The Arab world functions on baksheesh=bribes. Been that way for a very long time.

More a more concrete word would be hafta(of Arabic origin) as practiced in India.

Talk about trying to get an Instalanche!

But that is exactly right about Egypt. I knew plenty of college graduates who had to take whatever low paying job they could find, just to be able to save for ten years to get married. It was nuts. And I am sure most of them had to pay baksheesh for that privilege. And when I say low pay, I mean a fraction of our minimum wage. A good job (say a Mechanical Engineer) makes $7,500 a year. There are a lot of mechanical engineers in Egypt making a 1/10th of that in some menial job. Living home with mom and dad and hoping for the day they can move out. And while things do cost less in Egypt than they do here (there are subsidies for the basic necessities) on those salaries that basically just prevents starvation for those on the edge. You can bet there are a lot of pissed off people there.

Something about Egypt I wanted to share with your readers, as an amateur Egyptologist:

DR. ZAHI HAWASS — THE FACE OF GRIEF

UPDATE 8: I often joke about the effervescent Dr. Zahi Hawass, who is usually hamming it up in front of the cameras during the periodic ancient Egypt specials I watch. I think the heartbreaking devastation and grief seen on his face, as he realizes the dimensions of the destruction to rare and irreplaceable antiquities, is one of the most compelling images of the Egyptian crisis I have seen. This tells me the loss to Egyptology is worse than we can possibly imagine.

“I have to pay 150 pounds a day to bribe police officers to let me sell on this pavement. How can I be this educated and not find proper work?”

At the current rate of exchange and assuming he’s working daily, that poor guy is shelling out over $768 American per month for the privilege of earning a living. Quite educational, that; he’s learning it’s better to be a cop than a lawyer.