E9: Ever heard about Blue Money?
While browsing the news recently, I came across the news of Elon Musk asking a Twitter User’s account to be shut down in exchange for money. Interesting thing was that the account was a bot that was following Elon Musk’s jet and Musk had privacy concerns about it. (Link provided in the end)
Then I ventured around to find more interesting Twitter accounts and came across an account that posted an exchange rate every ~6 months. It had around 50k followers. Got me excited.
This story is from Argentina. Argentina is a part of the G20 and has a higher HDI than India. It also has a better GDP per capita than India however this is the situation of the currency of Argentina.
Coming to the amusing part of the story.
Blue Money
If you were to travel to Argentina and exchange your dollars at the airport, you would get 106 pesos for a dollar. But if I wait and exchange these dollars at the local exchange stores, I get 185 pesos. And this is perfectly legal. The condition of the peso is such that people would like to pay you the 90% premium to hold dollars in case the value of pesos fall even further. They predict that the situation could worsen to a level when a dollar will be equivalent to 500 pesos.
Argentina has been struggling with a monetary crisis since early 2000s and it severed in the year 2018. While we have seen such examples from smaller economies like Venezuela or Zimbabwe, Argentina facing such a crisis is unfortunate. Stresses the importance of the RBI in the Indian economy even further.
Argentina holds 9% of the world’s lithium reserves crucial for the next revolution of mobility, however, a falling peso, reduces its value by the day.
Sundays with DSK
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