this post was submitted on 30 Nov 2024
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[–] [email protected] 16 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Why do people think Russians care about the exchange rate with western currencies when Russia doesn't actually do any trade using them, and people don't hold them domestically?

Also, anybody with even a minimal clue regarding how economics works would understand that a weak currency is good for a commodity exporter since it converts to higher revenue in domestic currency.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

Exchange rates don't mean much, if they did, the UK economy wouldn't be in the shitter and China's wouldn't be the big bad monster it's become in US media recently.

GDP adjusted for Purchasing Power Parity is what matters, and Russia is the 4th economy in the world under those metrics. It overtook Japan some months ago.

Maybe analyse why your corporate media wants you to simultaneously believe Russia has spent three years on the verge of collapse yet you need to send another hundred billion in weapons and fire them all right fucking now, Armageddon be damned.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

The exchange rates matter for the specific case of global trade. If a country is primarily an importer then they want their currency to be strong, and if it's an exporter than having a weaker currency is better. PPP applies more in terms of the internal economy of the country.

If a country is largely self sufficient then its internal economy isn't going to be affected much by the value of the currency on the global market. This is precisely why Russian internal economy isn't severely affected by the value of the currency on the markets.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I agree, I was trying to add to your point. The "you" in my comment is addressed to Westerners who seem to uncritically internalize whatever their reddit feeds tell them.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 weeks ago

Sadly, uncritically parroting nonsense seems to be the dominant form of discourse. This stuff isn't hard to understand if you spend even a few minutes to actually think through it, yet here we are.