That is the latest figure from Enduring America, which also reports that the currency has falled 20% in just a week.
OTHER ECONOMIC NEWS FROM EA
–Iran has suffered another serious blow to its efforts to move oil and other exports, as the last big company doing classification work on Iranian ships, key to securing insurance and ports access, has halted the work.
—Jahan-e San’at reports that car sales have been stopped because of a quarrel with the government over prices. The stoppage would affect two million employees.
–Iranian media have reported a 30 to 50 percent drop in car and component production in the past six months (see 0955 GMT).
–About 3000 workers from Qazvin have written an open letter to the Minister of Economy, demanding that their wages be adjusted for inflation. (Fat chance!!!)
FROM NBC: ‘Our money is becoming more and more worthless every day.’
EXCERPT:
The financial situation is affecting people from all classes. Thousands of workers have been laid off and have not been paid back wages because companies have simply run out of money. Majid, a 32-year-old mechanic who used to work for a large car company was recently laid off and is owed six months’ salary.
“They are laying off people left, right and center. I doubt there will be a company left by the New Year,” he said, giving just his first name because of the sensitivity of the issue in Iran. Persian New Year will be on March 21, 2013.
The car industry, one of the biggest manufacturing sectors in Iran and a massive employer, has been affected dramatically; Iranian media have reported a 30 to 50 percent drop in car and component production in the past six months. Iran was the 13th-largest auto maker in the world in 2011, producing 1.6 million vehicles….
The oil sector has been hit hard too. The Iranian Labor News Agency reported that a letter on behalf of 20,000 oil workers from across the country was sent to Labor Minister Abdolreza Sheikholeslami complaining that they had not been paid in months. The letter demanded an increase to the worker’s salaries of $120 to $285 a month, adding that at the current rate they were “way below the poverty line.”
Mohammad Reza Bahonar, a prominent Iranian member of parliament, said oil exports in June-July had dropped to “around 800,000 barrels per day,” according to a report by ISNA news agency. That’s a low not seen in more than two decades, and less than half the 2.3 million barrels per day exported just a year ago….
Mehdi is a young entrepreneur who imports computers and accessories who also spoke on the condition of anonymity. He said people are just not buying in Iran right now. His biggest wish was that the value of the rial would just stay fixed against dollar – even if it was at an unfavorable rate – just so consumers would know how much things would cost in a weeks’ time, a day or even in the next few hours….
Britain, France and Germany are urging their European Union partners “to further step up the pressure” on Iran. Further sanctions targeting the Islamic Republic’s energy, finance, trade and transportation sectors are expected to be formally adopted on Oct. 15.
OBSERVATIONS:
The policy of buying cheap imports from China in order to keep prices down is surely intended to pacify the population since prices might be even higher otherwise. The catch is that those cheap imports are driving Iranian manufacturers and agriculture out of businesss. The only way to prevent that would be to stop the cheap imports. But with so much production already destroyed the effect would be to add to inflationary forces and increase the pressure on the rial.
QUESTIONS READERS SHOULD PONDER
1. How many Iranian workers wish they could turn back the clock and joined students and the middle class in protesting the rigged election of 2009 when the regime was on the verge of toppling?
(Had they done so economic conditions would be vastly better today as they have come to realize far too late).
2. Of those who did vote for Ahmadinejad, how many bitterly resent it now?
3. Can the Iranian regime afford war with Israel on top of all this?
(War would accelerate both inflation and consumer goods shortages while decreasing oil sales further).
4. Soldiers come from the people. Are current conditions rapidly eroding support for the regime among rank and file troops?
(If so, time works against the regime, eroding support as the rial continues to fall and the econom continues to worsen).
5. When Khamenei dies, will most Iranians cheer his death?
6. After the regime falls, should Khamenei’s grave be designated as a public toilet?
