A 40cheragh report on a Freemasonic store for over-conspicuous goods in Tehran perhaps traces a pattern of consumption that Thorstein Veblen used to call conspicuous consumption. Although 40cheragh's story is quite an example, the criticism of this behaviour has been around quite some time now about it happening among the rich and middle-class alike. However I want to point to another side of this story where it is not the buyer that is under investigation but the available goods.

No one blames you to own and drive a 2009 Hummer in Tehran if you can afford that. Actually it shows how you are sporty, and that you have a lot of money as well. But it is actually hard to find in Tehran goods that are proper valuable. There are a number of reasons why and how a buyer seeks a high-priced good. To mention that, one is actually the conspicuous consumption and another is for saving it as a form of investment. In the former the goods are not just high-priced but usually over-priced. Now you can see that many a goods that you can find in this city are not of the quality to have a high value. And to be proper accurate, I must say I am talking not about functional goods like home appliances and cars, but about goods like artistic objects, wines, real estate, furniture and like that. That means even with a lot of money, what you can get here is limited to a range of kitsch to some mid-luxury common objects. I am saying that above mid-luxury we do not have anything or at least an active, open market. But that is for common goods like cars, while some specific range of products, those that do not serve any function but are about quality, style and history, are missing from the range of products available.

So the boulevardier is left alone in the forlorn corners of this city to wonder if the most valuable thing money can buy is love.