FASCINATING article in Newsweek / MSNBC on the dismal state of Arab economies.

...From 1990 to 1999, the per capita value of Arab economies grew at just under 1 percent while their populations grew by 4 percent.

...On the eve of World War I, Egypt’s trade was worth nearly half its GDP, a ratio close to that of Britain then and greater than South Korea’s today. Now it is just 8 percent of GDP and falling (yet still higher than those of most other Arab nations).

...“What this means is that the economy does not respond to monetary and fiscal stimuli,” says Mahmoud Mohieldin, adviser to Egypt’s economics ministry. “Ninety percent of Egyptians don’t care about a tax cut, because few ever pay taxes except for a sales tax. So you can reduce taxes as we are doing, but it will have no impact, and that erodes the credibility of the government’s ability to manage the economy.”

A few of the required solutions are, of course, mentioned in Mystery of Capital.