A crisis of confidence in Egypt

IT ISall anyone can discuss. For the poor, trips to the market are now an ordeal: shopping bags get lighter, yet bills get bigger. The middle class must choose between car payments, school tuition and groceries. Business owners are wrestling with supply-chain woes caused by a shortage of hard currency that has left billions of dollars of goods stuck at ports.The past few weeks have been a reckoning for Egypt’s unsustainable economy. Since 2013, when seized power in a coup, it has been characterised by a , large twin deficits and debt-fuelled state spending on infrastructure projects, some of dubious value. Egypt posted decent growth numbers, but they were a mirage: for most of its 104m people, life kept getting worse.