A day using money in Cuba
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A day using money in Cuba
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Re: A day using money in Cuba
#2This is what the Soviet Union had, except, of course, all prices were quoted in "internal" rubles. The dollar was always 70 "foreign" kopecks, but you couldn't get dollars, or convertible rubles unless you were a party apparatchik who could shop in "Beryozka": a network of stores that sold Western goods to those who imposed socialism on others, but did not live in it themselves, which it how it usually works. Foreign currency was illegal, and you'd land in prison if you had it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beryozka_(Russian_retail_store...
Re: A day using money in Cuba
#3China also has dual currency CNY-CNH system.
https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/cnh-vs-cny-differences-betwe...
Re: A day using money in Cuba
#4Reminiscent of Argentina's Blue Dollar, the real exchange rate between the peso and the US dollar and usually very different from the official rate.
Re: A day using money in Cuba
#5This is what the Soviet Union had, except, of course, all prices were quoted in "internal" rubles. The dollar was always 70 "foreign" kopecks, but you couldn't get dollars, or convertible rubles unless you were a party apparatchik who could shop in "Beryozka": a network of stores that sold Western goods to those who imposed socialism on others, but did not live in it themselves, which it how it usually works. Foreign…
>to those who imposed socialism on others, but did not live in it themselves
I'll violate the rule but I'll comment you were probably downvoted because of this part of your comment.
Re: A day using money in Cuba
#6China also has dual currency CNY-CNH system. https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/cnh-vs-cny-differences-betwe...
China used to have a similar system with Foreign Exchange Certificates until the 1990s [1] but nowadays it's not really the same. CNH/CNT/NDFs are an artefact of foreign-exchange controls but as a visitor to China you're unlikely to even know they exist.
1. https://www.china-briefing.com/news/15-years-in-china-foreig...
Re: A day using money in Cuba
#7This is what the Soviet Union had, except, of course, all prices were quoted in "internal" rubles. The dollar was always 70 "foreign" kopecks, but you couldn't get dollars, or convertible rubles unless you were a party apparatchik who could shop in "Beryozka": a network of stores that sold Western goods to those who imposed socialism on others, but did not live in it themselves, which it how it usually works. Foreign…
Seriously, the fact that this informative comment is downvoted for no good reason shows how toxic HN has become. It seems that many have become so bitter during lockdown that they either randomly downvote whatever they see or they leave comments that trigger downvotes from others.
Re: A day using money in Cuba
#8The US had an official dual currency from 1914 to 1933. There were gold dollars, and fiat (inflated) dollars. There was an official, fixed exchange rate between the two. The two started out at parity in 1914, but things diverged steadily until in 1929 a gold dollar was worth 85% more than a fiat dollar.
Like all such systems where the relative values float but there's an official exchange rate, this eventually collapses with runs on the banks, as people try to profit by buying the higher valued currency at the discount guaranteed by the exchange rate.
This persisted until Roosevelt suspended all those exchanges. Then we had a fiction of a gold exchange rate until Nixon finally dispensed with it.
We have a dual currency today - when you pay a "convenience fee" for using a credit card instead of check or cash, that's what is going on (as the credit card taker gets charged 3% for those transactions, and passes it on to the credit card user).
Re: A day using money in Cuba
#9Good lord, look at the size of those pictures.
Re: A day using money in Cuba
#10Not that arcane. Tons of places have a de-facto dual-currency system... (any country with big inflation, for one)