On the Petro-economy of Iran

While on the surface, this cat and mouce game between Iran and the West continues, deep down, I am extremely worried about the economic situation in Iran. It is ture that ever since 1980, the US imposed economic sanctions against Iran, but, during all these years, others have been trading happily with the new regime. When the current UN sanctions become operational, I fear that it could cause the complete collapse of the economy. I am aware that the price of oil may be rising, but, I see this as the root of Iran's economic problem rather than a solutions for its problems. I would like to be optimistic, but I cann't. The petro-economy of Iran is too dependent on the oil money, too dependent for my taste! In the last year of so, almost every economic indicator has been moving in a wrong direction. The officials, of course, continue to tell positive stories about the rising volumes of transactions in numerous stock markets that have been created in various towns and cities in Iran. But, on the job front, and especially, on inflation, the situation is truly frightening. In an unexpected move, one of the vice-Presidents of Iran revealed that the lowest 20% of the population are so poor that they can only afford to buy bread, and at best, bread and yoghurt. In another piece, an Iranian academic claimed that 10 million Iranians live in absolute poverty, and another 10 to 20 million suffer from relative poverty. At the same time, we also know that prices of basic necessities of life are rising very rapidly. It is undoubtedly true that the UN economic sanctions, could only intensify this underlying inflationary pressure. And if the Oil money dries up or reduce daramatically, the economy would have no option but to collapse.