The website Mesghal, which has been the most-commonly used source in recent years for information on the street prices of currencies and gold, has not published a new price for the dollar since late in the afternoon of February 16.
The Central Bank of Iran publishes new daily prices for two dozen currencies each morning. But it has held the dollar rigidly at 12,260 rials since the morning of January 28, when it devalued the rial by raising the price of a dollar almost 1,000 rials or 8.5 percent.
The irony is that by locking the rial firmly to the dollar, the Islamic Republic has tied its own currency to the very currency that President Ahmadi-nejad has denounced for years as worthless.
The selling price for the dollar that has remained posted on Mesghal since February 16 is 18,980 rials. That is 55 percent higher than the Central Bank price, a huge spread that is not considered sustainable by most economists.
The Islamic Republic has been following a policy of coercion to sustain the price. How long that will work remains to be seen. Another major question is how bad the explosion will be when coercion no longer works.