Free Republic

Panic In Persia As Hyperinflation Hits Iran Economics / HyperInflationNov 04, 2012 - 05:45 PM By: Steve H Hanke For decades, the Iranian economy has been cobbled together by religious-bureaucratic regimes that have employed mandates, regulations, price controls, subsidies and a wide variety of other interventionist devices, in an attempt to achieve their goals. It's all been kept afloat – barely afloat – by oil revenues. Shortly after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took power as president, Iran began to draw the ire of the United States, Europe and their allies over a number of issues related to Iran's nuclear ambitions. Of late,...

Contrary to reports, there is no hyperinflation in Iran right now at all. In fact, the Western sanctions imposed on Iran's oil trade are failing miserably to meet their objectives. And a regime collapse – or even, coming short of that, another popular uprising reminiscent of June 2009 – seems further away from Iran than ever. Meanwhile, the Iranian regime is using the current sanctions imposed against it by the West as a weapon to weaken its own fiercest domestic threat – the educated, relatively pro-Western Iranian constituency that comprises the middle class.