What matters in Egypt is "being" Mubarak. His personal wealth is estimated to be in the vicinity of $40-70 billion with real estate trophy assets in London, Rodeo Drive, Manhattan, etc. His sons are billionaires as well (I wonder if our economists are doing such precise forecasts Egypt is ranked something like 20th in oil production and only 3% or so of the world's oil goes through the Suez canal so on paper, a loss of that shouldn't be catastrophic. But in reality, what's important is how much fear that loss engenders and if the speculators start running amok. That's where the money is made. Watch what price is doing not what the pundits think events will mean.
To quote Ronald Reagan's son Ron, "Sarah Palin is a soap opera, basically. She's doing mostly what she does to make money and keep her name in the news. She is not a serious candidate for president and never has been."
Unfortunately, that would only happen over the dead bodies of thousands of young Americans in uniform. That would be horrible. ymmv, fwiw and imho
This could easily be the start of radical Muslims taking over all of the Arab Middle Eastern countries. A major turn of events in the area.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Quote from SteveD: How would closing the Suez harm the US? I think less than 10% of world oil goes through there Nonsense. The price of oil never reflects the so-called crisises. It is only an excuse to gouge the public.