handled issues of race and discrimination, and blocked his car at homecoming in an attempt to speak with him. They have complained that the use of racial slurs is prevalent.
In April, a swastika was found in a Missouri dormitory, and officials said last month they were investigating another act of vandalism that targeted minorities..."

NOPE: For You, Volkswagen, Ze PR Battle Iz Not Yet Over. I recommend the stage-3 Hillary Clinton Defense...

Instapundit » Blog Archive » NOPE: For You, Volkswagen, Ze PR Battle Iz Not Yet Over. I recommend the stage-3 Hillary Clinton D…:
NOPE:

For You, Volkswagen, Ze PR Battle Iz Not Yet Over.

I recommend the stage-3 Hillary Clinton Defense.

Stage 1: We didn’t do anything.

Stage 2: If we did, it was a mistake.

Stage 3: Emissions laws are stupid and nobody could be expected to understand them.

30

Posted at 10:06 pm by Glenn Reynolds 

True Nat'l Debt $65T, Gov't Spending 'Lost Touch with Reality'

True Nat'l Debt $65T, Gov't Spending 'Lost Touch with Reality'
In a radio interview airing on Sunday, former U.S. Comptroller General and chief of the Government Accountability Office Dave Walker asserted that America’s national debt is over three times the official figure, which dramatically understates the government’s financial commitments.

Walker told host John Catsimatidis of AM-970 in New York, as related by The Hill:

If you end up adding to that $18.5 trillion the unfunded civilian and military pensions and retiree healthcare, the additional underfunding for Social Security, the additional underfunding for Medicare, various commitments and contingencies that the federal government has, the real number is about $65 trillion rather than $18 trillion, and it’s growing automatically absent reforms.

...Walker worried that Americans have “lost touch with reality” when it comes to government spending. 

The political class profits from that sense of unreality, banking on the public’s reluctance to dwell on red ink of incomprehensible debt. 

Numbers too big for voters to wrap their heads around seem unreal.

Walker is one of many analysts who have attempted to calculate the “true” national debt, which is indisputably much higher than the already horrifying $18 trillion figure cited as the final year of Barack Obama’s presidency approaches. 

Some figure total federal unfunded liabilities at almost $127 trillion, nearly double the figure Walker proposed. 
Some believe that number will soar past $210 trillion in a few decades..."

Noon-toon

‘Diversity’ Means Student Group Is Not Allowed to Include Pledge of Allegiance or Red, White & Blue During Veterans Day Chapel Service | Video | TheBlaze.com

‘Diversity’ Means Student Group Is Not Allowed to Include Pledge of Allegiance or Red, White & Blue During Veterans Day Chapel Service | Video | TheBlaze.com:

"Students at Seattle Pacific University, an evangelical Christian college, are set to hold the school’s first Veterans Day chapel service “in a long time.”
“It’s been an uphill battle to get to this point,” the Military & Veterans Support club noted on its Facebook page.

But a couple of missing elements in the service are leaving a bad taste in many students’ mouths.

Turns out they can’t say the Pledge of Allegiance or present the colors “given that there are diversity of views on campus whether such elements should be part of a Christian worship service,” the school said in a statement."

Great news: the EPA’s new smog rules will only cost 40 times as much as they said

Great news: the EPA’s new smog rules will only cost 40 times as much as they said « Hot Air
We recently discovered that EPA chief Gina McCarthy is coming for your air conditionersbecause she’s pretty worried about ozone. 
(We’ll leave aside for now the fact that the chemicals used in modern air conditioners don’t affect that particular issue.) 
It’s still on her mind and the agency already put forward some new rules to cut down on smog. 
This is an expensive proposition for American businesses and consumers and the agency admitted up front that the new rules would probably wind up costing us roughly one and a half billion a year. 
But it was worth the cost to save the planet, gosh darn it.

I think somebody forgot to check their math. (Daily Caller)

The Environmental Protection Agency estimated its stricter smog limits would only cost Americans $1.4 billion a year, but a new report argues the total cost to the economy is likely 40 times higher than agency estimates.

The right-leaning American Action Forum says EPA’s updated smog, or ground-level ozone, rule could cost $56.5 billion in lost wages based on economic losses from counties that couldn’t comply with the agency’s 2008 rule.

“Observed nonattainment counties experienced losses of $56.5 billion in total wage earnings, $690 in pay per worker, and 242,000 jobs between 2008 and 2013,” according to AAf policy experts.

This is how they "think"-----Ethnic Minorities Deserve Safe Spaces Without White People

Ethnic Minorities Deserve Safe Spaces Without White People | Aeman Ansari:
"Last week The Ryersonian reported on an incident that involved two first-year journalism students who were turned away from an event organized by Racialized Students' Collective because they are white.
Since then there has been a lot of commentary on the piece and a lot of debate -- a lot of the criticism is valid.
There are two sides to the story:
1) the media has a right to attend public events and report on matters that are in the public interest.
The student media needs to cover initiatives that are happening on campus so that we draw attention to them and in turn create awareness (The Ryersonian reported that one student said he was covering the meeting for an assignment).
2) Marginalized groups have a right to claim spaces in the public realm where they can share stories about the discrimination they have faced without judgment and intrusion from anyone else.
...They should label safe spaces clearly and maybe even host events that educate the public on what they mean.
...However, the point to note is not that two white students were asked to leave the event, but rather that this was a safe space and that we as a newsroom, as a campus and as a society are not as knowledgeable as we should be about what these spaces mean."
Read it all and see the insanity of our government subsidized college campuses.

A Plague on Egypt’s Tourism

A Plague on Egypt’s Tourism - The American Interest
The tragic crash of the Russian airliner should serve as a wake-up call. Egypt matters, and we take it for granted at our peril.
...As the belief that a bomb was the cause of the crash grows, and as investigators sift the debris and listen to the black box recordings (and as we think of the families of the victims), it’s worth thinking about what the crash could mean for Egypt and the world—because trouble in Egypt could be more consequential than many people understand.
...Tourists shun places where tourists end up getting killed, and Egypt has never needed tourists more than it does now (the tourism industry in Egypt makes up about 11 percent of its GDP, and indirectly employs around 11.5 percent of the country’s workforce).
And unfortunately for Egypt, international investors shy away from violent, unstable parts of the world.
Egypt does not have a lot of options for economic growth.
The region is beset by wars in Libya, Syria and across the Red Sea in Yemen, and Egypt itself is embroiled in the aftermath of the overthrow of the Morsi government, including the harsh crackdown that followed Morsi’s fall.
And even before the Morsi government fell, Egypt was already wounded by the instability under that government and permanently weakened by the old, corrupt nexus of clientelism and rent-seeking at the heart of Egypt’s political economy.
All of that means there is not a lot of give in this fragile system on which millions of people depend.
Moreover, Egypt cannot expect much more help from abroad.
...The tragic crash of the Russian airliner should serve as a wake-up call.
Egypt matters, and we take it for granted at our peril.