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Is the Hungarian Forint a weak currency? (piefed.social)
submitted 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) by SilentStriker@piefed.social to c/europe@feddit.org
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I mean, Hungary is one of those countries that haven't made the switch to Euro (for perspective: both Bulgaria and Croatia adopted it) despite them being a member state. I know that HUF isn't strong (1€ = Ft 388, as of writing) but by having Euros: does your PPP increase a lot when visiting Hungary as a tourist? I've heard that HUF is volatile as it inflates like crazy and is weak against the Euro.

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[–] Tuuktuuk@nord.pub 5 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

How many units of money you get for one euro tells nothing about how weak or strong a currency is.
When Latvia still had its own currency, the Lat, one euro was actually worth something like 4,20 Lat.

Or measued in English pounds:
One Latvian Lat was about 1,20 £. Does that mean that Latvia was/is richer than UK?

Nope. The numbers in a currency are nothing but a number. They can be high or they can be low. Just like 20 degrees Celcius is not richer or poorer than 68 Fahrenheit. It's just a different unit that has different numbers for the same thing.

But then: In 2004 I remember one Euro was about 250 Hungarian Forint. And now it's almost 400. The face value of the numbers doesn't mean anything, but the changes in exchange rate do. Your one million Forint in your bank account are a very different amount of Euros now than they were before Orbán fucked up the country's economy starting in 2012 or 2013 or whenever he began his reign.

At the same time: If the Euro was worth, say 110 Forints, that would actually mean that the Hungarian currency is strong, because it would be twice as strong as it was earlier. But now it's about half as strong as it used to be.

And the answer to the question "why" is indeed Orbán. He has transformed the country into a Russian-style pyramid scheme where the main point of the economy is to provide profit for the leader. And then maybe it will also produce something to the country's population as a side effect. Or maybe not.

[–] SilentStriker@piefed.social 1 points 4 hours ago

Orbán turned the country into shit, along with 27% VAT!!! I wonder why they have the highest rate behind Finland (but at least for Finland, 25% VAT is actually being used properly as it's funding social services) but can the same be said for Hungary with the highest taxes in the EU? Where's all that money going to? (Putting it in his pocket...)

[–] Tuuktuuk@nord.pub 3 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

And then of course, to the other question: I'm from Finland. My PPP increases a lot when I go to Germany. I get a higher amount of Euros as salary, but I can buy much less with my Finnish salary in Finland than I could buy with a lower German salary in Germany. And then when I use my Finnish salary in Germany... Woooo! :)

And when I go to some country in what used to be called "eastern block" in the past, then yes: I can indeed buy a lot more than I can buy in what used to be called "the west" some twenty-thirty years ago. But that's the same in Hungary and in Slovakia, as both countries have been mismanaged in a similar manner. Whether Hungary has Euro or not, doesn't really affect this much at all.

[–] comrade_twisty@feddit.org 2 points 5 hours ago

Come visit us in Switzerland if you wanna find out how little you can buy with your salary.