What’s in a currency value? If you are traveling abroad, it determines how expensive your trip will be. But in the geopolitical arena, currency values give you a rough guide as to which countries are rising or falling, and why.
Take Iran, a nation whose government may be on the verge of collapse. Or perhaps the theocracy will smash the resistance once and for all and move into full totalitarian mode. Either way, prospects for the country are highly uncertain.
It is thus no surprise that the Iranian currency, the rial, has fallen so low that on some exchanges its value is listed as zero. It’s not quite literally zero: The currency has not lost all of its value, as it still is used for many domestic transactions in Iran. But foreigners do not find it worth the trouble to trade the currency in open, liquid markets, given its very low value, uncertain future, and Iranian laws limiting trading in the currency at free market rates. Better to just forget about it.
