Environmental journalist @NatGeo, @NYT, @bbc etc. Global Fellow @ The Wilson Center, Fellow @ Center for Climate & Security
published on Quartz on Jun 1, 2015
BAGHDAD—Four years after US troops pulled out of the Iraqi capital, local merchants are once more cursing America.
“Look at these prices,” Abu Mustafa said, as he gestured at the mounds of fruits and vegetables around his stall at Karrada market. “Look what the dollar has done to them. Who can afford to buy okra at that cost?” Now retailing at 12,000 Iraqi dinars a kilo (about $4 a pound), it’s just one of the locally produced goods to have tripled in price over the past year.
Over the road and beneath a billboard commemorating three brothers killed in a recent attack, Mohammed Jassim, a chicken and dairy distributor, is even more worked up.
“We’ve had three bombs [in this area] this year. Three! But it’s the prices, even more than [the Islamic State] that are keeping customers away,” he said. Usually, in this leafy district perched in a bend in the Tigris river, he’d be doing a thriving trade on a midweek morning. But with shredded storefronts, blackened sidewalks, and sky-high price tags, the few buyers linger in their cars and shout their shopping lists to stall holders.
“Bombs and bad money are not good for business,” Jassim adds with a wry smile.
(CONTINUE READING ON QZ.COM)