Egypt's Mubarak Steps Down : Taking $40B into hiding?

                      Disappearing into the Dazzling Desert Sunshine                                       photo  R.A. Kukkee

 The people of Egypt are to be congratulated for their persistence, but has  ex-President Mubarak disappeared with $40B into the dazzling desert sunshine? 
     It was inevitable that  Hosni Mubarak eventually  step down from the Presidency  a move forced by pro-democracy supporters  in a three-week  display of  protest and solidarity against Mubarak's corruption.  The objective of the protest,  which has come to be known as the  Nile Revolution,  finally  happened.   It only took  18 days, an undetermined number of deaths,  a number of missing persons,  and over 800 people wounded to achieve that goal.  Foreign journalists  were arrested, intimidated, and beaten.   Not content with that inexcusable action,  an Egyptian journalist was even  shot to death.  Free speech was stifled and the internet was briefly  shut down to tightly shutter the eyes of the world on the unfolding events.

Mubarak's  "step down"  and a cosmetic transfer of power to his own army and henchmen occurred on or about February 11th, 2011. 

      It is our sense and the opinion of many Mid-East watchers  that little if anything has really changed, with an ugly  military crackdown on the protesters becoming more possible, in fact more  probable with each passing day.  The marginal propensity for the "immediate" dispersal AND disposal  of peasant protesters with tanks, guns and whips  can grow as quickly as  a general's lack of anger control management -- or Mubarak's  accumulation of treasures and  bank accounts.  Very quickly. 
      What is more  predictable was the recognition of the fact that   Mubarak's  personal  "treasure", legally acquired or not, is reported to be in the amount of more than 40Billion dollars.  The truth ALWAYS comes out.
 The reader should immediately ask:
  "  Cool piggy-bank,Hosni-baby,  but why did it take you so long to step down, .... nobody can use that much money after the age of 80,  no matter what kind of lifestyle he  intends to follow ! "
     Corruption, rot , stinking greed and blatant theft all  come to mind,  but the reader must admit,  $40B isn't a bad salary for a dictator that ruled a country where forty percent of people  live on less than $2.00 per day, surviving and and paying taxes too.
      It seems  Mubarak may have drained  Egyptian coffers, the Egyptian people,   and the Nile  itself  dry in the process.  The nose of the Sphinx is definitely broken  and missing,  thereby unable to detect the stench of corruption left behind by the Mubarak regime. 
Somewhere, there is a large pyramid of gold bars and cash with " This belongs to Hosni" hastily written in blood in  70  languages.
      The $40B is spread around the globe and the only people that know for sure where the tons of  gold bars, hoards of cash, or other valuable forms of plunder may be -- are his family--his wife and sons--and they have  conveniently disappeared.  
How lovely and how predictable.  The noble banking nation of  Switzerland has already frozen assets that may or may not be  in Mubarak's bank accounts legally , and the rest of the international community must immediately follow suit.  International corruption watchdogs are recommending the seizure of Hosni Mubarak's assets for return to the Egyptian people. (1)
As a quizzical and  rather neat  aside the  United States of America might also immediately consider  demanding  a return of the $1.5B they have paid Egypt  annually to support that corrupt, brutal regime. 
Has anyone done the mathematics  class ?   Let's see,,,,,1.5B per year for 30 years...imagine that,  it just coincidentally equates to $45B.....a rather large pile of funding, isn't that a nice pile of taxpayer  loot?     Where is it hiding?  Are  most of those greenbacks hiding in  Hosni's very large, sticky  moneybags  he is  now dragging across the desert to  hide in  some  dusty desert  rat-hole?    
The world will wait with abated breath and wonder, where does Egypt go now?   It may ultimately  be easier to find Hosni and his money-bags than it will be to answer THAT question.


(1)  Canadian Broadcasting Corporation  (CBC) 02/11/11