274
submitted 1 week ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/world@lemmy.world

Russia’s central bank on Friday raised its key interest rate by two percentage points to a record-high 21% in an effort to stem growing inflation as massive government spending on the military amid the fighting in Ukraine strains the economy’s capacity to produce goods and services and drives up workers’ wages.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] Skua@kbin.earth 10 points 1 week ago

Super layman's explanation ahead, there is a high chance of me getting something wrong here:

Very broadly, inflation can be caused by there being more money to spend than there are goods to buy with it.

If there's €10 in the system that is available to be spent and an amount of goods that was worth €5 yesterday, the goods are probably going to be worth €10 now.

When a bank gives a loan to someone, it effectively creates new money. This doesn't need to involve actually making new money in the sense of a mint or even a central bank. If I possess €100 of actual physical cash and I give €50 loans to five people, that's totally fine so long as I can rely on no more than two of them actually requiring hard cash at a time before they pay me back. So now I have essentially "created" €150 more than there was before. And so long as everyone trusts that I can actually show up with €50 on demand, they can act as if they have the €50.

The central bank's interest rate is what the central bank will pay me if I keep my €100 deposited with them. If that's 5%, I'll have €105 next year. As such, I will only offer loans if I expect to make more than €5 off of them once they are all repaid.

So if the interest rate is 21%, you are gonna need a hell of a business plan to be able to beat what I'd get by just leaving my money with the central bank. I am now unlikely to lend any money unless someone can persuade me that they'll beat 21%. As such, I'm no longer loaning money out to all of those five people. Only two of them have plans that are that good. Now, there is way less money available to spend than there was in the other scenario, because two people have €50 each instead of five. If the amount of goods to buy stays constant, then by the principal from the very start of this mess there is less inflation. Buyers don't have more money to spend, and prices remain lower.

this post was submitted on 25 Oct 2024
274 points (98.2% liked)

World News

38948 readers
1491 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS