BYN-roubel, US dollar, euro and other kinds of money and their substitutes
B for Belarus #15 (2020-3-11) expert talk about Belarus with Vladimir Baranich and Yaroslav Romanchuk
- US dollar as a savior of household savings and means to defend from hostile government.
- Hard currencies and Belarusian rouble in the 1990-ies. Pain of financial illiteracy. Why over 70% of Belarusians still save in $-dollars.
- Inflation and devaluation as means of confiscation.
- Is a national currency an indispensable part of the national sovereignty?
- Hard currency in Belarus today. Where and how can you use it?
- The notion “conditional unit” or “notional unit” as a way to say “US dollar”.
- Why Belarusians are so reluctant about investing in stocks and bonds?Read more about Belarusian national currency
or download audio to listen later
About the participants
- Vladimir Baranich is a country consultant and media analyst – aka Lad Bar (the founder of the ExpAt.by).
- Yaroslav Romanchuk currently works as the President of the Scientific Research Mises Center.
This was a super interesting podcast, but it also raised some questions..
Do you guys think it is not safe in Belarus to keep savings in the bank ? Is it possible/likely that the government might freeze assets accounts during a crisis ? Has it ever happened before ?
Thank you for the good content !
Thank you, Fabio!
To be short:
1. Safe for now. But I wouldn’t keep it there.
2. I consider that very likely if Russia won’t open in May – which is very unlikely.
3. No, never before, but something happens for the first time. We never has such a situation before.