Why Is Iran's Stock Market Collapsing? And Lots More!

Investors in Iranian shares appear worried as the bourse in Tehran has fallen 15% since the June election of Islamic hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and 27% over the past 14 months, from the high in August 2004.

Since there is little foreign participation in the Iranian stock market (foreigners have not been allowed to invest) the drop is most likely the result of local investors worried about the fate of the economy or the political ramifications of the government's program to develop a nuclear bomb or maybe even under-reported social unrest amongst its young population.

Iran is just one of those places that it is difficult to get ones arms around. [See an interesting historical timeline here].

Demographically, the country of 70 million souls is ethnically two-thirds aryan.....yes the ones that Hitler thought of as blue-eyed blond-haired Germans are also found among the Persian peoples of Iran. Additionally, the population is quite young at a median age of around 24 [China compares with a median age of 32, the US at 36, Britain at 39 and India at 25]. The young population and high literacy has created generational problems between students and their more conservative parents resulting in periodic student rioting at universities and not very Islamic attitudes.

Anecdotal and statistical evidence of the alienation of the youth from the fundamentalist regime are overwhelming. For example, a government conducted survey revealed that

86 percent of the youth say that they do not perform the obligatory daily Islamic prayer.

In early 2003 a large Internet poll of students of the Amir Kabir University (the second most prestigious university in Iran) was conducted.

Only 6 percent of the students said that they support the hardliners,

while another 4 percent said they support the reformists within the regime.

A mere 5 percent said they support the return of the former monarchy.

Most significantly, 85 percent of the students said that they would support the establishment of a secular and democratic republic.

The student movements of today's Iran are almost the anti-thesis of the student movements of the 1960's in Western nations where,

For the overwhelming majority in this generation, personal survival trumps any notion of personal sacrifice for the common good. Thus in just one generation cynicism has replaced idealism among vast majority of the population. Economic hardships and lack of freedom have resulted in a mixture of materialism and individualism -- of coveting a Western life-style as seen on satellite television and of believing that it can be achieved only on a personal rather a societal level. It is easier to imagine that you can move to the West and dress like Brittany Spears than it is to believe that everyone can one day be like her here in Iran.

Also, many of us are not fully aware of the devastating war with Iraq in the 1980's, where human waves of underarmed Iranian men attacked Saddam's better equipped defense forces and were slaughtered by the 10's of thousands. The war, where Saddam attempted to capture Iranian port and oil assets, appears to be a strategy that drove him to invade Kuwait in the 1990's, too.

And ask Iranians about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction, many of whom are still suffering from the effects of his attacks.

With more than 100,000 Iranian victims of Iraq's Chemical and Biological weapons during the eight-year war, Iran is, after Japan, the world's top afflicted country by Weapons of Mass Destruction.

The official estimate does not include the civilian population contaminated in bordering towns or the children and relatives of veterans, many of whom have developed blood, lung and skin complications, according to the Organization for Veterans of Iran.

Nerve gas agents killed about 20,000 Iranian soldiers immediately, according to official reports. Of the 90,000 survivors, some 5,000 seek medical treatment regularly and about 1,000 are still hospitalized with severe, chronic conditions. Many others were hit by Mustard gas.

Iran has always been a place that I have been interested in visiting since I understand that there are lots of interesting and historical sites to visit. But unfortunately, given all the weird stuff going on there, I just don't think that it is a wise idea.