one point about the Cabinet

The President of Egypt’s Cabinet change was widely panned as a reshuffling and resurfacing of familiar retreads. But I was interested in one of the appointments: SAMIR RADWAN for Finance Minister.

I should begin with the caveat that I know little about his political connections with the regime or lack thereof. All I know is that he was the keynote speaker at our university research conference last year, and gave an outstanding talk that left everyone impressed. He’s basically a labor economist of a Keynesian stripe. His talk was an impassioned plea that GDP growth should be less important in measuring the health of an economy than full employment, and he really did seem committed to seeing all Egyptians gainfully employed. This was last April.

What’s interesting here is that I doubt there could be much cynical p.r. value in appointing an economist, since I doubt he has much name recognition on the street. The move interests me because (unless there are personal ties here that are invisible to me) it looks to the untrained eye like the government probably does realize that they’re in much deeper trouble with the have-nots than they thought.

Which isn’t to say there won’t be tricks or gimmicks too. The recent 15% pay raise specifically to government employees certainly has the air of buying loyalty.