How scary is this?

I worked tonight... 2 till 10 sitting box all day on a $15 dice game, with one big-screen TV showing sports, the other the news (which is never on... must have been an IT mistake, huh?). No sound, of course... but image after image of the disaster that is Egypt.

I discussed this today with the more astute associates in the dice pit, and I came to the following conclusions:

1) The American education system SUCKS. Of the four dealers on my crew today, only ONE even knew what continent Egypt was on, and none of them knew who its leader was or what was going on there that was causing him so much trouble. The oldest one on the crew was 33 (and he was the one that knew where Egypt is)... the rest are under 30. Because one of the dealers on our shift is FROM Egypt, one thought it was near Greece because Nashaadt is Coptic Christian (not that she knows what a Copt is, but that is another story). I had to give her partial credit for that... all that separates the two is nearly 900 miles of Mediterranean Sea... do you see how painful this is for me?

2) We can now expect at least a $0.35 hike in gasoline prices over the next week or so... possibly as much as $1. With Tunisia falling to radical protests led by this Muslim Brotherhood, and with the same rabble rioting in Egypt AND Jordan, things can only get worse. Add to this the fact that, if Mubarak doesn't lift the ban on the internet in Egypt by midnight local time in Cairo, the resulting financial loss to the nation's banking and financial institutions will cripple the Egyptian governments ability to function AT ALL... and this is the government that controls the vital Suez Canal that watches 68% of all surface ship traffic carrying crude oil out of the Persian Gulf and into the Mediterranean and North Atlantic lanes.

3) IF the radicals gain control of the Egyptian government, either through violence or free elections (which do NOT always deliver good results... there is the ruling Hamas-majority in Gaza for one example, and Barrak Obama as another here in the US), then we can expect gasoline to reach that $5/gallon rice far sooner than anyone expected... I'd say by the end of Feb. If the same happens in Jordan... God help us all.

Thoughts?