the wave of revolt we are seeing right now is the latest ripple of china's declining growth numbers, which was the main thing that shielded poorer, commodity exporting countries from the worst of the 2008 crash.
*puffs bubble pipe*
MENA and other petrol dependent countries have been in this chaos for the last year and a half, but really began in 2015. Now it's becoming generalized.
When Chinese planners throttled infrastructure in 2009 every country making raw materials was able to buoy themselves for a couple years with the ridiculous levels of demand. But now it's gone, obviously - Nigeria, for example, has had *all* of its GDP growth since 2010 disappear
