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To be fair, that $100 is now a lot of rubles…

ChuckNorris89 5y ago
Regardless, the buying power of those $100 is still the same in Russia. Only the citizens who only have rubles have lost massive buying power due to hyper inflation.
- School-Cotton 5y ago
  Not necessarily, since things sold in Russia aren’t denominated in USD. The ruble losing X against USD doesn’t automatically mean that everything becomes higher priced by X immediately (except for imported goods).
  - ChuckNorris89 5y ago
    >since things sold in Russia aren’t denominated in USD. Most important assets are. Valuable assets like real estate and sometimes cars is mostly denominated in USD and sometimes EUR, as the Rubble is too weak and volatile for the general population to bother with it for valuable assets. It's the same in Romania, cars and real estate are denominated in EUR despite nearly everyone in the country being paid in the national currency RON, and, before the creation of the EUR, they were denominated in USD or Deutsch Marks as the national currency was fluctuating like BTC. >The ruble losing X against USD doesn’t automatically mean that everything becomes higher priced by X immediately (except for imported goods) It does, since Russia doesn't really manufacture any high value goods that are in demand on the free market, so it has to import nearly everything apart from basic food, fuels and raw materials. I'm sure Russia can survive just fine without Dutch cheese, US bourbon, Italian designer clothes and French wine imports due to sanctions, but US CPUs, GPUs, iPhones and MacBooks, German car parts and industrial equipment, Swedish trucks, Liechtensteinian dental drills, French Airbuses and Japanese cameras, industrial robots, cutting edge sensors and chips still cost the same amount in USD, EUR and YEN to make but now 2x the price in RUB to import due to the devaluation and Russia needs to import all those things to not go back to the stone age, as they don't manufacture any equivalent domestic alternatives.
    - nannal 5y ago
      > Nvidia GPUs, Intel CPUs, MacBooks, Mercedes cars, dental drills, Nikon camera and Airbus plane still cost the same amount in USD Not that most of those matter because they aren't being sold to Russians now anyway.
      - vmception 5y ago
        new ones aren’t its a gigantic country ya know
      - ChuckNorris89 5y ago
        Why wouldn't they matter? Don't Russian citizens and businesses need stuff like computing, cars, planes, dental drills and imaging equipment to live and be productive? As another argument, the RUB prices of MacBooks and iPhones shot up +50% the day after the sanctions were implemented. The second hand market and scalping of these goods also exploded in Russia. And when you run out of dental drill bits, how will that not matter when you visit your dentist? Do you want him to work with a chisel and a hammer? The average Russian will be hit hard from these sanctions as time goes on.
        JumpCrisscross 5y ago
        > Why wouldn't they matter? I think the comment meant that it doesn't matter to domestic inflation because sanctioned goods can't be purchased. The latter part of which is true. The former, not--supply shocks can cause inflation as easily as money printing.
    - twelve40 5y ago
      > Valuable assets like real estate and sometimes cars is mostly denominated in USD and sometimes EUR More made-up BS. Go to cian.ru, avito.ru or any other real estate or car dealership website, right now, and all you see is rubles. It's been like that for over a decade now. Why would you just make stuff up? Maybe because the last time you were in the country was 00's or never?
- kelseyfrog 5y ago
  Inflation in Russia has been greater than 50% per month in the last year?
  - veganhouseDJ 5y ago
    The ruble has lost about that vs USD since Feb 21/22nd and that is with a crazy 10% emergency rate hike between then and now to defend the ruble.
    - kelseyfrog 5y ago
      I probably have something to learn here when I ask, exchange rates are being used to infer Russian inflation a la https://www.economicsdiscussion.net/exchange-rate/nominal-and-real-exchange-rates-of-an-open-economy-with-formula/15490 https://www.economicsdiscussion.net/exchange-rate/nominal-an... because Russian cpi/wpi numbers are not available/trustworthy on the short timescales we're dealing with here?
dehrmann 5y ago
As much as it's tumbled, it would have been more like $150 a few months ago. We're not talking Bolivars, here.
newsbinator 5y ago
Not really. For a civil servant, it was a fraction of a month's salary before and it's a fraction of a month's salary today. That fraction is double-ish what it was, but it's still merely a chunk or two of an average person's monthly salary (i.e. it's trivially easy for anyone at all to get caught in this net).
pelasaco 5y ago
to be precise 11k RUB.

Regardless, the buying power of those $100 is still the same in Russia. Only the citizens who only have rubles have lost massive buying power due to hyper inflation.

School-Cotton 5y ago
Not necessarily, since things sold in Russia aren’t denominated in USD. The ruble losing X against USD doesn’t automatically mean that everything becomes higher priced by X immediately (except for imported goods).
- ChuckNorris89 5y ago
  >since things sold in Russia aren’t denominated in USD. Most important assets are. Valuable assets like real estate and sometimes cars is mostly denominated in USD and sometimes EUR, as the Rubble is too weak and volatile for the general population to bother with it for valuable assets. It's the same in Romania, cars and real estate are denominated in EUR despite nearly everyone in the country being paid in the national currency RON, and, before the creation of the EUR, they were denominated in USD or Deutsch Marks as the national currency was fluctuating like BTC. >The ruble losing X against USD doesn’t automatically mean that everything becomes higher priced by X immediately (except for imported goods) It does, since Russia doesn't really manufacture any high value goods that are in demand on the free market, so it has to import nearly everything apart from basic food, fuels and raw materials. I'm sure Russia can survive just fine without Dutch cheese, US bourbon, Italian designer clothes and French wine imports due to sanctions, but US CPUs, GPUs, iPhones and MacBooks, German car parts and industrial equipment, Swedish trucks, Liechtensteinian dental drills, French Airbuses and Japanese cameras, industrial robots, cutting edge sensors and chips still cost the same amount in USD, EUR and YEN to make but now 2x the price in RUB to import due to the devaluation and Russia needs to import all those things to not go back to the stone age, as they don't manufacture any equivalent domestic alternatives.
  - nannal 5y ago
    > Nvidia GPUs, Intel CPUs, MacBooks, Mercedes cars, dental drills, Nikon camera and Airbus plane still cost the same amount in USD Not that most of those matter because they aren't being sold to Russians now anyway.
    - vmception 5y ago
      new ones aren’t its a gigantic country ya know
    - ChuckNorris89 5y ago
      Why wouldn't they matter? Don't Russian citizens and businesses need stuff like computing, cars, planes, dental drills and imaging equipment to live and be productive? As another argument, the RUB prices of MacBooks and iPhones shot up +50% the day after the sanctions were implemented. The second hand market and scalping of these goods also exploded in Russia. And when you run out of dental drill bits, how will that not matter when you visit your dentist? Do you want him to work with a chisel and a hammer? The average Russian will be hit hard from these sanctions as time goes on.
      - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
        > Why wouldn't they matter? I think the comment meant that it doesn't matter to domestic inflation because sanctioned goods can't be purchased. The latter part of which is true. The former, not--supply shocks can cause inflation as easily as money printing.
  - twelve40 5y ago
    > Valuable assets like real estate and sometimes cars is mostly denominated in USD and sometimes EUR More made-up BS. Go to cian.ru, avito.ru or any other real estate or car dealership website, right now, and all you see is rubles. It's been like that for over a decade now. Why would you just make stuff up? Maybe because the last time you were in the country was 00's or never?
kelseyfrog 5y ago
Inflation in Russia has been greater than 50% per month in the last year?
- veganhouseDJ 5y ago
  The ruble has lost about that vs USD since Feb 21/22nd and that is with a crazy 10% emergency rate hike between then and now to defend the ruble.
  - kelseyfrog 5y ago
    I probably have something to learn here when I ask, exchange rates are being used to infer Russian inflation a la https://www.economicsdiscussion.net/exchange-rate/nominal-and-real-exchange-rates-of-an-open-economy-with-formula/15490 https://www.economicsdiscussion.net/exchange-rate/nominal-an... because Russian cpi/wpi numbers are not available/trustworthy on the short timescales we're dealing with here?

dehrmann 5y ago

As much as it's tumbled, it would have been more like $150 a few months ago. We're not talking Bolivars, here.

newsbinator 5y ago

Not really. For a civil servant, it was a fraction of a month's salary before and it's a fraction of a month's salary today. That fraction is double-ish what it was, but it's still merely a chunk or two of an average person's monthly salary (i.e. it's trivially easy for anyone at all to get caught in this net).

pelasaco 5y ago

to be precise 11k RUB.