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Iran Is Suffocating from Within
(Israel Hayom) Itay Ilnai - In recent months, Iran's economy has plunged into an acute crisis. Prices for meat and dairy products have risen more than 100% over the past year, while average per capita consumption of red meat has fallen. Per capita dairy consumption has fallen from 100 kg. a year at the beginning of the previous decade to less than 40 kg. today. On social media, Iranians complain that they have shifted to diets based on carbohydrates or cheap, low-quality products. The government has introduced an emergency program of cash grants and electronic coupons to prevent mass hunger, but many stores refuse to accept the coupons because of delays in banks transferring the money. Medicine prices have risen by hundreds of percent, forcing people to forgo treatment for chronic medical conditions. The country's marriage rate has fallen dramatically, while the number of young women choosing to freeze their eggs and postpone having children has surged in the hope that conditions will improve in the future. The Iranian reformist newspaper Shargh described a "repair economy" among Iran's middle class. Soaring spare-parts prices have made repairs to cars and electrical appliances an expense that many can no longer afford. Iranians cannot afford either repairs or replacements. The Iranian website Fararu quoted dental clinic managers whose patients were replacing fillings, crowns and implants with tooth extractions, which are cheaper. "People in Iran simply don't have money anymore, and we're not talking about the poor. We're talking about the middle class, people who in principle are not opposed to the regime, but are actually the people on whom the regime rests," said A., an Iranian-born Israeli who is an analyst for the Israeli Telegram channel Iran News. "I see a lot of videos that Iranian citizens smuggle out to opposition channels," said Dr. Yossi Mansharof, an Iran researcher at the Misgav Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy. "What you see in these videos is growing pressure on people's daily lives."