When Money Goes Funny

Not In A Good Way, Either

I am typing this Intro out in the last couple of hours before payday at my still coyly anonymous employer, in anticipation of which I've already bookmarked a particular collector's volume over on E-bay, which is going for only £40 inc. P & P, which I'm sure you'll agree is a bargain and it would be rude not to purchase it, alt

     ANYWAY today we're going to look at a bit of a puzzle that Conrad has noticed over the past couple of months, which 'Joe Blogs' has seen fit to explicate.  Art!

See Paragraph One

     No, that's not a contemporary Ruffian ship burning 'mazut', it's one of the Royal Australian Navy's ships from the First Unpleasantness.  I didn't want to lead with a dull and unexciting chart, you see.

     ANYWAY AGAIN let us bring on a dull and unexciting chart.  Art!

     The ruble has, so it would seem, strengthened against the dollar over the past two months, which has led to the vatniks, Krembots and fanbois all crowing about it, and how 'sanctions don't work' and 'Kyiv in three days years'.

     Not so fast.  Because the ruble is one of the world's most manipulated currencies, and has held that title for years.   Art!

  
     This is the Ruffian GDP up to the end of Q3 for 2024, and you can see that the total is declining, not increasing, which rather puts a crimp in the orc's assertions that the Ruffian economy is doing the best evah.  Also, over the lifetime of this graph, a total of $277 billion in assets were removed from Ruffia, as investors exhibited a classic example of 'capital flight'.  In possibly the horridest criticism of the Ruffian economy evah, it is now being compared to North Korea, just larger.  The symptoms are all there: invasive government management of the economy, a lack of access to Western capital and technology, a dearth of personnel (let alone qualified ones), and a cult of personality about The Glorious Leader, who can do no wrong and will have you executed if you query this.  Art!

     This is the ruble over time since August 2024, showing that it's now back at the level of about 6 months ago, which means -

     Not what you're thinking.  For one thing, in all non-Modern-day Mordor economies, the valuation of their currency is based on it being freely traded around the globe.  Not so with the Ruffian ruble, as nobody deals with or in it unless they experience a gun to the head.  The ruble in BRICS, to coin a pun, is rubble.  Nobody wants it.  This means that the Ruffian Central Bank, and Ol' Nabby, can manipulate the valuation relatively easily (if not cheaply).  Art!

So angry he ate his own lips

    The second normal assertion for normal currencies in normal countries is that their normal valuation is set by the market, normally.  Did I mention 'normal'?  But, this is Ruffia we're talking about.  Toward the end of 2024, with the exchange rate so low it could swim around the 'Moskva', Putinpot ordered the Ruffian Central Bank to prop up the ruble by spending other foreign currency, which meant the Chinese Yuan, as they've got nothing else left to purchase with.  Thus Elvira has spent, in 2025 alone, at the rate of ₽8.4 billion per day, the equivalent of $5 billion.  Joe projected this over the 12 months of 2025 and came to a total of $33 billion in expenditure - which would completely empty the National Wealth Fund well before year's end, so this ain't going to happen.  Art!

Ol' Nabby

     The NWF was down to about $35 billion in January, heaven and Ol' Nabby alone know what it's down to now.  Sooner or later they are going to run out of liquid funds to prop up the ruble, in which case the value will probably plunge and Putinpot will start stealing Russian's savings.

Fainting In Coils

The provenance of this phrase was unknown to Conrad until 3 minutes ago, and I only came across it as a track by Bill Bruford's ensemble Bruford - nil points for originality there, Bill - and he, in turn, nicked it from a Lewis Carroll line: "The Drawling-master was an old conger-eel, that used to come once a week: he taught us Drawling, Stretching, and Fainting in Coils".  

     You know, Lewis Carroll, the chap who invented the Boojum.  Art!

     Inevitably, this is a long discursion away from the real item itself, and if Art will bestir himself and put down his bowl of coal - 

     You ought to recall that we mocked Elong Tusk's electric velocipede's stock market value yesteryon, because we're cruel like that.  Well, things have not gone at all well for the Ketamine Kid today, either.  Art!

     Or, it's lost $9 overnight.  Some scamp on Twitter was saying how very awful it would be for Muskie if his Tesla stock price crashed, as it was acting for collateral against other business loans, and how people ought not to Repost this Tweet as otherwise it might never happen.

Something In The Water?

We did a rather gloasting item of late about Mopey Dick's crypto-currency, which was launched on 17th January with much fanfare and bloviating.  Art!

     Rather than being a serious (!) crypto-currency, it's what pundits rather scathingly call a 'meme-coin', in that it lacks any inherent value and is seen as either scambling or a political support token where grifters can separate the rubes from their money.  Either way, it's not doing well, apparently going sick in sympathy with Elong Tusk's Tesla shares.  Art!

     That's what it started at.  Now, as of today, what's the value?  O I thought you'd never ask!  Art?

     In the larger scheme of things, this means that DJ Tango's MAGA cult members who bought this junk specie are now down $12 billion.  This is dwarfed by the loss that Donold himself has suffered - $50 billion on paper.  Ooops.

     It could be worse, dear Orange Land Whale.  Your wife's crypto-currency has also under-performed.  Or, to put it another way, it's as dead in the water as the 'Moskva' and looks set to be the most unsuccessful meme-coin evah.  Art!

The Cup That Cheers And Not Inebriates

Another novelty for Conrad: this phrase is actually a line from a poem, by Thomas Cowper, about the delights of consuming tea.  The latter I knew (and agree with most heartily), the former not at all.

     This item is of relevance because Your Humble Scribe is now in the 28th day of his sobriety stretch, with at least another 28 to go.  What did I espy on the news feed?  Art!

     Proof that, come the apocalypse and Planet Earth is devastated by nuclear Armageddon, This Sceptred Isle will survive undaunted thanks to the humble cuppa.  In fact, to quote "The Guardian": "Among other studies, previous research has suggested people who drink tea may have a lower risk of stroke, dementia and even death."

     Looks like you're going to be reading this scrivel well into 2125, hmmmm? as long as you, too, drink tea.  None of that decaff frappucindiculous Starrybunk nonsense.

Erk

What follows is a sidebar title that you're not going to see anywhere else anytime soon, if ever.  Art!

     This is one of a vanishingly few examples of the vitrification of humans, discovered in the remains of a man killed by the eruption of Vesuvius, at Herculaneum.  It's so rare because it takes a very, very specific set of circumstances for it to happen.  Art!

Well-preserved Hercky

     Note the lack of cheap jokes at the expense of <insert detested entity here>.  You see?  I can occasionally exhibit a modicum of glass.  Sorry!  Class, I meant class.

Finally -

Unless I write it down, it doesn't exist, so I need to look up 'substitute for pineapple', because there's a recipe in my diabetic cookbook for a cake that uses the Devil's Pinecone.  I'm guessing peach, apricot or mango, and we do have a tin of peaches going in the cupboard.  I shall let you know.