Your humble Hot Air team is trying to take it easy this holiday weekend, partly because we’re rolling out a new feature on Monday night and want to be rested and ready to go when we do. Blogging will continue until then, but don’t expect much more than a link and a courtesy blockquote in each post.

First up: Mahdi displays the type of economic acumen that’s led to one of the world’s leading producers of crude oil having to import gasoline.

Iran’s Press and economists yesterday slammed a decision by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to slash interest rates, describing the move as “incomprehensible” and risking “economic suicide”.

The rate cut decision, which economists said could overheat an already inflationary economy, appeared to have been taken without the knowledge of economy minister who had said exactly the opposite just hours earlier…

The centrist Ham Mihan daily said that hours before the decision was announced, both Economy Minister Davoud Danesh Jafari and central bank chief Ebrahim Sheibani said rates would stay the same.

“They were unaware that (the president) was pouring cold water on the economic commander of his cabinet in order to increase the temperature of Iran’s economy,” the daily said.

The Guardian reports “panic selling” on Iran’s stock market.