The caliphate, a floundering state

Propaganda claims that oil has made IS self-sufficient are also bald-faced lies. At the end of the day, money is still just money, and it does no good if you can't buy anything with it. And if no goods reach IS-controlled regions, can a productive economy be kept afloat? If not, then oil revenues will merely drive inflation. Economist and oil expert Eckart Woertz, Senior Research Fellow at CIDOB, likens the IS to an "overvalued stock company" and speaks of a "Ponzi scheme" in need of constant expansion.