After four decades of warmongering and corruption, the mullahs’ regime has left Iran’s economy in shambles and on the verge of total collapse. With no basis to help the economy flourish, the regime is constantly devising new plans to stay afloat for another few months by digging its hands into the people’s pockets, stealing what little is left from their fast-diminishing wealth. The regime is using a combination of direct policies and indirect levers to generate its own revenue at the cost of increasing the pressure on the people.
Increasing the prices of goods
One of the main tactics the regime uses is the gradual increase of prices of basic goods. The regime tries to blame the growing cost of living in Iran on international sanctions. But the reality that even the regime’s own officials and experts admit to is that the regime’s policies, including the manipulation of currency value and exchange rate, are the main reasons for these changes.
In addition, it is the government that controls and objectively changes the prices of basic commodities such as fuel, water, and electricity. The gradual and undeclared increase of these prices ripples across all other goods.
Unbridled money printing
Another factor that is further spurring the constant decline of the economy is the uncontrolled printing of banknotes, which as caused the unbridled depreciation of the national currency. According to the state-run Hamshahri newspaper, the Central Bank generates an average 67.5 trillion rials per day, 48 trillion of which are created as unbaked banknotes. This means that every hour 2 trillion rials of worthless money is injected into the market, giving the government a quick boost while depreciating the money that all other people hold in their pockets and bank accounts.
This way, the regime is constantly robbing the people of their wealth. According to the regime’s own experts, for every 10-percent increase in liquidity, prices of basic goods increase by 4 percent.
IRGC-controlled imports
At the same time, the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), which has a disproportionate and quasi-monopolistic control over the economy, is using its clout to make massive imports into the country.
The imports, which are a huge boon to the IRGC and regime officials, are gradually chipping away at the country’s production. In the past decades, many iconic and long-standing companies that supported Iran’s economic infrastructure have gone bankrupt and vanished as they’ve gone bankrupt as a result of the regime’s policies.
As workshops, factories, and companies shutter due to the invasion of imported goods, unemployment rises, families become poorer, and the people’s purchasing power decreases.
New plans to loot the national wealth
While these policies have given the regime short boosts of cash to spend on terrorism, warmongering, ballistic missiles, and other evil deeds, they are short-lived because they do not create any productive economic cycle.
This is why the regime must constantly come up with new plans to steal more from the people. The regime is faced with a 50-percent budget deficit for the upcoming Persian year, starting in March 2022.
The regime has two new plans to fill this gap. One of these plans, which was introduced in Raisi’s budget bill for the year 2022 was the removal of the 42,000 rial-to-USD exchange rate on vital imports. The second, which recently leaked, is the plan to increase the price of gasoline.
For example, the regime is currently entertaining new plans for distributing subsidized gasoline. The new plan will create gray and unofficial markets that will allow the regime to sell fuel at uncontrolled prices. According to some estimates, the plan can cause a ninefold increase in the price of fuel, which will, in turn, cause an increase in the price of food items, transportation, electricity, and so on.
To absorb some of the shocks, the regime resorts to propaganda tactics, making contradictory remarks and gradually preparing the society for the devastating changes.
For example, some regime officials claim that the currency exchange rate is “experimental” and will not be applied to bread, medication, and basic goods. And regarding the new fuel distribution plan will be rolled out in the Qeshm and Kish islands before being expanded to other provinces and regions. And many other details are still being changed and hammered out as the regime figures out how to make the most profit at the people’s expense.
The regime’s own experts are warning that the change to the currency exchange rate will cause a 100-percent increase in the price of goods, and with the new fuel plan will further exacerbate the cycle.
Now the question is, how will the regime deal with the repercussions of its new schemes. With Iran’s economy on the verge of total collapse and millions of people living under the poverty line, the country has lost its capacity to withstand further shocks. And as the November 2019 protests showed, it only takes a spark to cause a major social explosion that can lead to the total downfall of this corrupt regime.
As one of the regime’s Friday Prayer leaders warned in October, “You can’t operate a weak and dysfunctional body… it won’t survive the surgery… now’s not the time for an economic surgery.”
