The number of Egyptians injured in protests today is actually more than ten times the amount reported by international media this morning.

There are now some 1,000 injured from a crackdown on a protest that brought Egyptians back to the streets of Cairo's Tahrir (Liberty) Square, according an article by The Washington Post.

The protest addressed allegations that Field Marshal Mohammed Hussein Tantawi is delaying legal action against members of the former Mubarak administration.

Some analysts believe that while issues like democracy and accountability are in the fore, there are economic imperatives behind the escalating unrest in Egyptian society.

Democracy is at risk if democracy does not produce, said Elliot Abrams, senior fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington D.C..

Expressing that strong economies are a necessary basis for the successful democratization of the post-Jasmine Revolution Arab world, Abrams cited an example from a similar situation, on the other side of the Atlantic.

Latin America's Spring or turn from military juntas to democracy failed where people concluded it had brought them no economic improvement, he said.

Some of the protestors at the rally, which started Tuesday, chanted, Down with the military junta, reported Voice of America, highlighting Elliot's connection of Latin America and North Africa.

The Arab spring's tidalwave of popular movements has swept away tyrannical regimes in Tunisia and Egypt -- which were two and three decades old, respectively.

But that tidalwave has also sunk the North African nations' budgets, with a flood of protestors demanding more public spending on higher minimum wages and social benefits.

Tunisia's real GDP is expected to contract by 1.5 percent this year, and its budget deficit is expected to amount to as much as 4.5 percent of GDP, according to a report published by the Institute of International Finance (IIF) in Washington D.C.. That will undoubtedly frustrate the 14.5 percent of Tunisians whom the Institute predicts will face unemployment this year, a 1.5 percent increase from 2010 under the more stable -- albeit repressive -- Ben Ali regime.

And it was partially true what they say-- Tunisia is partially in ruins after factories and other infrastructural foundations for production and the introduction of foreign direct investment (FDI) were burned to the ground in the Tunisian people's fight against autocracy.

In Egypt, the Arab world's second revolutionary trailblazer, the situation is much worse.

Just under 12 percent of the population is unemployed (an almost 2 percent rise from the previous year under ousted Egyptian dictator Mubarak), and the Arab Republic's real GDP is expected to decline by nearly double the amount of Tunisia's, with the budget deficit amounting to nearly 10 percent of GDP.

In the ultimate Catch-22, Tunisia and Egypt will need to establish good government and anti-corruption measures, in order to attract foreign direct investment -- in order to secure the growth of good government.

The IIF's Deputy Director of the Africa and Middle East Department, Garbis Iradian, has more faith that Tunisia will bounce back faster than Egypt, the most populous nation in the Arab world.

I think I am more hopeful for Tunisia to put things in place, Iradian said, The population in Tunisia is more homogenous. In Egypt you have so many different groups of people to bring together.

The embattled Middle East's oil-producing countries -- mostly untouched by conflict -- are still experiencing relatively unabashed economic growth. But for countries like Tunisia and Egypt, without any oil to act as a lifesaver to their sinking economies, there are a series of international aid packages headed their way from countries like the United States, hoping that the money will stabilize the two nations.

And hoping beyond hope that those two nations will act as a model for the rest of the embattled Middle East.

But Arab economists say foreign aid might hurt more than it will help.

I strongly feel that democracy models need to be locally grown and locally supported. A really large and underplayed factor in why a large portion of Arab audiences are disengaged from political involvement is low morale and feelings of indifference -- we do not feel that many policies directly affect us or take us into consideration, said Hazami Barmada, Co-Founder and CEO of Al-Mubadarah: Arab Empowerment Initiative, an independent international NGO devoted to developing a global platform for Arab development.

A thorough needs-assessment needs to be conducted prior to budgets being allocated internationally based on assumptions of local needs. Sadly to date, many international development packages represent the select interests of a few -- they either target high-end innovation or micro-finance, both of which are leaving out the vast majority that operate between these two extremes..

The CFR's Elliot Abrams offered a solution to the problem of establishing strong economic foundations for democracy in Egypt and Tunisia, sans aid packages.

The countries that did the best [at establishing the economic foundations for a foundling democracy] were those that changed the most toward an open economy and free markets -- places like Chile and Estonia, he said.

Doing this is very hard, but the only reliable way forward.

Egypt Gdp Unemployment Tunisia