i was reading an article in time(it had pictures guise!!!!!!) and the reporter was in tehran and basically everyone he talked to said that despite the seeming wealth accumulating due to pirated goods the sanctions are CRUSHING the economy. most of the people said that they assumed they had maybe one more year before they would be unable to even buy enough food to survive at the most minimal level. looks like they were being optimistic.
one guy owned some air conditioning business or something and he has to have employees take suitcases full of US dollars to dubai to buy raw aluminum in order to get the stuff he needs to keep his business going and he said it was getting too expensive to convert rials to dollars to do business that way.
shit's getting real bad there, for sure.