For years, Iran’s leaders have scoffed at Western economic sanctions, boasting that they could evade anything that came their way. Now, as they seek to negotiate a deal on their nuclear program, the leaders are acknowledging that sanctions, particularly those applied in 2010 on international financial transactions, are creating a hard-currency shortage that is bringing the country’s economy to its knees.
This was evident in New York last week when Iran’s new president, Hassan Rouhani, emphasized the need to act swiftly to resolve the standoff over Iran’s nuclear program, perhaps in three to six months. While there may well be political reasons for him to be in a hurry, Mr. Rouhani and other officials admitted that the sanctions were hurting.
In repeated meetings during the week, Mr. Rouhani and his foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, said the government’s financial condition was far more dire than the previous president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, had let on.
If it's a shortage of money that is hurting them, why don't they just print some more?
Alternatively, if there is a shortage of money, shouldn't that just make the existing supply of money more valuable? Austrian economics would suggest that a shortage of money isn't problematic because the existing supply will just be divided into smaller and smaller increments as the value of the currency strengthens due to its shortage in relation to the supply of goods and services.
Q: “Do you have funny shaped balloons?”
A: “Not unless round is funny.”
A while back I posted on the Gold forum a story about how the U.S. was preventing Iranian citizens from buying gold. At the time it was mostly of interest to me because of the U.S. government's attitude about private citizens owning gold to protect themselves from economic collapse. Now I wonder even more about what my fellow PPer's think about it. Should the U.S. prevent Iranian citizens from buying gold?
I'm slogging through some long articles on Khamenei in the most recent print version of Foreign Affairs. Probably more in-depth than I need, but good stuff. The guy loves Victor Hugo (Les Mis~), Uncle Tom's Cabin and even some contemporary American Jewish writers like Howard Fast (as long as they're leftist). Who'd'a thunk it?
No money in our jackets and our jeans are torn/
your hands are cold but your lips are warm _ . /
notsheigetz wrote:
A while back I posted on the Gold forum a story about how the U.S. was preventing Iranian citizens from buying gold. At the time it was mostly of interest to me because of the U.S. government's attitude about private citizens owning gold to protect themselves from economic collapse. Now I wonder even more about what my fellow PPer's think about it. Should the U.S. prevent Iranian citizens from buying gold?
