There are no Mubaraks on the Forbes list of the world's richest people, but there sure ought to be.The mounting pressure from 18 days of historic protests finally drove Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak from office, after three decades as his nation's iron-fisted ruler. But over that time, Mubarak amassed a fortune that should finance a pretty comfortable retirement. The British Guardian newspaper cites Middle Eastern sources placing the wealth of Mubarak and his family at somewhere between $40 billion and $70 billion. That's a pretty good pension for government work. The world's richest man--Mexican business magnate Carlos Slim--is worth about $54 billion, by comparison. Bill Gates is close behind, with a net worth of about $53 billion.
Even though he's out of power, Mubarak may still be able to influence the Army officials running the country, through the financial connections that made them all wealthy. And if not Mubarak, the next leader may be poised to start lining his pockets the same way Mubarak did. For Egypt to have a more effective, transparent economy, all of that will have to be cleaned up. There are probably a lot of people in Cairo who have been checking their bank balances lately.
That's it. He's out.
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