Good comparison between savers and borrow-and-spenders, even though as the article said the two economies are not comparable.
Chances are continental Europe will be the guiding light for America, France for more liberals in politics (state intervention, high tax and heavy government borrowing and spending) and or Germany for more fiscally conservatives.

KOTZABASIS--
Can you enlighten me about the difference between the Mahdi Apoclyptic types in Iran and the Christian Zionist and the American religious hard right types such as Bush-Cheney crusaders?
And to answer your question, yes indeed--if it saves a very large economy from complete implosion and collapse, and a Depression, what is wrong from learning lessons from the more fiscally conservative Mahdists?
Is America not better off by learning more efficient just-in-time manufacturing and quality control from the Japanese Shinto culture of Toyota or Honda?

So according to Ali, the religious mullahs and the true believers of imam Mahdi in their Apocalyptic trance are better economic managers than the folk who have come out of the "Harvards" of America. Hence, the only way to save ourselves from Adam Smith's Costly Convulsions, would be to turn ourselves into votaries of imam Mahdi.

Good article.

Do you remember the terms "VOODOO ECONIMICS" back in 1980s.....this is the result folks!

BARRON
You want to give up oil and use LPG -which is Liquefied Petroleum Gas? That is a very interesting challenge indeed!

Second, kindly note that USA buys no Iranian oil and there is very little trade contact between USA and Iran due to sanctions imposed by America. Iranians cannot even deposit cash in American banks, or buy U.S. bonds let alone these weird "investment" products that have tanked recently.

Third, the annual transfer of payments from consumer nations to the producing nations of oil and gas (and this includes Russian gas and oil to Europe and all non-OPEC production such as Brazil, Mexico, Norway, UK North Sea....) is about 1.2 trillion Dollars a year, of which roughly 25% is paid out by USA (=$250 billion). That is a very small amount to the recent need for rescue money in USA. So far, we have:
a. Stimulus Package One at $150 bil.
b. Bear Stearns bailout at $30 bil.
c. Fannie and Freddie north of $200 bil. (1st installment)
d. Farmer Mac $50 bil.
e. AIG, $80 bil.
f. the rescue deal at $700 bil.
g. Ginnie Mae (coming up at $.....)
h. Sallie Mae (coming up at $.....)
i. Stimulus Package Two (coming up at $....)
j. Rescue of other sectors (autos, airlines, farmers, truckers at $....)
k. Potential rescue of other banks (at $....)
l. Non-bank bankruptcies (=destruction of value at $....)
m. Re-adjustment of mortgages, principal and interest rates (=less future value, at $....)

......

It is not good news. Not at all.

Excellent article, Mr Ettefagh. I agree with you thirty or forty-hundred percent -or was it my debt:equity ratio?

http://ht.cdn.turner.com/ireport/big/prod/2008/09/28/WE00096499/226936/Anon1222650517-NOBAILOUT630409.mp4

Note the following world energy analysis:

______________2010___2020___2030___2040___2050___2060___2070
remaining oil:___870bbl__640bbl__430bbl_250bbl__150bbl__80bbl__10bbl
biofuels:_______.38 bbl__1.29bbl__5.35bbl_9.76bbl_19.8bbl_27.4bbl__41.2bbl
wind power:____98gwh__160gw__190gwh_300gwh_400gwh_ 590gwh_520gwh
ITER Tokamaks:_______________18gwh__37gwh_330gwh_412gwh__654gwh EGS Geothermal:_10gwh__25gwh_55gwh_90gwh_260gwh__390gwh__590gwh
Nuclear:_______360gwh_380gwh_540gwh_760gwh_1000gwh_760gwh_420gwh

Sources: MIT and Oxford energy studies, ITER is very speculative.

Coal, even after 2060, is also a very viable energy source but requires a ‘miraculous’ emissions filter. Solar also has potential but might total less than 6 percent of the world’s need. The old standby, hydroelectric power, could be increased considerably if a miracle called ‘super conductive generator’ came along.

No matter how things work out, the consumable energies now being used will cease to exist by the end of the century and even a massive conversion to renewables would produce only half the energy used between now and 2020. Perhaps the human species itself needs to think about its evolution.

Not so fast. Good things take time.

"Not so in Islam, where the world's fastest-growing debt market has hit the skids in part because leading Islamic scholars began to question whether some popular Islamic bonds, or sukuks, followed Islamic law.

The fact that such questions exist point to a peculiar risk in Islamic markets that—because leverage is generally eschewed and securities are closely tied to assets—have been viewed as more resilient than their Western counterparts.

The questions also come at a time when that resilience is showing its limits; the Middle East is now grappling with the contagious global credit crunch and worries over its own overheated asset market. And the debate among Islamic scholars is sure to complicate those woes."
Source: http://www.cnbc.com/id/26854435

In the U.S. we have a little different bond system and our market can't overheat. Oil prices will collapse before the dollar. We'll take losses and let the government carry the costs. Then there are Americans like me and we just want paid and we want that in U.S. dollars. This idea that our system is a failure is propaganda. The entire Middle East is banking on ever increasing oil prices and rigging markets to support higher prices. If oil prices return to a just level, say $40.00 to $45.00 a barrel, the heat will turn down and the economy will stabilize. The run up of price won't kill the U.S. economy or the dollar. It's bad for the consumer and that means trouble for the producer. The damage to airlines is tremendous. We can shut capacity down and have done that. Our debt market isn't growing very fast. In fact it's frozen in the blender right now. We can be so cold. It's old fashioned.

Think about this: "85 percent of Islamic bonds already in the market had a critical religious flaw baked into them: They guaranteed a buyer that principal would be paid back, even in the case of default."

If you lose you win and everybody loses. Here in the United States, when you fail and lose you don't get paid back, you get liquidated. Plain and simple. The academic exercise is a huge waste of time. Things cost what they cost.

Why waste time when there's so much liquidating to do? We are actually considering covering all these bad debts with good U.S. dollars. We are going to make sure everybody in default gets paid back and rewarded for failing even if it means more failure. Mercy for the guilty is cruelty to the innocent. Our system provides for capital punishment, so the guilty are shown no mercy by default. The innocent are protected by our blanket laws and we have bonds that can never be broken in these United States. In our country, things just keep getting more dear and how they do. Sweet dreams and tuck the kids in, they won't be paying anything back they didn't owe to begin with by default. You aren't fooling us, you are just fooling yourselves.

Dear Publisher,
I shut off the Java and everything is working. There's something wrong with that Java. I'm going to make a cup of coffee.

If you wanna hang out you've got to take her out.
Propane. Hey doc, I have a problem.

"In 1910, a Pittsburgh motor car owner walked into chemist Dr. Walter Snelling's office, complaining that the gallon of gasoline he had purchased was half a gallon by the time he got home. Hethought the government should look into why consumers were being cheated because the gasoline was evaporating at a rapid and expensive rate. Dr. Snelling took up the challenge and discovered the evaporating gases were propane, butane and other hydrocarbons.

Under the direction of Dr. Walter Snelling at the U.S. Bureau of Mines, experiments were begun to stabilize gasoline. Through these experiments, it was soon discovered that the gases which evaporated could be condensed and stored as a liquid under moderate temperatures and pressures."
http://www.penningtongas.com/History%20of%20Propane.htm

People are worried about gas-o-lines or shortages now. It time to go back to the future again. Now all I need is a honey and some money for the Maine thing.

"By using propane gas instead of electricity, we can cut harmful emissions in half and help preserve our environment for future generations." Works for me.

Dear Publisher,
The site appears to be malfunctioning.

I learned that it doesn't pay to bluff. Oil prices are criminal and the monopoly controlling the prices will not last much longer. The problem with a monopoly is that once it runs out of things to feed on, it feeds on itself. This massive transfer of wealth scheme is an attempt to hurt the U.S. economically and it has. The oil dollar is now drying up. We'll go to horse back if we need to. In the end it's a food fight and we can produce surpluses of food. The middle east can make food more expensive by driving up oil prices and we can make food scarce, just not here. You can't starve us out. We can close filling stations real fast though. We have empty filling stations all over the place here. We'd be better served going with LPG and doing it as fast as possible. It's a simple conversion and Iran can get by with less of our dollars. We can cut fuel costs by 50% and the air will be cleaner as we do it. This was a big deal and it got screwed up. Think back and recall when lead was in gasoline. That was about as dumb as anything ever could be. It made money for people selling the lead.

http://afdc.energy.gov/afdc/progs/vehicles_search.php
http://afdc.energy.gov/afdc/stations/find_station.php

Oil is dying and killing us in the process. I kind of like life better. Put your lead in your chambers.

ARJAY1

I think you are trying to change human nature. Please look up the words "reality, realism, real world".

To Big Bijan:

The only reason that the idea of direct distribution of oil revenue to citizens has never been tried is that the ruling elites of the countries involved won't allow it on the grounds that it wasn't physically possible to efficiently do so. It is merely coincidental that those same elites who are against the equal distribution process have managed to siphen off fair amounts of public revenue toward the betterment of their clan or tribal structures, as the Venuzualan Tudah "communists" are now doing.
There is no longer any reason that the Oil Surplus Fund and the oil revenues going into it cannot be completely transparant on the Internet communication system, assuming Iranian areas under Baluchi/Taliban control will let a free internet exist.

The open, transparant distribution is essentially the case in Norway, England, Kuwait and the American state of Alaska, so it is difficult to believe that a 'modern' post 1900s nation could not make such distribution for all citizens.

Well, It looks like being isolated does have an advantage. Mr. Bush said "you are with us, or against us". It is proven that against was the right choice!

To ARJAY1
What you say is not possible and no country has done what you say, even in Europe of 1900s. In Iran and other regional oil countries, the state distributes much of the oil revenue that funds the state budget to the people-- in form of subsidized fuel and electricity, foods, medicine, interest rates, seeds and fertilizer and such, etc. etc. etc.

In Iran, we have an annual state budget where about 80% of the daily running costs of the government is raised from taxes, and the balance 20% of running costs (subsidies) are paid from oil revenue and all investments (for roads, dams, etc.) are from oil revenues. Whatever is leftover in oil revenues (which is about 5 months of oil revenues a year) goes to the Oil Surplus Fund which is by law 50% loaned to private sector investment (in factories, etc.) and 50% loaned to government projects.

Also with the privatization law, state sector is not allowed to invest in many basic systems such as electricity generation, telecoms, banks, etc. and it must be private sector activity.

Anyway, the most important thing is to have little or no debt because borrowing makes businesses lazy.

There is much to be said for 'balanced' sociological systems in which the governed, the state, the resources within the sovereignty, and safety from foreign attack, peace, all enhance each other with justice and life enhancement. The American Constitution, whether an ordained covenant or not, actually has all of these balances built into it and created sociological balance despite enormous influxes of completely different cultures. As a matter of fact, America now has the entire DNA code and spiritual knowledge of humanity within its sovereignty without the tribal isolation of other cultures. The problem with the American covenant is that it worked exceptionally well until it began to waste resources attempting to bring 'balance' to primitive totalitarian societies that were at one point in the 1900s universal on earth.

Unfortunately, the American constitutional balance can be subverted by the same thing that has subverted other sociological enhancement systems, primitive ones being worse. There appears to be no long-term cure for usury greed in spite of the spiritual wisdom that tries to ban it. This is America's current imbalance: decadent manipulation of usury add-on costs to everything in its economy, which the Iranian (and other) sociological balances prevent. The Constitutional covenant has not been re-balanced recently and so doing might began another round of enhancement without the usury costs.

Question for Ali Ettefagh: what would be the effect on Iran's diverse peoples if the Oil Surplus Fund was constitutionally set up to distribute all of its revenues to citizens as the oil resource owners and then a portion of it collected by the Iranian state for 'national' purposes? That is, there is state intervention after the wealth is distributed, not before? Would this give the youth of Iran referendum power of the oil wealth?

HUNKY SANTA-
I am not and expert on the Iranian economy, and the article above clearly says that Iran cannot be compared or measured with American standards.
But, even before USA was born, any economy that was a saver nation, fiscally conservative and stays away from debt was/is called a HEALTHY economy. And no matter how much your American media try to mock others, the facts cannot be changed.

To educate you what is happening in your USA, the overnight emergency borrowing of banks from the Fed windon during week ending 26 Sept. was almost twice the amount the week before. And the Fed didn't have enough cash or securities on hand, so it went abroad and borrowed the cash from foreign central banks. That is like borrowing from MasterCard to payoff Visa!

Hey HUNKY SANTA-

Here are a few FACTS about the Iranian economy, since you asked for it:

1. Debt Free!
2. Very high reserves as percentage of GDP
3. GDP growth of 5-8% a year for the last decade!
4. Only 35-38% of GDP is from oil exports
5. A housing market were demand is about 800,000 units more than supply, every year!
6. People do not go nuts when gasoline goes up by 25 cents
7. The Iranian president does not say this comment about the national economy (as President Bush has said): “If money isn’t loosened up, this sucker could go down”.

The meltdown in America has just started. Will see how you feel in 3 months.

For Bimbo and Redneck:

Yawn. I've heard about the wishful demise of the United States so many times it causes me to yawn and blur my vision.

(Pause for a cup of coffee)

So being isolated is great? I suppose Robinson Crusoe felt the same.

Please educate us by providing Iran's economic indicators that show us it's a magnet of prosperity and envy of the world.

I'll let y'all ponder why I burst out laughing.

Hey, KF
Your information is about 30 years old. Oil exports are about 40% of Iranian GDP, but again I don't blame you since you think living in debt is the way to go.

Tell me, when price of gasoline goes up in America by 25 cents, you people in America are not starving? If Americans cannot pay for their housing (that is mortgage payment), that means they are in a very bad shape.

At the end of the day, Americans work to please Wall Street and the banks and end up owning nothing of their own after 20-30 years of working hard. Compared to Europeans, they do not have a high standard of living. If Mr. and Mrs. American bought houses 10 years ago, it is now worth 60% of that, but owe 85% on it. What a deal that is....
A friend of mine moved to Dallas in USA in 1975, when it was the big wave of development and Dallas is still a respectable town. He bought a big house for $300,000 and that house is now worth about $240,000 and the area has not dilapidated, etc. So, he paid 30 years of mortgage payments to lose 20% after 23 years?
Boooooooooooooooooo...... and today's $240,000 is worth a lot less than money of 1975.

But had he bought a house in Iran with the same money, he would have 700-1000 times (not percent) return on his money in USD.

So, enjoy America.... where they think you are their enemy and you are separated from them by a very racist dash (Iranian-American, not American). Who cares that you pay tax there and live by their rules.....enjoy the depression that is made in America, by you "Americans".

Yo Persian Redneck.
The only thing thats keeping the government of Iran afloat is the revenue from oil. Without that the people would be starving. Actually they are already starving the way prices have gone up in the past six month. And if you dare open your mouth they will put you up against the wall and shoot you.

The US will come out of this crisis but Iran will remain a 3th world country as long as the mullahs are in charge. Oh, by the way I am also Persian and very thankful to live in America. Where else could I have found peace of mind and feel secure.

Grow up.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/23/business/worldbusiness/23krona.html?em=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1222437710-0cCSeCXow2X9858V4Pyxng

Sweden's way to rescue banks and financial markets

Hey, KF:

Read above: the author's summary states that the two systems are not comparable. Why you Yanks keep on searching for some one to blame for your own foolish and stupid problems?

A system that cannot pay back its own credits is called BANKRUPT, dead, kaput, busted, not creditworthy.......a kinda like U.S. of A. today!

By the way, where are Iraq's WMD, Osama and democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Hey, HUNKY SANTA-

1. Read the author's CV above. He is an expert.

2. Read this below dated 25 Sept.:

“If money isn’t loosened up, this sucker could go down,” President Bush declared Thursday as he watched the $700 billion bailout package fall apart before his eyes, according to one person in the room.

3. On the same day, the Germans declared America "no more a financial superpower" and your friends in France declared the free market system "finished".

Iran is belssed to be isolated and sanctioned. Now, it is isolated from this fire in American markets......will watch you line up at soup kitchens, like 1930's. Have a good time!

So, one who laughs last, laughs best....

The major difference is that USA is the world's largest economy which it couldn't be without the concept of credit.

Iran's economy is a payoff system. If Iran had adopted the US model their GDP would increase 100 fold.

The comparison is ridiculuous.

Interesting observations.
I especially liked your observation about the current interpretation of "Life, Liberty and pursuit of happiness".

HUNKY SANTA--
Are you out of your depth or what?
I assume you are American and for the time being the world is laughing at your lot. People that think borrowing more is a solution to solving their borrowing problem are, well, like you.

Obviously you do not understand what you read as the article is in answer to a question put to the panel. What the author says that their system, which is debt free, seems to be working right now. Go out there and yell out "drill, baby, drill!".

This article is one of the most hilarious ones I've ever read. Iran an economic model for the world? Excuse me for a couple of minutes.

(Uncontrollable laughter)

Yeah, let's see how many people around the world are risking their lives to enter and participate in the "Iranian dream." What would your economy's size be if it weren't for oil? Bolivia's.

So, it wasn't Iran, Islam or the "Axis of Evil" that destroyed America, afterall, but the Americans itself.....LOL...LOL....LOL

How can I say.... I TOLD YOU SO?

to SERR GRANDI
Human capital is like capital and can go beyond borders. Also, human capital is genetic and more are born in, say, Iran.
Traditionally, 80% of immigrants from one place to another, come from lower levels of societies, people that cannot find work in their own country (Afghan and Tajik and Iraqi construction workers in Iran, Turks in Germany, Italians, Irish and south Americans to USA, etc.). None of the Italian or German immigrants to USA, for example as it is the land of immigrants, were big land owners or people of means and businesses back in the old country.

The remaing 20% are either top capitalists in their own country and they travel in search of business opportunities (Jews being perhaps the most visible ones), or they are brains and sources of talent that cannot find the befitting opportunity for them (say, the Iranians working at NASA or Brazilian footballers in European teams). This category are amongst the top 10-15% anywhere in the world and they will live according to international standards be they in USA, Europe or back in Iran or India.

A very interesting analysis by Dr. Ettefagh regarding the American economy and it comparison with a more old-fashioned Iranian economy which has not been exposed to the new odd financial systems and instruments.

It is also quite strange to see, as pointed out by the author, the developing world financing the developed world. One interesting point is whether the immigration will now start to reverse as well. Will people from the developing countries stop emigrating to the developed world and stop the brain-drain? Will people from countries like the US start emigrating to other parts of the world like China, or Dubai for finding high-paid jobs? Well, it seems certain companies have already moved, well in advance of the current financial crisis, their head quarters to other places in the world, like Duai. For example Halliburton is one them which has now moved to the oil rich region in order to more easily find oil and natural gas. Will the banks follow in order to find healthy markets with lots of customers who have yet not been exposed to the finanical crisis and not withdrawn all their cash from the bank accounts?

During the last 30 years the old-fashioned economies have failed to create jobs for their highly educated and talented young workforces. Countries like Iran has therefore successfully exported 5-6 generations (with a 5-year span between each generation) of educated "slaves" to the primarily Western world. Iran is actually still exporting these modern educated "slaves" (an elite) to the west but also happily to newly successful hubs like Dubai, where young Iranian graduates find a closer place to home where they can fight a bitter war with people from India and China for whatever jobs are available in the market in order to ensure the petro Arabs can faster build up their financial and trade center which indeed will, if continoued at the same pace, marginilize their own beloved Persia in the near future. So one can say Iran never realized its potential to create a trillion dollar wealth which it then could see to melt down due to economic crisis. Whether this is a better method or not is not easy to answer, but if Abu Dhabi Development Fund has 1 trillion dollars under its umbrella, one can say why Iran with its enormous resources is still focusing on educating people and exporting them as skilled modern workers to other places. One reason might be that the middle class in Iran, like the US has seen its purchasing power vanished while a small number of people gained enormous wealth, not based on innovation or efficiency, but on having a state controlled economy where precious contracts and opportunities are only offered to an "inner circle" of individuals close to the political establishment. This inner circle in Iran acts almost like the inner circle of investment bankers and other elements inside the so called "financial market" of the US economy where a web of contacts and an "elite gang" manipulates the entire economy by establishing its own products which they then through their contacts inside the political establishment get accepted as "new financial market instruments" without any detailed scientific evaluation of its content. So it seems there is yet another parllell between the Iranian and the US economy, namely the manipulation of the economy by a few at the top, and like Iran, it is the middle class in the US who gets affected and has to bail-out the greedy manipulators who have ruined the market and by that has undermined the free market economy's credibility.

This party which we have seen during the last 30 years with all different kinds of derivatives and other odd financial instruments, is coming to an end, because it was trying to enforce a marriage between Las Vegas gaming culture and fundamental capitalist system based on innovative, entrepreneural, effiecient, competitive production of goods and services. And of course the investment bankers were competitive, they were innovative, they were entrepreneural and efficient while producing new financial products and services BUT those products were not tangible and were only based on strange and odd probability models which a college graduate with basic math knowledge could spot are deadly fragile. In Las Vegas, if you know probability, you might be able to win for a certain number of rounds, but you also know that probabilit is probability and your wins can easily turn into losses. However if you are in the "credit swap" market, which is close to astonoshing 65 trillion USD, you can easily decide, by indirectly agreeing with other players in the market, to change the premium for a certain default at the end of the year from 5% to say only 3% and thereby create a false image of profit and collect the amount between the 3% and 5% (which you have sold it for) as your "bonus"! (which is billions of dollars). So here you have far more control over the probability than you have in Las Vegas. Such unregulated Las Vegas market should have never entered the world of productive capitalism.

It is now interesting to see the US entering the world of the communism directly from the capitalism. The great US strategies of the cold war were sure the Soviet would collapse because it had not followed the Marx guideline on developing stages needed to entering communism. The Soviets had jumped from an agriculture society directly into a communist one and were doomed to fail. The Americans have over the night jumped from a capitalist system into a communist one without experiencing the middle stage of socialism, will this work? Time will give us the answer.

The real question now should be on the impact of this bail-out party on the US currency in the coming months (maybe next topic on the Postglobal?). Will the rest of the world, like China and other developing countries, keep on buying US bonds and keep on financing the party well into the future?

j

You are right.
See below from Financial Times 25 Sept:

Farmer Mac

Published: September 25 2008 09:22 | Last updated: September 25 2008 10:09

You can’t choose your family. In the Mac and Mae household, overgrown delinquent mortgage financiers Freddie and Fannie are now in federal custody, deemed a danger to themselves and others. But lesser-known members of the public-private clan also face testing times. Farmer Mac, the toxic twins’ rural cousin, has seen its market value plummet from more than $350m last year to barely $50m. In fact, some 80 per cent of its value has vanished in the past two weeks.

The Federal Agricultural Mortgage Corporation was created in 1988 to buy up, guarantee and repackage agricultural real estate and rural housing loans. Like its larger residential relatives, it has a public mission to ease the flow of credit at stable interest rates, in this case to US farmers, ranchers and rural dwellers.

This is a very good observation from Dr. Ettefagh.

I am worried to read comments of President Bush- 24 Sept.:
"Our entire economy is in danger," ....emphasizing that the massive bailout was not targeted at "any individual company or industry. It is aimed at preserving America's overall economy." .... Warning that "America could slip into a financial panic,".... Bush blamed the crisis on "easy credit" in the housing market and "the faulty assumption that home values would continue to rise."

Now if the president of a country says it, you ought to believe him. It is amazing that President Bush feels to be in such a credibility deficit that he must spell out that it is not about bailing any particular group!! Talk about having a bad reputation......

America urgently needs God's blessings in four different ways.....long, wide, deep and frequent!!

I respectfully disagree with your assessment of the American Economic Model.

Your statement, "The Anglo-American style of unregulated “free market” function is a foreign concept here" is based on the false premise that America is a free market.

Nothing can be further from the truth.

The truth is, the american economic landscape is very highly regulated with laws, regulations, and rules that have never been carefully analyzed as a whole by any knowledgeable government entity. Because of this, there are conflicts between regulations, massive numbers of loopholes, and blatant manipulation of the 'system' for the benefit of a few groups and individuals who can afford to employ armies of people and companies to sift these artifical diamonds out of the offal of the market.

If Paulson and Bernanke are really the experts that their credentials claim they are, they should have been able to see this crisis coming and applied corrective measures long ago. That they did not implies two possibilities: either they are complete incompetents and lied to get where they are, or they knew all along this was coming and planned for it. Follow the money. Who actually benefits from a 1 trillion dollar bailout using ordinary american citizen's money? It certainly isn't Joe and Jane American. And dollars to doughnuts Paulson and Bernanke aren't getting any poorer from all this.

A bad loan is a bad investment no matter who holds the lien.

I'll give the sharia investment concept its due; at least it's not as susceptable to abuse as the current tangle of american finance laws.

Yep, true what you say in the last paragraph.
Another round of ripping off the developing world by sucking in cash on hand towards the excesses of America.
They used to do it by selling weapons, now they have removed the middleman and are asking for the naked cash!

I say to let the Americans fry in their own fat for a while! In a way, Iranians are now benefiting from the sanctions (that never worked anyway!)!