Slashdot Mirror
Iran Running Out of Physical Currency, Satellite Broadcasts Dropped in Europe
iONiUM writes "In an interesting problem with physical currency, Iran is now running out of hard currency, due to a combination of inflation, and 'Koenig & Bauer AG of Würzburg, Germany, also says it has not responded to an Iranian request for bids to make the presses to print new rials.' Perhaps they should switch to BitCoin."
In addition to not printing money for them, the European currency presses won't sell Iran the equipment needed to print their currency domestically (not unexpected with the embargo). pigrabbitbear adds: "Eutelsat Communications, one of the largest satellite providers in Europe, has just nixed its contract with IRIB, the Iranian state broadcasting company. While IRIB's programming is still mostly up and running in Iran, the decision means that 19 IRIB TV and radio channels have now been axed from Europe and much of the Middle East."
If the hard cash is difficult to come by, then doesn't it raise the value of the printed notes thus nullifying the inflation and the need for more printed notes?
Yes, Iran was suspected of printing Superdollars because the previous regime had the exact same physical machinery as the US Treasury. Perhaps they couldn't buy or fabricate spare parts to keep those presses running.
1. They are already "increasing the money supply". They simply don't have enough physical bills now to hand out all the digital money they are inventing.
2. A fiat currency controlled by a state apparatus is not a "free market", no matter which direction they end up choosing.
this is what happens when you don't cooperate with the Americans, the Europeans, the Turks, the Saudis, the Israelis, the Russians, the Chinese, etc...
there is a price to pay for forging a path that is hostile and has animosity to rest of the world. framing the situation as a country not blindly following just the USA is complete bullshit
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I think its funny that "news for nerds" doesn't know that hard currency and physical currency are two different things to businessmen / economists and /. is getting them confused.
Hard currency is someone else's stable currency or gold. You want that when you're doing the hyperinflation thing like Iran's doing now and the US is attempting to do and Germany did about 90 years ago. Foreigners like satellite broadcasters want "real" aka hard money.
Physical currency is the paper bills. Once a stack of bills can't buy a roll of toilet paper, people start using money instead. Ditto firewood/kindling. Again a symptom of inflation. Most legal foreign trade doesn't involve paper currency so the satellite owner probably doesn't care about Iran's paper currency.
It takes pretty high tech to make cutting edge hard to counterfit paper money. Coinage is possible if you have gold. Paper checks, bank accounts, and credit cards don't care how many zeros are on them. Bitcoin would work but its hardly the only solution and requires a lot more electricity than a checkbook. Its not a huge deal.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
"It is pretty douchy that Israel didn't have to sign the NPT but gets weapons and reactors."
No one has to sign it, it's entirely option. Note that Pakistan, India, and North Korea all have weapons and reactors but are not signatories either.
The treaty is based on the idea that if you sign up, then if you don't have nuclear weapons, then you don't seek to acquire them, and if you do have nuclear weapons, then you agree to reduce stockpiles with the aim of eventually disarming. In return for agreeing to this, you get access to global nuclear technology and information sharing agreements for peaceful nuclear power generation. The problem with Iran is that it wants access to this information, and the nuclear components market, but it's not fulfilling it's legal obligations to prove that it's not seeking to acquire nuclear weapons.
I hope this clarifies the difference between Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea vs. Iran. The former 4 have basically made the calculation that they'd rather have nuclear weapons and worry about sourcing nuclear enrichment and power technologies outside of international frameworks, or alternatively, simply developing it themselves internally. In contrast, Iran is basically saying they want all the benefits of the NPT, whilst fulfilling none of the obligations. You can't do that, you either sign up to all, or nothing.
One final point I'll make though is that action to prevent states becoming nuclear capable can happen whether the NPT is involved or not, so you shouldn't assume the NPT is a tool used to simply beat nations with, it's not. The reason I say this is because the pressure against North Korea (a non-NPT signatory) is as strong as against Iran (an NPT signatory). As you can see, rhetoric, proposed action, or actual action against a nation is simply to do with global politics as much as it is NPT compliance - in other words it doesn't matter if India/Pakistan/Israel are NPT signatories or not, any action against them will happen, or not happen, regardless of their NPT signatory status so Israel signing up to the NPT, or Iran dropping out of the NPT, would have absolutely no bearing on the pressure (or in Israel's case, lack of) against them.
Actually that's been a primary reason for Iran's economic collapse so far - both the US and Europe actually put their money where their mouth is for once and actually stopped buying Iranian oil. Whilst China has picked up some of the lost sales, it's not picked up even close to all of it, and worse, because China is no longer competing with the West for Iranian oil, and Iran desperately needs to sell that oil, China has been able to bargain for lower prices for it. Saudi Arabia has increased output to support the loss of Iranian oil to the US and Europe which is why they've been able to pull it off.
Europe (and presumably the US?) have also just this week now extended that to gas too, which will hurt Iran's economy even more.
"why there are all these sanctions against Iran."
The two primary reasons are:
1) Refusing to fulfil it's obligations as an NPT signatory. It is fairly unique in this regard.
2) Sponsorship of groups on US/European terrorism watch lists. This is something other nations do (including the US/Europe ironically).
But it is point 1) that would normally be used as the reason for separating Iran from other nations, though it may be worth reminding you that Syria and North Korea have also both been under sanctions for many years for these reasons also so it's not as if they're being applied to just Iran, though I will agree with you, they are still applied somewhat selectively - for example, Pakistan is also complicit in funding terrorist organisations, and has a nuclear programme (though like North Korea, is not an NPT signatory) but because it's a US ally, it gets away with these things.
They are free to build their own printing presses.
The EU is simply refusing to give them one.
printing billions in quality counterfeit western currency
Actually; that's what our governments do too..
It's called 'quantitative easing'.
"Oops, I always forget the purpose of competition is to divide people into winners and losers." - Hobbes
With all due respect, your information is either out of date, or in place, completely and utterly wrong.
"As a signatory to the NNPT, Iran has every right to develop nuclear power, enrich uranium and have access the full nuclear fuel cycle."
It has the right to obtain peaceful nuclear technology, whilst it is also fulfilling it's obligations under the NPT. The problem is, as it's not currently fulfilling it's obligations under the NPT, it also does not have the right to obtain peaceful nuclear technology via NPT supported mechanisms.
"Israel and the USA are attempting to deny this capability to Iran because they *might* build a nuclear weapon."
It's not about might, it's about the fact that as an NPT signatory to gain the benefits of NPT mechanisms for transfer of peaceful nuclear technology you have to fulfil certain obligations. Iran is currently in breach of those obligations and it's nothing to do with what the US or Israel thinks as the IAEA is a multinational organisation staffed by as many of US/Israel's foes as it is their allies. If you do not believe me that it is the IAEA condemning Iran for not fulfilling it's obligations and simply US/Israeli say-so, then see here, read it directly from the horse's mouth:
http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/focus/iaeairan/index.shtml
Or specifically the most recent report here, asking Iran to fulfil it's obligations:
http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Board/2012/gov2012-50.pdf
"National Intelligence assessments concluded that Iran had abandoned its weapons program 10+ years ago."
This is true, but only a half-truth. You've missed the fact that the IAEA believes there is some evidence the programme may have restarted, and it is up to Iran to fulfil it's obligations to prove otherwise if it wants to be in compliance with the NPT. So sure they did abandon it, but that doesn't mean they didn't start it again.
"Iran has bent over backwards to accommodate UN (i.e. USA) demands for access to its facilities"
No it hasn't, you've got a number of things wrong here:
1) Iran hasn't bent over backwards to accomodate the UN (IAEA), on the contrary, the IAEA has bent over backwards to accomodate Iran. Specifically, Iran barred a number of IAEA inspectors from it's site from countries it has a distaste for (including the US). A country is not meant to be able to pick and choose what inspectors it allows in as that defeat the object of impartial observations of a nuclear programme. Despite this the IAEA let it do it and got on with it's job anyway. If there is any bending over backwards, it's from the IAEA not Iran.
2) The UN isn't the USA, and the USA isn't the UN. I think you'll find there are a number of UN members, including Iran themselves who'd take offence to you determining that their UN votes are controlled by the USA.
3) There are a number of facilities and sections of facilities the IAEA has requested access to, but have had their request deny. This is one of the reasons the IAEA has determined Iran non-compliant. See the most recent report here for evidence of this complaint by the IAEA:
http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Board/2012/gov2012-37.pdf
Specifically, near the top of page 3:
"Iran has not responded to the Agencyâ(TM)s initial questions on Parchin and the foreign expert; Iran has not provided the agency with access to the location within the Parchin site to which the Agency has requested access; and Iran has been conducting activities at that location that will significantly hamper the Agencyâ(TM)s ability to conduct effective verification."
"but EVERY TIME Iran has compromised, the USA and Israel create another hoop for them to jump through."
Again, it's nothing to do with the US and Israel, the US's
The Shah became a dictator when the USA overthrew the democratic government in 1953.
Iran's inflation isn't caused by an abundance of currency, but by a shortage of goods. This is intentional, in fact we are the ones causing it.