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Sri Lanka is having a textbook currency crisis, triggered by policy mistakes

noahpinion.substack.com

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Re: Sri Lanka is having a textbook currency crisis, triggered by policy mistakes

#231

Post by mannerheim »

guerrilla wrote: post #206
Simon321 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is something i see a lot in conspiratorial thinking, you can't believe a government would be so incompetent, so somebody MUST be behind it and have caused this maliciously. Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

There's nothing "conspiratorial" about assuming fundamental principles of human behavior, even baked into neoclassical economics (which you might also subscribe to) and any realist political theory. Not only that but real conspiracies at this level happen almost constantly[1], John Bolton just admitted being involved in some yesterday on CNN[2]. Don't be dismissive and condescending, especially when it's quite possib…

The organic movement that led to a nationwide chemical fertiliser ban is in fact part of a CIA operation to destabilise food-insecure nations.

Re: Sri Lanka is having a textbook currency crisis, triggered by policy mistakes

#232

Post by nibbleshifter »

imtringued wrote: post #154
bergenty wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Organic agriculture is where it belong. Mom and pop farms sold in stores where it costs 3x as much for no particular increase in nutritional value. Fertilizers are tangentially bad for the environment but not directly, only in that it causes algal blooms in water bodies. Pesticides are bad yes but the research should concentrate on finding pesticides that work well with the environment. We got close with glyphosate b…

>The nutrients in soil are a non-renewable resource. I'm sorry but they actually are. Every time you do tillage you start from scratch. Hence you run out of nutrients much faster than if you used no till. Most of the fertilizer in tillage operations just gets washed away during rain which results in an over application of fertilizer and the runoff results in algae blooms.

No-till and avoiding the use of fungicide, along with proper rotation/leaving the land fallow is the way.

Carefully considered mixed planting can remove the need for pesticides too.

Shits not hard, but trading off the "big yield now" for "yields for longer" requires long term thinking that a lot of people are terrible at.

Re: Sri Lanka is having a textbook currency crisis, triggered by policy mistakes

#233

Post by amacneil »

walrus01 wrote: post #21

The first part of the article about how Sri Lanka would get foreign currency (swap, export or borrow) almost completely ignores the well documented devastation of the tourist industry, where people bring euros or dollars, due to covid19 and shutdowns of travel. Yes I suppose it falls into the category of swap, because people bring euros and exchange them for local currency to buy local goods and services. But it was…

Tourism is an export. There might be some forex involved, but that is true of imports too.

Re: Sri Lanka is having a textbook currency crisis, triggered by policy mistakes

#234

Post by nibbleshifter »

cm2187 wrote: post #81
vkou wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, the number one thing that makes driving harder is other drivers, not the government. Drivers full roads to over-capacity and then I sit in gridlock.

In Paris it is a deliberate attempt to create traffic jam to force people to stop driving. They only succeeded on the first part.

There is virtually no need to drive a private automobile in Paris if you are able bodied.

The same applies to Berlin, London, and many other places.

Re: Sri Lanka is having a textbook currency crisis, triggered by policy mistakes

#235

Post by DSingularity »

The root of all problems in these neocolonized nations is corruption. The colonizing entity (ie the dictator or the “political family” or the king) are absorbing all the profits and eliminating cushions which would otherwise help promote recovery and stability.

Re: Sri Lanka is having a textbook currency crisis, triggered by policy mistakes

#236

Post by philliphaydon »

FooBarWidget wrote: post #209
yread wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also there were conditions linked to the debt. Here is the money but you have to use it to build a highway using Chinese companies. Pure neocolonialism

Those conditions are negotiable. Countries can say "no" to "using Chinese companies". If countries say "we want local companies" then Chinese negotiators say "okay let's do that". Furthermore, a major reason why Chinese companies did the work was due to a lack of skilled workforce in the country. Some countries chose for a hybrid model, where they ask for Chinese companies to train local workers. Finally, if somethin…

> Countries can say "no" to "using Chinese companies".

Except they aren't as the contracts prohibit open bidding.

> The Atlantic's article says that Chinese lenders are often willing to restructure the loan.

Except when they are not willing, which is most often the case. They restructure when things are seemly fine but if shit hits the fan like in the case of Sri Lanka, they wont discuss it.

But the CCP prob jots it down to 'a mistranslation' and 'rumor' as they have done in the past.

Re: Sri Lanka is having a textbook currency crisis, triggered by policy mistakes

#237

Post by nibbleshifter »

lanstin wrote: post #14
asciiresort wrote: post #8

> Without imports, many Sri Lankans will quickly find themselves hungry, stranded How did these island nations sustain themselves before ? In other words, what has changed that they can’t live off the land anymore? And by that, I mean the sea. Has Sri Lanka’s fish been pillaged? Is it being exported to wealthier nations that command higher prices, even as there is a domestic food crisis? How much of this is because o…

As the article notes the government forced the food production to go all organic in one year with no plan, yields crashed, and now they have to import even rice. It sustained itself thru tourism and local food production. They have sold tea overseas since being a British colony. Also, another factor is they have to import all their medicines and oil, which is also dependent on foreign reserves. So now not enough food…

I'm looking forward to going back in a year or so, when the situation stabilises.

My risk appetite is significantly higher than the average tourist, but even I'm not stupid enough to go there right now when there's the potential for things to get much worse, very quickly.

Re: Sri Lanka is having a textbook currency crisis, triggered by policy mistakes

#238

Post by nibbleshifter »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #158
socialdemocrat wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same deal in Norway where I live. We maintain an agricultural sector in a rocky subarctic climate at exorbitant prices which probably makes Japanese agriculture look like a bargain. We have had enough bad experiences in the past however to give up having some level of self-sufficiency. If you ever wondered why nearly every European country is in the EU, except Norway well there you got part of it he reason.

Sorry, from your comment I did not understand why Norway is not part of the EU. Would you mind clarifying? Are you saying EU membership could affect Norway's agriculture?

The common agricultural policy is a clusterfuck.

Re: Sri Lanka is having a textbook currency crisis, triggered by policy mistakes

#239

Post by nibbleshifter »

romeros wrote: post #52
asciiresort wrote: post #8

> Without imports, many Sri Lankans will quickly find themselves hungry, stranded How did these island nations sustain themselves before ? In other words, what has changed that they can’t live off the land anymore? And by that, I mean the sea. Has Sri Lanka’s fish been pillaged? Is it being exported to wealthier nations that command higher prices, even as there is a domestic food crisis? How much of this is because o…

not 100% sure.. my guess is that they depended upon tourism and it was severely impacted by the pandemic. For Sri Lanka, the right thing to have been done (in hindsight) is to keep the country open for tourism and disregard covid impact. Kind of like Texas/Florida. They had to choose between the lesser of the two evils. This is a hard decision to make.

Their healthcare system would not have coped - as things were, it was pretty much at breaking point.

Also, the rest of the world had curbs on travel, which would have made it non viable anyway.

Re: Sri Lanka is having a textbook currency crisis, triggered by policy mistakes

#240

Post by nibbleshifter »

JetAlone wrote: post #122
blackoil wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2019 elections are won post Easter bombings. They were there before but the super majority they were able to get is because of Islamophobia.

Right, the explosive event where the "easter worshippers" (so-called because the media was allergic to calling them Christians) became un-alived; Muslims most effected. Maybe churches will need to install the kind of security fixtures commonly found furnishing synagogues in Europe. It generally does the job of keeping pathetic misanthropes who think it's good to bomb religious communities out on the curb where they b…

Some of the bombings occurred in hotels favoured by Chinese and Western tourists. Including two that I've stayed in regularly on visits.
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