From: fekr@mips.com (Fekr Nevisandeh)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.iranian
Subject: RE: How the government can help.
Date: 21 Jul 1992 20:12:42 GMT
Organization: SGI, MIPS Technology Inc, Sunnyvale, California
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: gorgan.mips.com
Originator: fekr@gorgan.mips.com


Posted for Masoud, masoud@hicomb.hi.com

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I like to make some comments on the corruption in Iran.  My opionions
in no way blame the government of Iran.

sehari@iastate.edu (Babak Sehari) writes:

>My first suggestion is that the government should buy the factories
>and other needed facilities, then sell it to the public through sale
>of stock.  That is, for example, government should buy a gas power generation
>station say for $100,000 and then calculate it's value in Rail using free
>market exchange rate. that is say 14,000,000 "Toman" then issue 1,000,000
>stock of $28 each (book value to price of 2, which is considered to be
>very good rate) and sell it to people.  Now, this power station should be
>run by the stock holders.  The stock holders should hire the engineers and
>the staff to run this company.  This should be done by election of a CEO in
>stock holder meeting of each month.  This company then sells the electricity
>to public utility with say %5 profit and then distribute the income among it's
>share holders.  At the same time, government have now $200,000 to invest in
>another company which is needed for the country. Say, this time the government
>buys another company and continues the same way.  This should utilized the
>money in people's hand toward the construction of the country, as well as
>creating another source of income for the people.

sehari@iastate.edu (Babak Sehari) writes again:

>    However, the same media, which pictures me and you as terrorist over here,
>sold us the picture of ourselves to even us as corrupt people.  Yes, there are
>corruption I do not deny it; however, it's extend is not as deep as they
>picture it to be. Yes, if you talk about turkey I agree with you.  The reason
>there is also unreasonably low wages of Turkish government employees.  These,
>people have to feed their kids, thats why they are forced to do things that
>they themselves do not like.  In Iran even with low wages people have their
>own ethics, and everyone is policing him or herself.  That's why the extend
>of corruption is much less in Iran than it should be in similar situation on
>other countries.

No argument on the attitude of U.S. media towards Iranians, but as much as I 
hate to disagree, the extend of corruption in Iran is deep.  

Babak Khan, what have been your recent dealings with any officials in any 
governmental agencies in Iran?  Some of those officials, whether he is an office
clerk or the head of the department, have become so corrupted that they ignore
other authorities in their own organizations and impose their own rules on others
with complete disregard to the laws of the country.  They have no fear of getting
caught casue they usually don't get caught.  They force business men to pay them 
bribes, and unless they don't pay, the business men will have greater financial 
losses.  And the sad thing is that those officials think that the bribery is their 
Hagh (their belonging as if earned).  What do innocent people do to cope with that?
Some pay those bastards while others try to fight them.  Those who pay contribute 
in extending the corruption to higher levels.  We (Iranians) are responsible for 
our own behavior and, therefore, the corruption in Iran.  It is not the 
responsibility of the US media.

You also suggested the implementation of a U.S. like stock market in Iran where 
people can invest in publicly owned companies.  I am no expert in this area 
but I do know that the implementation of such market requires the presense of 
a commission to monitor the activities of key participants.  This committee 
should not be corrupted.  This type of market provides the means for the 
corrupted indivduals to easily take advantage of unaware people.  Examples are
Mike Milken, Ivan Boskey, S&L's of the U.S. market.  Such individuals must be
stoped and to do so we would need laws and regulations to force those barbarians
to behave.  We can't afford some jerk to set his own rules and impose them on
us.  People must have adequate education to be able to distinguish between good 
and evil.  Unfortunetly, we don't have the broad education across the country 
and the understanding of the many issues surrounding such market so that everyone 
can benefit from this system.  We would be eaten alive by corruption.  You may 
suggest something like a mutual fund by which people with insufficient knowledge 
of the market can participate and make money.  The idea of mutual funds is not 
new to Iranians in Iran.  Many people (mostly retired and widowed) have handed 
their hard earned cash assets to some morally/socially/religiously respected 
individuals who at the end vanished with all the money.  Those thieves may only 
spend a few years in jail but at the end they get out of their sentense by bribing 
some officials.

Sorry for being negative.

Masoud.
masoud@hicomb.hi.com

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