– Iran Central Bank Head Fired After Crushing Currency (ZeroHedge, Jan 22, 2013):
While in some places crushing your currency is a badge of honor for every formerly independent central banker (and now merely an operative of the fourth branch of government), this appears to not be the case in Iran. Because after having done what western central bankers can only dream of, and destroying the Iranian real by so much it nearly led to the onset of hyperinflation in the troubled country (and inflating away all that sovereign debt, oh wait, wrong insolvent country), the governor of the nation’s central bank, Mahmoud Bahmani, who apparently did not come from Goldman when he was hired back in 2008, was summarily dismissed. And while the move is obviously politically motivated, and the reason given is that he ordered “illegal withdrawals of money from the banking system”, or a process better known in the US as POMO, it is rather stunning how gaping the double standard is vis-a-vis central bankers around the world.
From AP:
Iran’s official IRNA news agency is reporting that an Iranian court has voted to dismiss nation’s central bank governor in connection with overnight withdrawals from banks.
IRNA is quoting Rahmatollah Sharif, the spokesman for the Supreme Court of Audit, as saying that Mahmoud Bahmani has 20 days to appeal the ruling.
He allegedly ordered illegal withdrawals of money from the country’s banking system. The money was related to the difference between the official and open market rates to change Iranian rials into U.S. dollars.
Some Iranian newspapers claimed that the money might have been withdrawn to pay cash handouts to Iranians in compensation for food and energy subsidy cuts that began in 2010.
Fear not Mahmoud – we are certain that Ben Bernanke will have a vice chairman spot open just for you, or at least a Vice President of Market Manipulation and Leaking on the Liberty 33 trading desk, if and when you manage to escape the clutches of Iran and make your way to the Marriner Eccles building. Now where is that Argo 2 – the Sequel film crew…