[Sandzak]

IWF loans do not help, every country who demanded help from the IWF, the country went bankrupt, and the economy plunged.


I think Erdogan does the right thing to devalue the currency. Tukey imports too much (negative trade balance).

When the Turkish Lira falls the people can not afford foreign products, and exports get more competitive due to lower wage cost.

Education is a problem. The education system is worthless. I spent several months in Istanbul and the English skills of the population were incredibly bad.

English is the Lingua Franca.

[B0ycey]

Education is a problem. The education system is worthless. I spent several months in Istanbul and the English skills of the population were incredibly bad.

Better than the British can speak Turkish I can assure you.

As for the topic, I doubt Erdoğan wanted to devalue the Lira but it was more a consequence of his leadership. Although I tend to agree with your analysis that a devalued currency isn't all bad and can be beneficial in many cases. I certainly think it helps in a tourism economy given you allow people to spend more and stimulate many parts of the tourism sector (people like to spend when on holiday) that otherwise wouldn't have been stimulated. Sl in other words I don't see Turkey going bankrupt or needing an IMF loan once people start travelling again. Didn't he turn it down anyway? Can't remember.

[Sandzak]

Turkey is not just tourism. AFAIK Turkish fertile land feeds 400 Million people.

Erdogan has established an excellent military industrial complex.

[B0ycey]

Turkey is not just tourism. AFAIK Turkish fertile land feeds 400 Million people.

Erdogan has established an excellent military industrial complex.

I only really commented given I wanted to add to to topic but corrected your statement that the Turkish are not the only nation that is poorly linguistic. Being from an English speaking nation I find it almost embarrassing that we rely on everyone speaking English and when I read things like "such and such can't speak English" I almost feel compelled to comment.

As for Turkish having fertile land feeding 400mn people, I cannot comment on Turkish agriculture given I know fuck all about it. And I am fully aware they have more to offer the world than just holiday's. But even so, it isn't known for production and is for tourism anyway. As it happens pre-Covid everyone I knew was going to Turkey because of the value of the Lira being a worse performer than Sterling and that was beneficial for Turkey I suspect. That was all I was saying. A devalued currency isn't all bad and shouldn't be an indicator of a nation going bankrupt.

[Sandzak]

I cannot comment on Turkish agriculture given I know fuck all about it.

They need to develope an agro-industry like Spain

[JohnRawls]

IWF loans do not help, every country who demanded help from the IWF, the country went bankrupt, and the economy plunged.


I think Erdogan does the right thing to devalue the currency. Tukey imports too much (negative trade balance).

When the Turkish Lira falls the people can not afford foreign products, and exports get more competitive due to lower wage cost.

Education is a problem. The education system is worthless. I spent several months in Istanbul and the English skills of the population were incredibly bad.

English is the Lingua Franca.

Everyone who takes money from the IMF does not go bankrupt. It is a story that corrupt loosers like to tell to their people. The basic idea of which is that you take the money, do some reforms that are badly needed and then blame everything on the IMF. If you think that people take money not knowing what those reforms are then you are surely mistaken. IMF is an excuse and a scapegoat to sell to the people of sorts.

In most cases it actually works and restarts the economy. In some cases the country fails to reform due to corruption or whatever else it can be. The question that you should be asking yourself is why some countries can reform and some can't. Most countries that say that IMF will kill your country probably know somewhere deep down that nobody will reform anything and just steal the money.

[Rancid]

Turkey should take loans from Russia.

[Sandzak]

Everyone who takes money from the IMF does not go bankrupt. It is a story that corrupt loosers like to tell to their people. The basic idea of which is that you take the money, do some reforms that are badly needed and then blame everything on the IMF. If you think that people take money not knowing what those reforms are then you are surely mistaken. IMF is an excuse and a scapegoat to sell to the people of sorts.

In most cases it actually works and restarts the economy. In some cases the country fails to reform due to corruption or whatever else it can be. The question that you should be asking yourself is why some countries can reform and some can't. Most countries that say that IMF will kill your country probably know somewhere deep down that nobody will reform anything and just steal the money.

The Turks invested instead in education and infrastructure, they built skyscrapers... same mistake like Spain.



The Turks are now fully employed, because their currency is low, so are the wages for foreign companies...


Increasing the interest rate like the IMF wants would stabilize the currency but kill the economy with a vicious cycle of economic downturn.

[JohnRawls]

The Turks invested instead in education and infrastructure, they built skyscrapers... same mistake like Spain.



The Turks are now fully employed, because their currency is low, so are the wages for foreign companies...


Increasing the interest rate like the IMF wants would stabilize the currency but kill the economy with a vicious cycle of economic downturn.

Uhh, what is the point of any salary if you can't buy anything with it? To buy just the basic food and that is it?

In essence what Erdogan does by increasing interest rates and devaluing the lira is make sure that the state can't go bankrupt but this makes the regular people unable to buy anything besides the basics that are locally produced and small and medium business unable to plan long ahead. The large businesses probably can store in foreighn currency so it is not that a big of a deal for them. At some point, if this continues then everyone is gonna be on minimum salary and that is it. His killing all the middle class and specialists, there is literally no point for them to stay in Turkey or work in Turkey.

So over a long period of time this masks economic inefficiency and corruption that goes in to the pockets of whoever is doing it. And the longer this continues, the more damaged the economy will become. Basically it can continue for a long time but these measures also have an expiration date because it is artificial competitiveness. And once that happens, I am not sure what TUrkey will be able to do.

There is too many downsides with this policy.

[Puffer Fish]

I'm pretty sure Turkey will not fall into bankruptcy. Their standards of living might not be too high (Second World, maybe just a little below that) but coming along with that, they do have a lot of self-sufficiency in their economy, and the trade that they have with the EU is not threatened. At worst, this might simply result in a moderate recession in Turkey.
Turkey's economy is not strong, but it is not weak either. The limited development actually comes with an upside and makes the economy more stable.

[Rancid]

I wonder if I can buy large plots of land at rock bottom prices in Turkey.

[Puffer Fish]

I think Erdogan does the right thing to devalue the currency. Tukey imports too much (negative trade balance).

Let's remember that countries do not really "set" the exchange rate. They either try to manipulate it, or they leave it alone and it does what it naturally does.

Erdogan has pride in his country and wants a strong currency, but that is not really the reality, and it is not feasible to keep it excessively high for too long, so the country is probably going with something closer to floating exchange rates. That is a result of a dose of economic reality.

Trying to keep exchange rates high could bankrupt a country.

[Puffer Fish]

I wonder if I can buy large plots of land at rock bottom prices in Turkey.

Oh you can, but be careful where that land is. In many ways Turkey is more like a part of the Middle East than Europe.
A lot of naive people don't know what that means and then it results in them getting in trouble.

Turkey also has a law that says you can only buy land in cities and towns, not rural areas. Which is probably for the best anyway, because there's a high chance foreigners would get into trouble in those rural areas where conservative muslim majorities exist. (Don't even think about trying to go out on a date with a muslim woman! There was an incident a while back where a Christian preacher went to a small town and a crowd of people surrounded him because he had tried to convert muslims. He ended up being shot, and the local police had absolutely zero interest in investigating the crime. And don't forget about harsh prison sentences for many things that would be considered relatively minor offenses in Europe)

[Sandzak]

I wonder if I can buy large plots of land at rock bottom prices in Turkey.

I would recommend Alanya (Russians and Scandinavians mostly):
https://turk.estate/en/property-in-alanya/

People are friendly and speak English.

[Sandzak]

I would recommend Alanya (Russians and Scandinavians mostly):
https://turk.estate/en/property-in-alanya/

People are friendly and speak English.

But cheaper is it to go as tourist, and to negotiate with them (when they get angry you got the best possible price).

[Unthinking Majority]

Why would anyone want to give Turkey any good advice?

[Sandzak]

@JohnRawls Which options has turkey? people have lost trust in the currency "Lira"!

They could like Argentina raise the interest rates to 97% like Argentina or introduce the Euro as currency?

[JohnRawls]

@JohnRawls Which options has turkey? people have lost trust in the currency "Lira"!

They could like Argentina raise the interest rates to 97% like Argentina or introduce the Euro as currency?

Nobody is going to let Turkey use the Euro with their crazy monetary policy. THey are not even part of the EU, that is out of the question.

I guess Argentina 2.0 is the present and future for Turkey. They are relatively using the same model just under different circumstances: "Self-reliance" and money printing. The only difference is Turkish debt is not large compared Argentina. But the current Turkish government doesn't care and just prints money non-stop. The problem with "Self-reliance" is that economically, it is very stupid. The first problem is that you can't produce all the products, not even US or China or EU. THe second problem is that your own domestic production will be severely sub-par compared to some globalised version with specialisation and scale.

Raising interest rates by themselves is not gonna fix anything since there is no real trust with the Turkish government. How would they get the money then to finance their shit? Nobody is going to loan money to Turkey with the current government in charge. Turkey managed to sanction itself out of financial market by itself basically kinda like Russia but Russia is waging a war in Ukraine so you know...

[Potemkin]

@JohnRawls Which options has turkey? people have lost trust in the currency "Lira"!

They could like Argentina raise the interest rates to 97% like Argentina or introduce the Euro as currency?

Introduce the Euro as currency? Yeah, because that worked out so well for Greece….

[Sandzak]

Nobody is going to let Turkey use the Euro with their crazy monetary policy. THey are not even part of the EU, that is out of the question.

Monte Negro is also not part of the EU but they have the Euro as currency.

Bosnia has the "Konvertibilna Marka" which is tied to the Euro, 2 KM are 1 Euro.