Club of Doom - Turkey and Iran Firmly Headed In That Direction.

Someone said not to worry about the Iranians because they are a 3000 year old civilisation. They will survive for a long time more.  

Every single human civilisation has survived - in one form or another. The Greeks are still around. They were a very great civilisation also about 3000 years ago.  The Indians (my folks) have been around for 5000 to 9000 years (BBC). The Chinese have been around for a long time. 

Those are simple observations.  Wednesday comes after Tuesday type observations.

What is "relevant" - a very big but extremely understated word - is their impact on human lives today. 

Positive or negative? 

Good or bad? 

Some positive, some negative? 

Largely positive? 

Largely negative?

Totally useless pieces of crap?

Would you want to be an Indian living in India today? The MILLIONS of Indians who have escaped from India bear testimony to more 'negatives' than positive.  Yet the Indian civilisation will not likely disappear from the surface of the Earth for a very, very long time yet.

The following two charts show the "collapse" of the Iranian riyal and the Turkish lira.

In the first chart here the Iranian riyal has dropped from 32,000 riyal per USD one year ago to about 42,000 riyal as at end June 2018. 

This is called pelingkup. That is a depreciation in excess of 25% over 12 months. 

The next chart shows the inflation rates in Iran, hovering around 10%.  This is also a pretty high rate of inflation.  The people in Iran are certainly suffering.

Next up is the Turkish lira  versus the US Dollar.

In about 12 months, the Turkish lira has depreciated from about 3.6 to 4.75 against the US Dollar.  That is about 32% drop in about a year.

The next chart shows the Turkish inflation rate which is about 12.15% this year.

Some rule of thumb says, you must minus the inflation rate from the GDP rate to get the real growth rate. GDP growth in Turkey is 7.4%. So GDP minus 12.15% inflation  rate gives a "negative" growth of 4.75%. 

The Turkish people are also facing much uncertainty.

What this adds up to is burning public buses, throwing stones at the Police, getting shot by the Police, strikes, riots and other fun stuff.

Club of Doom stuff.  

This is not what any people should be going through.  

But it is  actually a choice. The people choose to be happy or to be suffering. The people choose to be clever or ignorant. It is the people who choose. It is always the peoples'  responsibility. It is always their "fault".