The Gold War

I got the link to this story from Gary Metz of Regime Change Iran. He reports on a Financial Times article on the run on gold in Iran.

With the war of words over Iran’s nuclear programme escalating and the domestic economy stalling, Iranians are scrambling to buy gold coins, sending their value soaring by 32 per cent in the past two months.

Oil prices have never been higher and yet Iran's economy is stalling. Interesting.

“Gold coins are Iranians’ political hedge fund,” says Heydar Pourian, editor of Iqtisad Iran (Iran Economics), a monthly magazine. “We keep them at home and they make us feel secure.”

Which would indicate that the Iranians are even more sure of an impending war than Americans. Well they should know their country best. And in fact they do:

Businessmen say the rush to gold reflects both growing tension over Iran’s atomic activities and the destabilising economic policies of fundamentalist president Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, whose government took office last August.

“The direction reverses the years of [president Mohammad] Khatami and increases the role of the state, especially in allocating resources,” says one. “It’s more like communism than Islam, and makes you think some of them want a siege economy ready for war.”

There is more of interest. Read it all.

Joe Katzman at Winds of Change has linked to some previous articles of mine on the subject of the Cash Flow Jihad (Joe's Term - I like it) along with some thoughts of his own.

Technorati:

Follow the Money, Iran, Iranian Economy, Gold, Cash Flow Jihad, Iran War