Miscellaneous News

Iran has over twice the population of Saudi Arabia. They also have a much more robust industry, and their education and science sector is just leagues ahead. Their engineers have excellent grasp of fundamentals in maths and physics. If Iran was not sanctioned they would probably be about as rich as a country like France or Germany. Compare this with Saudi Arabia where people get degrees in Islamic Theology and technical staff is typically hired from outside.

Overbom said:

Pakistan about to go down the toilet. Some new sort of voodoo economics are being tested there

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https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1540224685501194240

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Holy crap. This program is as if it was designed to destroy the Pakistanian economy. How can an idiot like this be in the government?

This guy's comment in that article is pretty on point.
"zuk - The last nail in the coffin of country's economy as industrial activity is declared a crime and traders are free to fleece the populace. Only import business will flourish under this regime. Capital will flee the country. Expect remittances to drop and Rupee to further devaluate."

xypher said:

I don't think Iran is a $1 trillion+ USD economy. Yeah, Wiki says they were $1.74 trillion in 2021 but I don't get where those numbers actually come from because that would mean Iran had larger economy (even if in nominal terms) than Russia in 2021. This does not sound probable at all, considering the inability of Iran to export much and shallow internal market. Google's latest figures for 2019 indicate that they had $191 billion economy back then, I doubt Iran's GDP grew 9x times in just three years, especially considering the pandemic which hit Iran pretty hard.

UPD: Yeah, pretty sure the number is bullshit - it appears that the IMF is using the official exchange rate to convert the GDP into USD, which is useless as you cannot freely convert money with that exchange rate. Using the mean actual exchange rates gives Iran a GDP of around $238 billion in 2021, which is plausible.

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1 usd = 320,000 rial in the black market. The World Bank uses this number when calculating Iran's GDP.


Wiki uses the IMF figure which uses the official exchange rate of 1 usd = 42,450 rial.

gelgoog said:

Iran has over twice the population of Saudi Arabia. They also have a much more robust industry, and their education and science sector is just leagues ahead. Their engineers have excellent grasp of fundamentals in maths and physics. If Iran was not sanctioned they would probably be about as rich as a country like France or Germany. Compare this with Saudi Arabia where people get degrees in Islamic Theology and technical staff is typically hired from outside.


Holy crap. This program is as if it was designed to destroy the Pakistanian economy. How can an idiot like this be in the government?

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I always hear this from Iran propagandists(not saying you're one) that they have insane education, science and industry but have never seen anything come out of that country besides hydrocarbons.

Iran has about the same population as Turkey and there's no amount of propaganda that can convince me that Iran has an economy over 2.5x larger than an unsanctioned Turkey.

Bob Smith said:

I always hear this from Iran propagandists(not saying you're one) that they have insane education, science and industry but have never seen anything come out of that country besides hydrocarbons.

Iran has about the same population as Turkey and there's no amount of propaganda that can convince me that Iran has an economy over 2.5x larger than an unsanctioned Turkey.

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I am not saying that it does. In my estimation as an outsider their economies are roughly similar in size but differently oriented.

You say nothing comes out of Iran besides hydrocarbons. Well, they are sanctioned to hell and back, in the Middle East they are a major exporter of automobiles. They also have large steel production. They have huge installed hydropower capacity. And they build those hydropower plants themselves. In my experience with scientists from Muslim nations the Iranian ones are closest to the top on average. Turkey still comes second. And the rest is basically a desert.

Under such heavy sanctions, they manage to have their own space program, design and build their own tanks, enrich uranium, etc. So I don't know why you think they are so technically weak. I know Turkey is pretty good at civil engineering, but the Iranians aren't that much behind. And in my experience they are still ahead in hard science.

Unfortunately Turkey, much like India, has a big issue in that most of their best scientists end up as migrants in Europe or elsewhere.

Bob Smith said:

I always hear this from Iran propagandists(not saying you're one) that they have insane education, science and industry but have never seen anything come out of that country besides hydrocarbons.

Iran has about the same population as Turkey and there's no amount of propaganda that can convince me that Iran has an economy over 2.5x larger than an unsanctioned Turkey.

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The official exchange rates for both Iran and Turkey are very volatile and not very useful for estimating the strength of the domestic economy, which is why PPP is quite useful here. Turkey is about double the size of Iran's economy, which I'd say is quite an achievement for Iran given how many sanctions there are.

There are very few countries that can launch satellites, build nuclear reactors or supply its own military with basic weapons. We shouldn't confuse them with pre industrial Saudi Arabia. Western propaganda against Iran is quite pervasive, so it's important to look at the objective facts

Minm said:

The official exchange rates for both Iran and Turkey are very volatile and not very useful for estimating the strength of the domestic economy, which is why PPP is quite useful here. Turkey is about double the size of Iran's economy, which I'd say is quite an achievement for Iran given how many sanctions there are.

There are very few countries that can launch satellites, build nuclear reactors or supply its own military with basic weapons. We shouldn't confuse them with pre industrial Saudi Arabia. Western propaganda against Iran is quite pervasive, so it's important to look at the objective facts

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North Korea can launch satellites, build nuclear reactors and supply its military with basic weapons on top of heavy sanctions and no one envies that country's technological prowess. Those aren't worthy feats considering how old those technologies are. Most countries can do all three of those but just choose not to.

Bob Smith said:

North Korea can launch satellites, build nuclear reactors and supply its military with basic weapons on top of heavy sanctions and no one envies that country's technological prowess. Those aren't worthy feats considering how old those technologies are. Most countries can do all three of those but just choose not to.

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No, they can't. Proof: South Korea tried multiple times to launch a satellite starting in 2009 and failed each time, only succeeding a few years ago.

Most countries in the world can barely manufacturer a sufficient supply of pencils and notebooks using only indigenous IP for the entire supply chain to support universal literacy. Forget anything high tech.

FairAndUnbiased said:

No, they can't. Proof: South Korea tried multiple times to launch a satellite starting in 2009 and failed each time.

Most countries in the world can barely manufacturer a sufficient supply of pencils and notebooks using only indigenous IP for the entire supply chain to support universal literacy. Forget anything high tech.

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South Korea isn't trying to develop ICBM technology while Iran is which is why this is so much more important to them. If South Korea tried as much as Iran did, they would have gotten it decades ago.

ficker22 said:

What do they do when they discover that non-white ethnic groups tent to out birth white ones? Forced sterilization of blacks?

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It’s amusing that the one basically leading the charge is the black conservative justice (Thomas) appointed by Bush. He had the strongest opinion on the gun rights a couple days ago, been pushing to overturn roe v wade for 30 years, and now he is suggesting Gay Marriage, contraceptives*, and sodomy punishment to be reviewed next. Hard for the left wing to simply label them as Nazi Bigots.

FriedButter said:

It’s amusing that the one basically leading the charge is the black conservative justice (Thomas) appointed by Bush. He had the strongest opinion on the gun rights a couple days ago, been pushing to overturn roe v wade for 30 years, and now he is suggesting Gay Marriage, conceptive, and sodomy punishment to be reviewed next. Hard for the left wing to call them Nazi Bigots.

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He reminds of Stephen, best slave in the States!