Doh! I was in India earlier this year and forgot to change currencies on the way out. Any ideas for a US national holding 9 of the Rs500 notes?
You should be able to exchange it at currency exchange places like travelex.
India's demonetisation of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 notes
81–90 of 336 posts
Re: India's demonetisation of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 notes
#82You have to deposit all these notes in your bank account, from which you can get new notes. Anyone hoarding huge amount of black money in cash can't go to bank with it, and his money will turn worthless. Diluting such money will easily erode 20-40% value. So definitely a bold move.
He can still go to the bank with it, assuming it is legally obtained, would have to pay income tax, however.
Re: India's demonetisation of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 notes
#83There are 16.5 billion notes of Rs. 500 denomination & 6.7 billion notes of Rs. 1000. This is going to be a humongous recall exercise.
Re: India's demonetisation of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 notes
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
Meanwhile you only need three 500€ bills to make up for the average European income. (And 500€ is 36651 rupees.) Those 500 and 1000 rupees are the largest denomination bills in India, but you need almost 10 times more of them to make up for the respective average income.
In fact, the same is said in Europe about the absolute uselessness of 200 and 500 euro bills. I have only held a 200 euro bill once, and never a 500, but also thanks to the Schengen area it is trivial to (illegally) being insane amounts of money to Switzerland. This is why the EU was pressuring Switzerland to abolish bank secrecy.
> about the absolute uselessness
Yeah, no. Even a relatively small amount like 30k is a major pain in the ass to carry around in 100 euro notes.
30k is what one might pay for a car, for example.
Re: India's demonetisation of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 notes
#85This is the boldest and probably most brilliant move by any Indian politician since liberalization of economy in 1990s. Having said that, another way of understanding this is that as of today both old 500 Rs and 1000 Rs notes have been "probabilistically devalued". For anyone in middle class and below the value essentially remains the same (other than a small devaluation due to effort required to get them exchanged),…
I agree, this is a good first move to get black money that is stored as cash out and taxed. Some forms that still remain are: * Gold * Money funneled into "agricultural income" (which is tax free) * Large properties in metros that are bought and left empty (which raises rates sky-high for ordinary middle class people trying to buy a house there) However, this move is brilliant in that it removes cash as an intermedia…
The extra becomes useless starting tonight.
Re: India's demonetisation of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 notes
#86What if people just keep accepting it, just not through formal banks? Paper money is worth what people think it's worth. If some money/object moves outside the banks anyway, perhaps it won't be completely worthless.
That's a reasonable question. It's possible the 500 and 1000 notes will be relegated to large, all-cash transactions where the goal is to avoid taxes. But I imagine that some amount of osmosis will _have_ to take place. You can't buy food or pay for gas with a 500 note after all; probably any businesses found accepting them would face charges.
And if you can't use them for anything except real-estate purchases and the like then their value is going to decrease over time. The number of 500/1000 notes will asymptotically approach zero over time as they get converted through official or unofficial channels.
Re: India's demonetisation of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 notes
#87(I'm watching the news live in New Delhi right now). The move is being pitched as an attack against 'black money' and terrorist/criminal activities and counterfeit . The idea is if you have very large sums of money stashed away in cash, you're now forced to deposit it into a bank and reveal it. If you're not comfortable doing that, you're basically going to lose your money.
There is always some rationale that involves bad actors. Then you peel back the layers of the onion and find out the government just wants to screw regular people out of whatever.
I don't disagree with your premise, but in this case, how can this screw regular people? If someone has chosen to store a lot of their money as cash instead of in a bank and doesn't know about this, I can see that. Am I missing something else?
Re: India's demonetisation of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 notes
#88It is hardly going to fix the black money problem. Rich people have so many employees to do the bank run for them. Within the next month, you will see a huge spike in real estate market. People with black money will dump it in the real estate market. (If you are not an Indian, this is how it works. You buy an apartment/home/building for the amount X. But you declare it to the government that you bought it for X/10. T…
Insightful. This should be higher up.
Re: India's demonetisation of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 notes
#89This is the boldest and probably most brilliant move by any Indian politician since liberalization of economy in 1990s. Having said that, another way of understanding this is that as of today both old 500 Rs and 1000 Rs notes have been "probabilistically devalued". For anyone in middle class and below the value essentially remains the same (other than a small devaluation due to effort required to get them exchanged),…
Isn't this a trick that will only work once? Wont the people who are taking advantage of black money start using a different store of value that isn't controlled by the Indian government like foreign currency or high value commodities?
Indeed, they can, but it's difficult to get foreign currency without valid ID. But gold is an option, even though govt have even made it mandatory to flash your ID for gold purchases.
Re: India's demonetisation of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 notes
#90This is the boldest and probably most brilliant move by any Indian politician since liberalization of economy in 1990s. Having said that, another way of understanding this is that as of today both old 500 Rs and 1000 Rs notes have been "probabilistically devalued". For anyone in middle class and below the value essentially remains the same (other than a small devaluation due to effort required to get them exchanged),…
I agree, this is a good first move to get black money that is stored as cash out and taxed. Some forms that still remain are: * Gold * Money funneled into "agricultural income" (which is tax free) * Large properties in metros that are bought and left empty (which raises rates sky-high for ordinary middle class people trying to buy a house there) However, this move is brilliant in that it removes cash as an intermedia…
He can still pay tax and get away.