It's too late to drink Borjomi…/photo from the Channel 24 archive
I was hoping that I wouldn't have to write about the requirement to pay for Russian gas exports in rubles – because it makes no economic sense, it's pure voodoo economics. But it seems to be necessary to write that this is voodoo economics, belief in the magical (that is, actually non-existent) power of money.
Why can't this requirement change anything?
< p> Because sense of transaction is an exchange of Russian gas for the foreign goods (import). Everything, economically, this exchange is not tied to either the dollar, or the euro, or the ruble.
You can simply exchange gas and oil for goods, and the USSR did just that. Since the exchange does not depend on what is used in the exchange, the requirement to “switch to rubles” does not make sense.
Voodoo people
Of course, every exchange process has costs. If you adjust trucks with goods for each tank of gas, they are high, if you simply transfer dollars to some account, they are low.
Due to sanctions, costs have increased, and significantly. Due to the requirement to switch to rubles, costs are growing – that is, both the gas seller (Russia) and the buyer (EU countries) will receive less than before, while intermediaries will receive more.
That is, Russia, of course, loses from the transition to rubles. But it is important – the costs can be 1%, 5%, even if 20% is still not something important, and not something fundamentally changing.
Think that it depends on what currency you pay, something can seriously change – this is faith in voodoo.
However, if the decision to start a war with Ukraine was based on voodoo analysis, then why not apply it to the economy.
