Kefaya in the Red Sea

Called my friend who's active with Kefaya/Youth for Change to wish her a happy birthday. Tried really hard to remember to call her this year since she's been so nice for the last few years and always remembered mine. Really have to remember some others too.

So she missed the elections day and all the action along with it as she was in Umra, and she's now enjoying her peaceful routine trip in Sinai, and from there onto Marsa Alam for a diving trip. Sometimes I wish to learn diving just to join her on those cool trips. She couldn't take a vacation during the summer because there were so many activities ongoing with Kefaya, she was constantly involved in events and activities. I keep thinking, she was just totally unpolitical a year ago, and now, she can't take her routine vacation because of political activities! I remember during the first Black Wednesday protest she told me she came out fine out of it simply because she was pretty innocent not really knowing how to react. I've realized I write so much about those Kefaya guys, they're even one of the reasons I started this blog. They trigger something in me for sure.

I jokingly tell her that maybe she can start a new Kefaya branch in the Red Sea resorts. She says, no kidding, she met one of the Air Traffic Controllers who went on strike a few months back. Kept talking to him for three hours on the beach, and told him if you need any support make sure to contact us. You should join us. He told her that by the end of their strike they were in complete confusion as to whether what they were doing was the right thing or not. They were being blamed for ruining the country's economy and for doing major damages, yet they were fighting for their rights. They just didn't know what was right anymore.

Talking to my future stock broker, he paints a total rosy picture of the economy in Egypt. I tell him, but its unstable, what if the telecoms crash again, they're heading for big upcoming investments and competition, your portfolio is mostly telecom. I lean at my friend and tell him that the way we'll probably lose our money is if Mubarak dies, imagine what will happen to the stock market then. Just look at the market during the pre-election month, flat.

I read their prospectus, and it has statements like; "Instability may result from factors such as government or military intervention in decision-making, civil unrest, extremism or hostilities... there can be no assurance that a future government would not seek to re-nationalize certain companies... investors will bear the risk of adverse movements in the Egyptian Pound/US Dollar foreign exchange rate. The position regarding corporate taxation of capital gains in Egypt is not entirely clear... there can be no assurance that the Capital Markets Authority's view will be applied in practice, and hence the situation is not entirely free from doubt. The quality and reliability of official data published by the Government and Government agencies of Egypt will not always be equivalent to that of more developed countries."

Couldn't help but remember that economic session for dummies that I attended a few months ago where the guy throwed at us so many obscene figures and painted a dim picture of the economy, concluding that its heading to the gutter.

But then, look at the performance of the market so far, over 100% return last year. Holy crap! Can there be companies doing that well? Is that real growth! It sure is worth it. I go out of the money-making meeting baffled by the numbers and the returns people have made in the last year. I try to call my friend who works in London in Wealth Management (whatever that means) for advise, but he was busy in a meeting managing wealths.

My friend who admits that his income is from a haram source kept asking the guy questions as to how to avoid investing in companies selling undesired products and services. He says he wants to atleast have one source of income clean!

My friends then tell me that I have to stop going to those Kefaya protests I sometimes go to. We need Hosni in place for atleast a year, until we can double our money, maybe triple.