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But such statistics cannot conceal Nasser's failure in his long campaign to achieve Arab unity, or in his military campaign in Yemen that ties down some 50,000 Egyptian troops. His pell-mell "factory hysteria" resulted in a muddle of mismanagement and high costs. A Fiat assembly plant near Cairo employs 5,000 workers but turns out only 15 cars a day due to material shortages. The Helwan iron and steel complex produces rails that were turned down as inferior by Egyptian national railways and were finally accepted only on Nasser's insistence. At year's end Nasser was forced to sell one-fourth of his $138 million gold reserves to pay off short-term obligations and maintain the nation's credit standing.
Meatless Days. With commerce largely under state ownership or control, consumers have to put up with acute shortages of almost everything from toilet paper to transistor radio batteries. Demand far outstrips supply of most foods; in much of the country there are three meatless days a week. But there is no hunger, as party stalwarts are quick to point out. "We can always go back to bread and beans," says one proudly. For all the shortages, most Egyptians are far better off than they were a decade ago. The lack of such things as radio batteries is in a sense proof of this. After all, under Farouk, hardly any Egyptians even had radios.