Jahanshah Rashidian

Re: Mehdi

You are either misguided, or using fallacy on purpose to decieve.  I don't know and can't tell which one. 

All projects have a cost. What is your point? That because there is a "cost", no project can be done? Are you serious?

For example, Iran CAN afford to have as many oil refineries as it needs, so that it doesn't have to export oil, only to buy it back in form of gasoline at a ten times higher price. Why don't we have those refineries? It is certainly not because of the project cost. It is IRI's icompetence. There are many other examples.

You say, "things can be run better in any country" therefore "what's the fuss about the IRI?".  This is a fallacy. Of course things can be run better in any country. But by how much? If it's by less than 20%, I could understand, but if it could be by 10,000%, then you've got a problem.

In France or the US, you could improve things if governments run things better, but not by leaps and bounds. In Iran howerver, things can be improved significantly if Iran is run by competent Iranians.

Your comparision of 1979 and today is also misleading. Back then Iran had room to improve its government in many areas, but it was not at the bottom of the barrel, far from it. Iran not only held the best numbers for its economic indicators (growth indexes for GDP, GNI, GPI, literacy, health, employment, etc) among ALL developing countries and for consecutive years, but it kept breaking those records. No developing country in the entire world could even come close to Iran with its economic indicators in those days.

What happened to that? Today, our economic indicators are below some african countries for crying outloud, despite record oil revenues.

Are you blind? Or do you think we are? Or do you have so little confidence in Iranians abilities that we have to accept whatever piece of bone that is thrown at us and be happy with it. This seems to be your ideology, the ideology of being content with the very least.

Contrary to your opinion, Iran's problems are not "very" complicated. They all stem from IRI's bankrupt ideology and incompetence. Any educated and experienced group of Iranians could run the country better than these folks. You really underestimate Iranians' abilities.

You Mehdi, either knowingly or unknowingly, are helping the side of the IRI, and are contributing to the surpression of your own people.

To All

Thanks for your feedbacks. The article was to shortly point out the Ahmadinejad's suggestion to solve economic problems by his "Culture of Martyrdom".

About the facts and statistics, there are many sources of, even, the IRI to clarify the ongoing crises due to the mismanagement and wastes of our national income by the IRI.

Not only there are the ever existing corruption of Mullahs' regime, but many other parasitic repressive organs at stake to swallow a great portion of national income. Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, the regular and the paramilitary security forces receive a huge budget. Another part you have a series of parasitic foundations ("bonyads"), with strong connections to the clerical regime, controlled as much as a third of the country's economy and exercised considerable influence. Estimated inflation is now over 18% while the economic growth is much lesser, what causes an increasing decrease of purchase power or an increasing general poverty.

Only a very small group have a comfortable life and the rest struggle and many live below the poverty line. I believe this poverty causes Ahmadinejad to refer to his miracle economic solution of "Martyrdom"!

According to a member of Iran's Majlis, Mohammad Abbaspour, in Jan., 2007, " at least 90% of the country's population is under the poverty line. Only 10% of people have access to social services provided by the government"

The poverty line of Iran must be on the international bottom list, I think under 100th, far under Bangladesh and many African courtiers with no oil income.

Abbaspour warned that Iran was becoming a country with vastly separated social classes. relies heavily on oil and is the second-largest OPEC oil producer - the economy is thus dominated by the fluctuating oil price.

Other mineral resources include copper, iron ore, chromites, lead, zinc, sulphur, uranium and low-grade coal are mostly exploited by people close to the state mafia, now marked by IRGC.

Not to forget, hundreds of millions of dollars which are wasted to support Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Palestine, a 60 thousand militias of Al-Sadr in Iraq, and etc.

And not to forget the IRI's stooges, apologists, lobbyists in the West like different Islamic foundations and lobby groups and those on this site who attack Iranian opposition with personal names and fabricated records as the defamatory labels like Zionist, MEK member, Bush's lackeys…

Please be economical and send an email to Clinton

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Thank you. 

Jamshid

I don't understand. On one hand you mention cumulutive numbers and then on other occasions you mention per capita numbers, as they suit your argument. You mention cumulutive revenues of oil but you don't mention cumulutive cost of projects or whatever the government has been doing. Overal, nobody is going to disagree that things could be run better in Iran. We all know that. But then again nobody could disagree that things could run better in any country!

My point here is that this is not an analysis or anything constructive but "whining." The same kind of whining that helped start the so-called revolution in 1979. Rumors about Shah stealing money and building palaces in other countries; rumors about how oil money was being wasted, or how Shah's people were taking it all. Thirty years later we find that these were one-sided statements designed to get people upset so as to stage a fake revolution and the purpose was to weaken the country so that it could be milked better. I see the same exact pattern here. As soon as Iran starts to have some power, some stability, some money being generated, price of the oil goes up, etc., these same guys start rumors about how all the money is being wasted or could be better spent and get a revolution going! And we are back to the shit-hole again.

No, Iran is not as great as the US. And I don't care who becomes the ruler it will not become like US overnight. So the question is who can or how can this situation improve the fastest. And this article doesn't even begin to address that. It's just a bunch of whining with no specifics or any solution.

The problems of Iran are far more complicated than just "distribute the oil money" - whatever that means. Economy of a country does not improve by giving people oil money. And if you have specific issues with money allocation, then why not give them with some numbers? How would you have spent the money and how would that been a much better solution?

Unfortunately, your response further adds to general statements like, "Iran is supporting terrorism." No especifics. Yo also fail to notice or mention that Iran also lives in fear of it's nuclear power bom, Israel. And unlike Iran (even the IRI), Israel not only has attached and taken other people's land, but they openly admit that they will do it again. What would you do in their shoes? You have to keep all issues in perspective, otherwise we all know that the comfort, freedom, organization, etc., that exists in the US does not exist in Iran.

I am not sure where to begin

There are so many areas that I can pick and choose to make an argument that I don't know where to begin. May I suggest the book Iran between two revolutions, if you have not read it yet. Also books relating to foreign envolvements in the Iranian affairs might help many to see why things are the way they are and can't change unless something else changes!

Many of the problems with statements that I see or hear from people comes from imaginary history of Iran. Knowing our history is the first step. Then the discussions becomes much more productive.

The numbers you want are

The numbers you want are all over the place. How does approximately one trillion dollars in oil revenue for the past 30 years sound to you?

May any citizen of Iran ask where did all that revenues go? Why with all that money and after THIRTY years, Iran has to import its gasoline instead of having its own refineries?

Why is it that Iranians must fear about their oil fields drying up and being left with no more oil? Why? Why didn't we get our infrastructure built in those thirty years and with all that revenue?

Why Iranians must live in abject proverty while countries with less than Iran's revenues are doing better?

No, I don't think Rashidian meant "cash distribution", you are only twisting things here. He probably meant benefit distribution through a sensible economical management which we badly lack in Iran.

You need proof in Iran's investment in terrorism, nuclear wepoans and ballistic missiles? In what cave have you been living the past decade?

You and all other closet IRI supporters are becoming just a mockery of your own selves.

Quesions I have, Mr. Rashidian

You claim "...Nevertheless, a great proportion of this national revenue is not invested to improve the cause of people, but is mainly set aside to finance the repressive organs and internal security services of the Mullahs' regime..." Do you have any numbers to show as to how you came to this conclusion? It would be interesting to look at such numbers to see what is happening.

You also say, "...economic problems in Iran are mainly due to the lack of competence of his corrupt and illegitimate regime which has been exploiting Iranian wealth for their own interests or, worse, the costs of their parasitic survival...." What do you mean by this? Again, do you have numbers to show or is it just based on a feeling or mainstream media news about Iran?

You say, "... Ahmadinejad has not redistributed oil profits to the poor as promised..." What do you mean by this? Are you saying that the government should distribute cash to people? How much? How would this fix economical problems?

You say, "...the regime continues to invest in terrorism, nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles...." Where is the proof of these? Are you talking about reports by MEK?

Re: Smart Guy

You are not so smart SmartGuy,

$3.33 per day is correct, however deceiving. It is more correct to ask what can $90 billion per year do for the people of Iran? It can do a lot. You must be an imbecile not to realize this.

Furthermore, it is YOU who is fighting the truth with false deceptions. That makes you a lier in addition to being an imbecile.

This is a man who consults

This is a man who consults his butcher to gather data about economy and he uses price of tomatoes in his neighborhood to gauge the economic health of the country...Ahmadinejad, the son of a blacksmith, was quoted by Iran's Sharq daily as saying. "For example, there is an honourable butcher in our neighbourhood who is aware of all the problems of the people and I also get important economic information from him," he said in a meeting with worker unions, Sharq reported...
Facing complaints about inflation, he told parliament in a budget speech in January that Iranians should pop around to his neighbourhood grocer to buy tomatoes where he said they were much cheaper than the soaring prices he said others were citing

The oil revenues go to reconstruct Southern Lebanon, building Mosques in Afghanistan, Charities in Syria to convert destitude sunni syrians into Shias; propaganda outlets like Al-Alam in Arabic (not even Persian), press-tv, Iran negah, and thousands of "Western" academician to lobby for the Islamic Republic...And shopping for arms and nuclear technology on the black market...He had also said before that the "Highest form of art is Martrydom". The man obviously has followers who truly believe in him...I wonder if he would send his sons for martyrdom...

He also is inspired by Chavez economic system of welfare...He wants to turn Iran into a welfare nation, thinking that this is the solution to complex and global economic problems...the man needs to be impeached or institutionalized!

Fighting Falsehood with Truth

Mr. Rashidian, you speak about all this oil, yet do you realize that Iran only exports 50% of its oil and subsidizes the rest? And with that they make a total of $250 million a day in exports. With 75 Million people thats around $3.33 cents a day per person in Iran. So seriously what do you think can be done with around 3 dollars a person a per day? You tell me?

Dear Irandokht

In the Ahmadinelad's logic , if he has any mature one, the word "Martyrdom" contains all. He is the same psychopath I described in my last article.

culture of death!

Does he mean to say that because of his incompetence, people should welcome death as oppose to financial prosperity which would be impossible?

or is he saying that the US military attack is imminent and people should be prepared to die?

Death being so attractive to these people, why don't they just show they're cultured and die?

IRANdokht