CAIRO -- Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has stepped down and handed control of the country to the military, Vice President Omar Suleiman said Friday in an address on state television.

The announcement touched off a wave of jubilation throughout Cairo's Tehrir Square, where tens of thousands of anti-government protesters had gathered demanding Mubarak's ouster hours after he failed to do so in an address on Thursday.

"In these difficult circumstances that the country is passing through, President Hosni Mubarak has decided to leave the position of the presidency," Suleiman said. He has commissioned the armed forces council to direct the issues of the state."

Mubarak had sought to cling to power, handing some of his authorities to Suleiman while keeping his title. But an explosion of protests Friday rejecting the move appeared to have pushed the military into forcing him out completely. Hundreds of thousands marched throughout the day in cities across the country as soldiers stood by, besieging his palace in Cairo and Alexandria and the state TV building.

Nobel Peace laureate and leading Egyptian democracy advocate Mohamed ElBaradei applauded Mubarak's resignation.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/02/11/egyptian-president-hosni-mubarak-steps/#ixzz1DgDz88pV

Well, its a step in the right direction at least. None of which would have been possible if it weren't for the Egyptian people. Of course, they are still far from democracy.

Things can either get better or they can get much worse.
I for one wish the Egyptian people will succeed and get democracy, they've certainly earned it (and naturally deserve it)

I've found the whole protests to be quite moving at times. The solidarity of the people from all walks of Egyptian life standing together, doctors, lawers, factory workers, Muslims and Christians together.

We can learn a lot from the Egyptians

The military is suppose to insure fair elections. They seem to be doing the right thing. We'll see in about a year how it all turns out.

We'll see what happens with all this, it is nice to see that when a populace gets pissed the government listens. Wonder what it will take for our government to get the hint about things?

Yeah...

I find it ironic that we voice our displeasure during the bailouts and got ignored...

Perhaps the best way is to sit in front of the white house till people throw fire at us...

(for you DHS folks on the monitors... that was a joke)

Just un cool for President to 'chastise' Mubarak for not listening to his people when HE dosn't listen to us.

Boy, that sounds exactly like my ex-wife. I wouldn't obey her, so she assumed that I didn't listen to her. The noisy, whiny complainers on the right weren't the only constituency that Obama was obliged to listen to.

I am not on the right...

I was speaking also of the bailouts...

I am quite sure that this country needs to stop spending so much...

Not because I don't think the programs are not worth doing...

But because WE CAN'T AFFORD THEM ON TOP OF EVERYTHING ELSE WE ARE SPENDING MONEY ON...

Nor can we afford to continue spending the monies we are currently spending...

I am capable of doing math...

Well, here's a little math that I did. About 5 years ago, I checked to see what America's Net National Worth was. It was about $42.5 trillion. (That's total assets - total liabilities). I checked back about a month ago. America's Net National Wealth is now up to about $54.2 trillion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_wealth It's grown more than $12 trillion in about 5 years despite this so-called catastrophically huge debt that we're all supposed to be scared to death of. I just don't buy it. So, where is all this extra money that is apparently unavailable to apply to our debt? I believe that a huge amount of it is in the stock market. Now we are giving an additional $7 billion to the investor class by extending the Bush tax cuts for the investor class. You can't have it both ways. THE DEBT IS TOO HIGH. WE HAVE TO GIVE MORE MONEY TO RICH PEOPLE.

Net worth of America... What is the net worth of government?

Government is only a small part of the macro-entity that is the United States... Yet that single small part has rung up a debt that is 14 Trillion.

What is the debt ratio? In case you have not noticed the debt has risen at 1.2 trillion a year for the past 2 years.

The Huge Ammount you mention is not the part that you see when you look up stats in the wikki... the Huge Ammount is the UNFUNDED liabillity attached to the loans, expected cost of current legislation and plans, expected payout on borrowed monies... etc.

this is not a cry to give money to the rich.

It is a simple request that our government stop spending money that it does not have on pie in the sky projects that it can not fund without taxing the hell out of us.

government should never be larger than a straight 10% tax can pay for. Anything larger than that leads to 'autocratic elitism' and dictatorship.

I think you're getting off into make-it-up-as-you-go-along-World. This source should help with your question. The paragraph with the heading "Totting up assets and liabilities" is a good little summary of the concept. Here's a nifty little chart that shows what has happened to the National debt up to about 2 months ago. This is National debt as a % of GDP, a much more meaningful statistic than the nominal National debt.Dunno. Why don't you tell me.Yes, a liablility. This is reflected in the net worth of the Nation or of the Government. This is not added informationThis would involve the net present value of these liabilities. I don't have a source for that. You seem to be pretty knowledgable about that. Where did this come from? is this a rule? Why 10%? Did the 90% marginal tax rates of the 1950s bring about a 'autocratic elitism' and dictatorship? Here's . where tax rates have been since 1913. It's interesting to compare this with the debt/% of GDP chart. Marginal tax rates move inversely with debt.

I was wrong about something. I claimed that there is one and only one place in our economy where new money is created and that that is through fractional reserve banking. This was true when I went to school, but is no longer. For the first time in history, Japan initiated a new procedure called quantitative easing. This was in 2001. This practice truly is just printing money and using it to purchase securities. In the present case, t-bills. Obviously, productivity is not likely to keep up with the expansion of the money supply. Inflation should be inevitable.

Ah ha! I see how that's done now!

This is an identical thread.This one was first

this one is more popular... HA! I check to see if somebody has already posted what I plan to post and didn't see yours, sorry.

Well... there is one thing we agree on.