Things happen when you least expect it. How about the dissolution of Iran? We know their currency is worthless. It’s now 2.5 million per dollar. This, according to the retired lieutenant general, Keith Kellogg, suggests a disaster on a par with the hyperinflation of Germany’s Weimar Republic in the 1920s. It foretells economic collapse.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent basically is saying that Iran is going to run out of cash in two weeks. Communist China, Mr. Bessent says, “has substantially reduced any assistance to Iran. I am confident, given that, there’s only 15 million more barrels of Iranian oil on the water, that Iran will have nothing left to trade for anything.” Iran, Mr. Bessent adds, “will have nothing to trade for anything. Probably within the next two weeks, they are going to make their final deliveries of oil to China, and then they will have nothing.”
They can’t sell any oil because of the naval blockade, what President Trump calls the wall of steel. Meanwhile, inland countries aren’t trading with Iran either; Pakistan, Turkey, Azerbaijan. If they sold some tomatoes what would they get — 2.5 million worthless rials? Doubtful. Running out of cash is a bad thing. Running out of worthless cash is an even worse thing.
Heck, the New York Sun reports that Iran is so broke, its president couldn’t afford a Manhattan hotel room. He had to stay at his United Nations ambassador’s Midtown residence. Not clear whether the president crashed on a sofa bed or the floor. Usually they book two posh sweets at the Millenium hotel across the street from UN headquarters.
Apparently the local militias are revving up their motorcycles, getting ready to cruise through the provinces just in case there’s resistance to the regime. Just in case? I’ll say just in case, when you run out of money and what you have is worthless anyway, and you can’t sell any oil, and you can’t buy any goods from your neighbors, and if people can’t buy any bread to pop in the toaster every morning, you got yourself what might be called a revolutionary situation.
We’ve seen this before in history. Just when you least expect it, things can come crashing down. I’m thinking Iran qualifies.
#LARRY #KUDLOW #weeks #Iran #crashing