Quote from: exstasie on September 10, 2020, 06:30:53 PM

Quote from: Wind_FURY on September 10, 2020, 10:53:10 AM

Ask your grandfather, or if you still have one, one of your great grandparents how much was a loaf of bread during the time when they were teenagers.

Wait for the answer.

That's inflation.

I wonder what kind of salary he was getting paid back then. $3,500 a year? Cheesy

Looking only at purchasing power perverts things a bit. In terms of wages (how far your paycheck goes) it's not nearly as bad as people make out. In fact, technology and globalization has significantly lowered the price of some goods even after we account for inflation.

The real issue is whether you hold your savings in fiat money, which is obviously a terrible idea. Inflation is a tax on savings.

That's actually intentional. Keynesians use inflation as a disincentive against hoarding money, which in turn facilitates economic growth because people have to find ways to spend and invest their money before it loses value.

Eh, as recent as 2 years ago you could get a few loafs of bread like 20 SDG, today it's like 8 times as that. I don't have a grandfather around, but salaries were pretty normal pre-2018 protests, my dad's job was making like $3200 a month in SDG in 2014.

I like the idea of more markets to import goods from, because it makes foreign suppliers compete with each other to sell at the lowest price. And despite sanctions there's still a swarm of far-east suppliers for Sudan in China and Hong Kong.

According to this chart, the exchange rate was quite normal a few years ago, except for an oddity at the end of 2016 for which I have no explanation (could be a political event?)

Quote from: hugeblack on September 10, 2020, 06:33:22 PM

According to what was reported in some local newspapers^[1], the price of the dollar is about 260 Sudanese pounds, which means that the price lost about 42% of its value within 10 days, and speculation continues.
I do not think that what is happening is natural, and according to some news, the speculations that occur in the black market are caused by the fact that some buyers buy in large quantities, so I think that the government is buying dollars from the black market because there are many statements by the Prime Minister who says that the Central Bank does not contain reserves of cash The foreigner.

I think that one of the factors that prompted them to do so was the payment of millions of dollars in damages for the bombings of the United States embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998^[2].

The country is also still on the list of terrorism, and finally the devastating flood of the Nile River with COVID-19 effect.

[1] https://www.sudanakhbar.com/816418
[2] Analyst: Sudan Has No Cash to Pay Damages for 1998 Embassy Bombings

So apparently stores are stopping selling their stuff because of the price hike overnight. I hope this exchange rate hike is only temporary, because stores take a few days to adapt to the new prices and if this persists, things here will become even more expensive.

I still experience floods like that once in a blue moon, because here, when it rains it pours. I've personally seen whole streets and walkways flooded with muddy water, and nobody is there to dry it up. The floods aren't as bad where I live, I heard it's worse in some areas of the city.

I also heard they are getting an ambassador to the US. I hope he can manage to convince them to remove them from the state sponsors of terrorism list because if they do, all the trade barriers between US companies and Sudan will be overcome, and the country will be in better shape with fresh new trade.