Paying a Thug to Give Up Power

Here is a report from NBC news:

Mubarak could leave with $2 billion

By Robert Windrem, NBC News investigative producer for special projects

If Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak is forced into exile, he is likely to have access to billions in assets. But if Egypt’s successor government tries to recover any of it, it will have a hard time, if history is any judge.

Estimates circulated inside the U.S. government, developed by various agencies, put Mubarak’s wealth at between $2 billion and $3 billion. How much of that total is outside of Egypt, and in what form, is uncertain. How much is recoverable is an even smaller fraction.

AP reported that some in Egypt believed Mubarak controlled $70 billion in assets, but U.S. officials dismissed that number as wildly exaggerated. They noted that Bill Gates, the richest man on the Forbes 400 list, is worth $53 billion.

If you look at the CIA's Factbook article on Egypt, the per capita GDP per person is $6,200. So at $70 billion, Mubarak "owns" as much as 12 "average" million Egyptians earn in a year. To let his leave with billions as his "earnings" for being a dictator is outrageous. These monies should go to his victims, not to Mubarak and his relatives.