One booming sector of the economy, according to the government, is foreign direct investment. It rose from $450 million to a whopping $10 billion in five years alone.

But many Egyptians, like Hassan Mahmoud, a supermarket owner in Cairo, believes the growth the government has touted as a mark of progress, simply, "is full of lies." He points to his customers picking up supplies to feed their families and chuckles when statistics are shown to him.

"Look around you," he said. "People are struggling more than ever. Prices continue to go up, and my customers do not buy as much as they used to. Maybe if I owned a large corporation I would feel the growth the government says is happening."

Millions of working class Egyptians would agree with Mahmoud's analysis. If the economy is booming, they're not feeling it. And no wonder; the World Bank has reported that the cost of living has risen by as much as 50 percent since the beginning of 2008.

Yet salaries remain almost stagnant, despite a promise by President Hosni Mubarak to raise wages of government workers.

And with upward social mobility almost non-existent, because social class structures have remained rigid far longer than anyone cares to remember, there is little confidence that hard work and an entreprenurial spirit will take them very far.

But ironically, the official statistics appear to disagree with Mahmoud and millions of his compatriots who complain of their worsening life.

Oil dollars from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates being spent in Egypt, along with the country's own energy revenues, have gone a long way to fire up the economy.

But even that does not compare with the high levels of U.S. investment flooding in, to push total foreign direct investments over $10 billion last year, up from a relatively paltry figure of $450 million five years ago.

Major U.S. corporations, including Citibank, General Motors and Proctor & Gamble, feel they are on solid ground.

Apache Corp., a Houston-based energy company, earned approximately one-fifth of the company's $3.2 billion in production revenue from oil and gas deposits under the Egyptian desert.

The World Bank in its "business-friendly" report last year said Egypt made the largest jump in ranking of every country it surveyed. It catapulted 26 places to rank at 126 out of 178 nations. These are the kinds of results that have lead so many to think Egypt is on the right track.

"Right now, the government is trying to make the top 1 percent of Egypt's richest people equal in wealth with the developed world's richest people," Muhammad Omran, CEO at ITIDA, a firm run by the ministry of technology, disclosed to the Middle East Times.

"And it is our hope that once this happens, the money that these people have will trickle down to the larger population, which will sustain growth and increase their quality of life."

"It doesn't happen that rich people share their wealth with the less rich," countered Yehia Abdel Khalek, an employee in a café. His said his boss has held monthly salaries at the same level for four years, yet the cafe's business earnings have risen very strongly.

"I have seen the books and I know that the café is earning almost five times as much money as it was a few years ago, but we [the staff] have not seen any of that money," he said.

Omran's theory that the richest portion of society will use their money to lift the entire nation does not find proof in reality, as Abdel Khalek attests.

Inflation rates are in double digits despite attempts by the central bank to keep it from spiraling out of control. Coupled with low wages – approximately 20 percent of Egypt's 80 million live on less than $2 a day – the frustration and anxiety over everyday life has for many grown unbearable.

Ahmed Droubi, a young activist, believes that if the economic situation of the country doesn't improve for all, street protests and riots could ensue.

"As Bob Marley once said 'a hungry person is an angry person.' This country must start to honestly help all segments of society if they want to avoid widespread panic and unrest," Droubi said, citing the April clashes in the northern Delta town of Mahalla Al-Kobra over rising costs and low wages that resulted in demonstrators and police fighting in the town's streets.

Droubi points out that the disparity of wealth is contributing to much of the social and political turmoil that has gripped the nation in recent months.

"People are frustrated. And like the bread riots during Sadat's time, food is something that Egyptians are willing to fight for," he said, referring to late President Anwar Sadat's attempt to remove bread subsidies in the country. Massive demonstrations followed.

As foreign investment continues to pour into the country, the government must not overlook the vast majority of the population if it wants to avoid widespread and public shows of anxiety, says Mahmoud.

"It is time for us to improve our lives. We are optimistic about the future, but the government needs to act."

"We are ready to join the rest of the world in the progress the government tells us," he said. "But right now we don't believe much of what comes out of their mouths."