The Real Cause Of The Arab Spring

A twitter follower from Kuwait recently asked me what I thought was going on in the Middle East and what was really the cause for the Arab Spring. There are several factors at play that caused the dominoes to start falling. The simple answer is people want freedom from tyrannical governments and dictators, but the triggering event is financial. Another gift from the “too big to fail” bankers, wall street and the well connected large transnational corporations.

It’s been in the media over the past several years that the banks are not lending. The reason the banks are not lending is because the Federal Reserve Bank is lending the banks and Wall Street (like the Goldman Sachs gang) at next to 0% interest rates. Collectively they need to get yield from their investments. They can make a higher yield speculating in the commodities market. It pays better than betting on the American People.

The American and global economy is sinking back into recession and there are not enough good credit risk borrowers they feel are worthy of credit. So they’re taking this cheap money from the Fed and using it to speculate in the commodities markets. They’re buying cotton, grain, metals, etc. and using news of natural disasters and lower farming output as opportunities to go long with hundreds of millions and even billions of dollars to drive up markets that have a perception of low supply. Low supply and perceived future high demand causes other investors to jump on the bandwagon. This causes the price to skyrocket and over-inflate its true value. It’s another cheap money bubble in the making. Just like the real estate bubble that popped a few years ago due to cheap money that I talked about in my article what is money really.

Wall Street and the big banks have an almost unlimited access to free money thanks to the Federal Reserve Bank, and their money junkie traders don’t see the havoc they are wreaking in the Middle East. In these Middle East countries where 75% of their household income goes to pay for food, and Wall Street’s and the big banks traders are jacking up the cost of food, people can’t feed their families anymore. When people lose everything and they have nothing left to lose… they lose it! They already hate their governments as it is, so it’s simply a matter of survival. If they don’t revolt they will starve to death!

Plus you have a lot of highly educated youth who are unemployed, angry and frustrated. They are also Facebook and twitter savvy. Since they have access to the Internet and can share things instantly via social networking, they know what’s going on around the world. They know they are getting fucked by their leaders. They’re mad as hell and they’re not going take it anymore. Live free or die is their motto just like it was for our founding fathers.

Thomas Jefferson once said, “enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppression’s of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.” The oppressed and starving people want the same things as everybody else around the world does: food, good job, access to healthcare, education, etc.

God bless every one of them! May the Lord keep them safe.

“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.” – Thomas Paine

“In the beginning of a change, the patriot is a scarce man—brave, hated, and scorned. When his cause succeeds, however, the timid join him; for then, it costs nothing to be a patriot.” ~ Mark Twain