The Great British Pound

[DaveW]

The pound is biting the bullet. It's been declining steadily for a while now, but our exchange rates have been shot to death in the last few weeks.

I exchanged my pounds to roubles this morning, for my trip next week. 2 weeks ago, the exchange rate was 46 roubles to the pound. This morning I got a rate of 37 roubles.

Now, instead of going to Russia with 34500 roubles, I'm taking 27750 roubles (exchanging £750). How's that for a kick in the teeth. I would have done it two weeks ago if I had the money, but I didn't, and now I'm out of 6750 roubles for it. In today's exchange rates, that's a difference of $245, or £160. Ouch.

-Dave

[NightrainSrt4]

Ouch, that's like a 20% dip in 2 weeks. Man the economy is dropping off.

I've no economics experience but seems like,

gas/prices for goods goes up, people waste less money because of that (spend less), profits in companies go down, investors/etc freak because they aren't making as much as before and pull out/make cuts and everything just spirals down.

The thing that frustrates me in this whole thing is that I read about how some companies aren't making as much profit as they were in previous years, but clearly are still in the profit range by quite a margin, yet still cut people from jobs so their investors/CEO's/etc can still get good big bonuses at the holidays.

Seems like greed rules the world and screws it right along with it. Yet I can say nothing against that as we all desire and lust for things that push that cycle.

Sorry to hear you've got less for your trip. That's quite a cut in the exchange rate.

[FuzzyPlushroom]

I'm shocked that the ruble isn't dropping just as sharply, myself.

[crenn]

But it this way, before the recession, AUS-USD was somewhere about USD$0.93 for AUD$1. Recession happened and boom, dropped to 0.58 in a few days.

As for the CEO problems, my father's ex company looks like it's about to go under due to the Australian CEO causing MAJOR problems. Even Telstra's CEO caused major problems (which anyone with half a brain is celebrating about) when they got ditched from the
NBN (National Broadband Network) because they wanted special treatment. Anyway, CEOs almost always get paid too much. So do politicians most of the time.

As for people losing their jobs, some companies are doing it too early so they might have to pay to get new staff trained when this is all over. In other words, they might lose more money than if they had just kept the employee.

[DaveW]

I'm shocked that the ruble isn't dropping just as sharply, myself.

I'd expect the Rouble to remain pretty strong throughout this. There's enough going on in Russia to eliminate the need to depend on foreign economies. Not saying they're invincible, but I doubt this is going to affect them as much. Plus, if they get into any real trouble they'll just start invading southwards. <Just kidding Russians! Я люблю русских!>

I think the core of the problem is the decline of the pound. In the last two weeks the pound has nose-dived.

As a man with no assets, I have nothing to lose. So I'm not really all that worried; worst case scenario for me is that the whole country goes to ****, or that I won't get a job next year. If I do get a job, it's going to be much easier for me to get my foot on the property ladder, something I desperately want to do.

-Dave