The Managers of Love
The managers of love, nothing can be a symbol of our political, social, and economic situation in these recent four or five years like the stock market. If you remember, in the year 99, the then president encouraged everyone to invest more in the stock market. People, driven by the desire for profit and a dreamy life, sold their ordinary lives and bought shares, even unemployed individuals sold their dignity for a few million and were told to buy TMLT shares. The most iconic situation of that time was the famous tree in the village of Mal Mola, a village that was portrayed in the media as a successful stock market model.
The villagers would sit under the tree, engage in intellectual discussions and group analysis, and decide what to buy and sell. Even the reporter from the national TV would enthusiastically narrate their stories and introduce them as successful models. Two years later, when reporters visited them again, one of them, who had sold three shops to invest in the stock market and was now working as a laborer in Bushehr, said that everyone in the village had died.
After that, the plundering flood of the stock exchange looters, none of the encouragers, whether officials who wanted to ignite other markets towards the stock exchange, or experts and signal sellers, neither got anything nor felt any sense of torment for deceiving the people. That’s why one can take the rejection of the stock exchange symbol in recent years and narrate the pain and suffering of these people.
One of the peak points of this story was the speeches of the late president in the election debates, where he promised an immediate solution to the stock exchange issue. If we consider that point as the beginning of the government, because his most serious promises were related to the housing issue alongside the stock exchange problem. The end of this government was also very symbolic, as with what is now known as the ‘love and loan’ scandal, it also ended with the stock exchange. A bitter and shameful end for the stock exchange in the thirteenth government.
Mr. Eshqi, as the top manager who was supposed to urgently solve the stock market issue, leaves the market by adding bigger problems without even addressing the situation of the stock market in the past three years. Mr. Majid Eshqi, with the same attitude as government officials, responds to the numerous criticisms regarding the billion-dollar interest-free loan given to themselves and the board members of the stock exchange, saying two points that require serious consideration.
Two points that have been the approach of many government officials, hoping it would be the last time. They condemn critics for telling big lies, just like all managers do. Their justification for this accusation is the regulations that legally allow the board to grant loans. While accusing critics of lying, they do not deny granting themselves the loan, but only say it was legal according to a certain regulation. They also do not answer the question of why, if it was regulated, they took such action during the government transition period when they surely will soon bid farewell to their positions.
In fact, the senior government manager who was supposed to urgently resolve the stock market crisis in the final days of his management of the organization, instead of presenting report cards from his presidency and answering what issues he ultimately resolved, is busy portraying how he rejected two billion in embezzled money and small interest-free loan fragments for himself.
The second point is that they claim the employees of the stock exchange organization have special conditions and therefore deserve such loans. I do not know what they mean by special conditions, but it is unlikely that the conditions of the stock exchange board members are more special than the millions of retirees who struggle with their daily livelihood and whose income does not provide for a standard living. It is especially absurd that retirees who, after months of ups and downs, are told by Mr. Reisi, a bank employee, that they are now too old to receive this loan.
It can be further illustrated from the seventieth couplet that if we were to compare Mr. Eshghi’s special conditions with other segments of society who have galaxies of difference in approved facilities, many of whom have unfortunately lost their money in the same stock market, it seems like the stock market story in the thirteenth government should have started as a fantasy and ended as a tragicomedy.
