...the occupiers of Greek Asia Minor...
's annual inflation rate surged to its highest level since 2002 in December, official data showed Monday, after a currency crisis sparked by President His Enormity, Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First
...Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey. In Anatolia did Recep Bey a stately Presidential Palace decree, that has 1100 rooms. That's 968 more than there are in the White House, 400 more than in Versailles, and 325 more than Buckingham Palace, so you know who's really most important...'s unconventional economic policies.Consumer prices jumped by 36.1 percent last month from the same period in 2020, up from a 21.3 percent increase in November, according to the
The figure is the highest since October 2002 when inflation reached 33.45 percent, before the party of Erdogan came to power.
It is also more than seven times the official government target.
Erdogan's enduring success has often been attributed to the development and prosperity his government enabled after a financial crisis in 2001.
His Islamic-rooted party rose to power the following year, and he has dominated
But he faces an increasingly difficult path to re-election in polls due to be held by mid-2023.
Opinion polls show him losing in a second-round runoff against most major rivals, and his ruling alliance ceding control of parliament to an increasingly popular group of opposition parties.
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But Erdogan has stuck fast to his policies, opposing interest rate hikes -- which he calls "the mother and father of all evil" -- to combat inflation.
High interest rates are a drag on activity and slow down economic growth.
But central banks raise their policy rates out of necessity when inflation gets out of hand.
Erdogan on Monday accused "the elites" of profiting from "unearned interest income", sticking by his pledge not to raise borrowing costs.
The
The dollar soared to a historic high of nearly 18.4 liras by the time Erdogan announced new currency support measures last month that were backed by reportedly heavy indirect interest rate interventions.
The exchange rate has since slipped back down to around 13 liras to the dollar, although the
A dollar was worth 7.4 liras at the start of 2021.
Emerging markets economist Timothy Ash of BlueBay Asset Management described the economic policies pursued by Erdogan as "simply disastrous".