The Thing About Iran

 For a number of years in Iran....things were run by intellectual folks under the 'king' (the Shah)...from 1941 to 1979.  

From 1979 on....things were run by a Islamic cleric 'council'.  So the guys in charge of the  economy, banking, sports, the police, energy, military structure, street repairs, gas and oil production, tourism, and 'whatever'.....were basically clerics.  

Their chief guidance?  Well...they can quote from the Quran.  Beyond that....their knowledge base would be that of a ice cream stand operator.

So you can imagine, for forty-plus years....the crew in charge has bumbled around and screwed up.

Last year, I was reading a summary of problems by a Iranian businessman.  He (since 2000) had been assessing his monthly profit.  He quietly took the profit and converted it into non-Iranian currency (literally anything other than the Rial).  If you do the math today.....you can buy with one dollar.....42,000 Rial.  In this guy's case....it doesn't matter if he's buying gold, Bitcoin, dollars, Euro....he's screwed.  Literally, nothing goes into a bank....in his case.  

He suggested the whole country is sitting and waiting for some major event to clobber the economy and force the dynamic change to occur.  

Here's the odd factor....this lack of trust means that Iranian banks who need cashflow....can't build up any sum....to act as a mortgage unit and loan out housing money.  If you were a 30-year old Iranian guy....married, and wanting to buy your first house/condo....you can't find any bank that wants to deal with you because they have very limited funds to loan out.  The typical game today?  You get invited to sign up for a home loan, but need around a couple of year of putting money in...before they loan you money out for the home purchase.

I would imagine if you explained this to a cleric....they'd just stand there and ask....what the hell would  you want me to do?  Restore confidence?  How?

So the clerics....day after day....are just mostly gathering around the 'cooler'....sipping tea....talking over Muhammad quotes, and faced with guiding a country without much knowledge or skill.

The military this morning...having to report the success (or really lack of success) with the attack on Israel last night?  I would imagine they quote something of a religious statement....saying God misguided their rockets, missiles and drones in some way.  The cleric has to react to the sarcastic comment, and likely agree.

It is a Monty Python-like comedy....just funny in an odd way.