I heard Frances Harrison tell people that taxi driving is a second job for many, many Iranian men and that many keep their second job a secret from even their families.
In that spirit, I am linking to my earlier post on rationing, which includes my prediction that this move will be disastrous for poor and middle class women:
Benzine rationing
Tomorrow I will post a response to the next question about Iran.
7 comments:
Hey Esther, do you know anything about blogger.com being blocked in Iran? Obviously you have just posted, so it's working for you, but others have had probs. Any ideas?
Did you happen to see any of the torching of gasoline stations last night? I hear Tehran is a gigantic city, though
RickB, I've never had a problem with Blogger.com being blocked.
Esther, I was out in passing and stumbled across some of the unfolding events. Here's what I saw:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidyaghoobi/634319370/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidyaghoobi/634319364/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVd4YCBgbGU
I wrote this at that time:
"Somehow I managed to miss the enormous queues at 11.30pm tonight while traveling home. People were queuing to fill up anything available before the fuel rationing comes fully on-board here in Iran.
See a video I took here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVd4YCBgbGU
The noise from this place could be heard from a distance with fights breaking out sporadically as people waited in line for their turn. Police were at hand to calm things down but it didn't seem to help much.
I've been following the "Peak Oil" news for some time and such prophesied scenes I hoped wouldn't transpire. This is the world's 4th largest oil producing country let us not forget.
The government action on this matter is one I kinda support for many reason - not being a driver here makes that easy to say. But it should be known that the government subsidies on the fuel have to end and normalisation must come about. It's madness, it costs more for bottled water here that petrol, and how the people can piss it away!"
i'm iranian and i'm against ahmadinezhad but i support the
rationing of gas ...why iranian should consume more than chiness ?
if you walk in tehran streets almost every car has only one PASSENGER ,the dreriver
it make the weather of tehran terrible however the city is located
beside the alborz mountain and should have the best climate
i think western media are
biased when they are report about iran they see everything black
here nad it seems to be a propaganda
I lived in Peru in the 1970s when both gas and beef were rationed. Cars had either a blue or red sticker to indicate which day of the week you could purchase gas. Beef was pulled from the shelves every other week. The rationing of gas and beef had little impact consumption, consumers merely adjusted their purchasing habits. To reduce consumption, you need to end subsidies.
If you restrict supply by restricting how much you can purchase in a month, you simply encourage a black market and corruption to take root. The average consumer will pay more and consequences will be worse than if you had simply ended the subsidies.
The problem is that Iran should have been subsidizing public transportion rather than keeping the gas at artificially low price. I understand Tehran is 4000 busses short to handle the needs of its citizens.
And, Iran should have been building refinaries at home rather than in Malaysia and Indonesia.
But hey, you've got a monstrously expensive nuclear plant being built and financed by the Russians.
David, is it possible just persian language blogger sites are being blocked?
As of about a month ago, I have not been in Iran. This is why I have started posting on what people are saying to me. I no longer know what is blocked, but I have never had a problem accessing blogger.com from Iran.
Individual ISPs block different sites. But why block blogger when all sides of the debate use it?
David, interesting stuff about the gasoline stations. I agree that the gas prices do need to rise in IRan, but I do not agree with rationing. It is just an opportunity for some to make a fortune on the black market. It is not fair, even though people assume it is, and it will drive a lot of women into the streets to raise money for their families. An increase in cost would have been more fair.
Amir, the driving is terrible in tehran and it is true that you mainly see 1 person to a car. People drive everywhere. But still... there are ways to implement cost increases that would have been more fair.
anon from peru, very interesting.
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