Episode Details

Whenever you have massive unrest in a country that threatens the current regime, you can bet before all the protests a bank failure occurred. The current situation in Iran is no different. In 2025, Ayandeh Bank failed due to almost $5 billion in losses on a lot of bad loans. The Iranian government rolled the bank into a state bank and printed a ton of money to cover the massive losses. Unfortunately, that never works out well. In this situation you see all the classic mistakes, banks fail then central bank prints money to cover it up, which causes a devaluation of the currency and rising inflation, which leads to a drop in wages, which leads to people not being able to buy food and then chaos in the streets. There are many correlations between this example and what our own central bank has done here in the U.S. This episode reviewed an article from The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) titled “The obscure bank collapse that sent Iran into a tailspin.”