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[Knit tie]

I have a question: what does a currency devaluation means to you?

For me? Nothing. My dad takes quite a bit of macho-hunter-breadwinner pride in not letting some bullshit devaluation affect the life of his family. We are still refurbishing the new penthouse with imported $2500+ furniture, still repairing my grandmother's flat and still paying the absurd amounts of money my education abroad requires.

As for the food imports ban, yours truly is outside of Russia at the moment and my parents are orthodoxal Christians who fast (read: are vegans) about 50% of the time, so they are not overly bothered either.

[Guardian G.I.]

I have a question: what does a currency devaluation means to you?

Russia remains the main market for Belarusian goods, and the devaluation of the Russian rouble means that Belarusian goods become more expensive on the Russian markets.
I think that the Belarusian government is going to devalue our currency in order to make our goods more competitive. There's a catch, though: there's a presidential election in November 2015, and devaluing BYR before the election will hit Lukashenko's approval rating. So he needs to balance it somehow, or else the opposition will create some serious trouble in November.

[Knit tie]

I have a question: what does a currency devaluation means to you?

Russia remains the main market for Belarusian goods, and the devaluation of the Russian rouble means that Belarusian goods become more expensive on the Russian markets.
I think that the Belarusian government is going to devalue our currency in order to make our goods more competitive. There's a catch, though: there's a presidential election in November 2015, and devaluing BYR before the election will hit Lukashenko's approval rating. So he needs to balance it somehow, or else the opposition will create some serious trouble in November.

Demshiza: But isn't all Belorussian opposition imprisoned, like in the USSR?

[Ukrainian Ranger]

Most of things we're importing come from China, and I think we've recently had some agreements about direct rouble-yuan exchanges, bypassing USD.

I can't understand this very common Russian argument.  What logic behind that? Russian ruble is losing against all major currencies. Yuan is included. 

Fun fact, this month Russian ruble lost 5% comparing to Ukrainian Hryvna.  That is far, far away from getting back to Uah\Rub rate from January  2013 but who knows what future will bring?

[Sergarr]

The logic here is "China recently has bought quite a few stocks in Russian market and therefore they're interested in Russia not crashing".

[Sheb]

Well, they did arrest all the other candidates after the last elections. Also, Lukashenko won the last elections with 76% of the vote (The runner up had 2.) So I think he could replace the Belarusian rubles with tiny plastic copies of his dong and still win. But maybe he wants to make sure his %age of the vote is still huge, for his ego or something.

Helgoland: It's funny, because you points out that money is not wealth, but you seem fixated on the falling Ruble/USD exchange rate, rather than look at what a ruble can actually buy in Russia. You needed 35 rubles for a dollar in February, and need 50 right now. If goods in Russia were constant in dollar price (aka the whole thing was only a devaluation), you'd see over 40% inflation since February.* However, we only see about 6-8% increase in prices since February.



Also, part of this is the dollar generally going up. The ruble last a third of its value v. the dollar but "only" a fourth versus the Euro. It also lost exactly as much versus the yuan as versus the dollar.

[Ukrainian Ranger]

Russia is a satellite of China fully dependent on its good will.

I still fail to see why goods from China will not get more expensive for Russians

[Sergarr]

They'll get more expensive, but not in proportion to the current increase of USD value/decrease of oil prices, since if they did, we'd have a bigger inflation than we have now.

[Sheb]

Wel, apparently the ruble lost as much compared to the yuan as compared to the USD...

[Ukrainian Ranger]

Yeah. Yuan is very stable comparing to USD. Unlike Euro or Yen.

I think there are a noticeable lag between inflation and currency devaluation, so we should expect funny prices in Russia few months later

[Guardian G.I.]

Demshiza: But isn't all Belorussian opposition imprisoned, like in the USSR?

It's rather complicated: most of our opposition politicians are generally not imprisoned, asides from a few people who instantly receive a status of a venerated freedom fighter in the Western and pro-Western press. The most recent one I can recall is Ales Bialiatski, who got arrested on tax evasion charges in 2011. Belarusian authorities kindly requested the Lithuanian authorities to provide information about his income - his activities were openly financed by the European Union. Lithuanians unwittingly provided the data, and later on Belatsky/Bialatski was arrested. He was released in 2014.

Opposition groups exist in a semi-legal state - formally, they are not banned, but the local authorities often try to obstruct their activities in various ways (very frequent fire safety inspections, registration troubles, etc.). Annual opposition marches in Minsk on the 25 of March were dispersed by riot police in the late 1990s and early 2000s, but now they go on without any troubles with the government.

During the presidential elections our opposition run a campaign against the government and openly call for mass demonstrations  - it was especially noticeable in 2010. After the election, they try to start a "democratic revolution" and overthrow the government. Among most notable such attempts I can name the failed Maidan-style camping in 2006 and the attempt to seize the parliament building in 2010 - all of them ended with riot police forcible ending the "revolution" and arresting the presidential candidates, who also happen to be the main agitators. The whole progressive mankind obviously condemns it, and they are let off a few months later.

The situation with the media is following: the television and radio are mainly pro-Lukashenko apart from EU-funded satellite TV channel Belsat and several Polish radio stations. Newspapers are politically divided: state-owned papers are obviously pro-Lukashenko (СБ - Беларусь сегодня, Республика, Звязда, some official local publications, еtc.), private newspapers are either leaning towards the government or the opposition. Opposition newspapers (Народная воля, Наша ніва, Свободные новости +, etc.) operate without government obstructions - the authorities tried to shut them down in early 2000s, but it only attracted public attention towards them. You can buy the latest issue of major opposition newspapers exposing the wrongdoings of the Bloody Regime in practically every state-owned Belsayuzdruk news kiosk - a rather absurd situation for a state that apparently tries to suppress freedom of speech. Opposition websites are not blocked inside the country - reportedly you can't access them from computers located in state institutions, but I haven't tried it. When the struggle for freedom, democracy and the right to be a proud and free Western colony EU member state becomes especially intense, some of them are temporarily shut down across the country along with social networks and major email services.

[Helgoland]

Helgoland: It's funny, because you points out that money is not wealth, but you seem fixated on the falling Ruble/USD exchange rate, rather than look at what a ruble can actually buy in Russia. You needed 35 rubles for a dollar in February, and need 50 right now. If goods in Russia were constant in dollar price (aka the whole thing was only a devaluation), you'd see over 40% inflation since February.* However, we only see about 6-8% increase in prices since February.

As I said, short term effects may be different, since some things are tied to the nominal value of money - pensions, for example. Plus businesses need time to adapt - you wouldn't expect prices in stores to fluctuate by some .01% during the day because the exchange rate does, right?
There's of course one major assumption I'm making here: That international trade is at least mostly free. Mercantilist policies can obliterate the effect I'm postulating, but nowadays they're not too widespread outside Best Korea.

[Ukrainian Ranger]

I'd love to know source of that 8% inflation. If that source is Russian government than I trust it as much as 20% inflation in 2014 claimed by Ukrainian government...

[DJ]

Just how self-sufficient is Russian economy anyway? I'm guessing all the heavy industry is just piles of rust these days, and there was never much of a commercial high-tech sector. What about food, though? The south of the European part looks like prime farmland on map at least, but is it producing enough to keep Russia from being a big net importer of food?

Anyway, I think this whole oil price war might be a good thing, if it's effects will be felt at the gas stations around here. Is it reasonable to expect a drop in prices for end-users around the world?

[Helgoland]

Why is a drop in gas prices a good thing? Emissions are too high already. And Americans already pay ridiculously low prices: IIRC Germany's prices are around four times as high.