1. The US GINI coefficient of income inequality is ABOVE Iran’s at 0.48 and rising fast!! In fact this level of inequality, by GINI level fo the US, is literally ‘off-the-charts’ in comparison to any other developed country, let alone any other developed ‘democracy’. The US GINI level of inequality is only matched by South American ‘banana republics’, African dictatorships, and Middle Eastern oil oligarchies!!

2. The US housing bubble’s recent burst, caused by the sub-prime lenders’ greed induced Ponzi scheme, and subsequent securitization of junk CDOs and SIVs by major investment bank bandits and Wall Street crooks, has looted out most of the phantom home equity wealth among the middle class, and driven the GINI coefficient of wealth inequality to levels not seen in America since the Great Depression.

3. The US ‘war economy’ has driven the public debt crisis to all-time high deficits since just the beginning of the Bush regime. Along with Bush’s tax cuts for the super-wealthy, this war debt has caused a nearly four TRILLION dollar surplus to become a four TRILLION dollar deficit in less than eight years.

4. While Ahmadinejad’s reputed (and MSM reported) dictatorship in Iran is heavily moderated and controlled by broad countervailing, and rationally acting interest groups in the country —- the same restraints are not applied in the Bush regime’s Empire of ‘Vichy America’ .

Many of Dr. Bakhtiar’s criticisms of Ahmadinejad’s economic policy in Iran sound very similar to the Bush’s corporatist economic empire in ‘Vichy America’ — albeit with less outright looting of the public treasury:

“An economic system where large segments of the economy resemble the fiefdoms of the Middle Ages”

“Lack of competition (large monopolies), an excessive number of middle-men, and the endemic corruption also adds to the problem. When these people [corporations in the US] see the opportunity to double their profit and they have the ability to control large parts of the market, they simply do so.”

“There are no laws regarding monopolies. Some of the largest businesses in Iran (Bonyads) [in US (corporations)] resemble black boxes. They do not pay tax, and no-one knows the extent of their business activities. The tax system in itself is very complex and large parts of the economy don’t pay any tax at all.”

All in all, this article demonstrates that Iran hardly treats its people any less democratically in the political context, and any less fairly in the economic context, than does the corporatist Empire hiding behind the facade of ‘Vichy America’ —- the primary differences being only that the ‘Vichy American’ faux government is much, much better at the sophisticated propaganda of global media making it appear superficially as a ‘free market’ democracy — of which it is neither!