"But on the negative side, first of all employment, which is down, the expectation was that it would rise slightly, we saw the unemployment rate go up and we've also seen very weak average earnings growth, much weaker than expected, " he said.

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After a meteoric 165% rise in prices over three years, the real estate market slowed slightly in 2012, but prices continue to go up.

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True, we have a lot more choices (often aided by technology) about precisely how we do these things in the modern world but we are still built by a hundred thousand years or so of our own species, tens of millions of years of mammalian evolution, into ending up with slightly different brains and slightly different interests to go along with our very different gonads.

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Baladi bread of a slightly better quality sold at market prices in the wealthier suburbs of Cairo can go up to 13 cents a loaf.

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As for thermal coal, prices seem poised to edge up slightly because of the floods but, unlike metallurgical coal, there is plenty of thermal coal to go around.

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