Apple halts online sales in Turkey as economic crisis worsens

Turkey provides just another example of why cryptocurrencies have a good chance of winning out over state backed currencies in the long term.  It’s not inevitable.  But cryptocurrencies can provide a safety net to common people who lack the political power to determine what’s best for themselves and their countries.

JWSC said:

Turkey provides just another example of why cryptocurrencies have a good chance of winning out over state backed currencies in the long term.  It’s not inevitable.  But cryptocurrencies can provide a safety net to common people who lack the political power to determine what’s best for themselves and their countries.

Economically incompetent state leadership typically acts in ways designed to keep themselves in power and in the good graces of powerful economic interests regardless of the consequences to the overall population.  This move by Erdogan will prove tremendously damaging to the Turkish economy and will hurt the vast majority of its own citizens.  It’s another strong argument for cryptocurrencies.  People deserve to be able to make a choice.

So you’d be training dependence on a nationally gamed system, for that of an internationally gamed system.  Not seeing much of a choice there boss.

robaba said:

JWSC said:

Turkey provides just another example of why cryptocurrencies have a good chance of winning out over state backed currencies in the long term.  It’s not inevitable.  But cryptocurrencies can provide a safety net to common people who lack the political power to determine what’s best for themselves and their countries.

Economically incompetent state leadership typically acts in ways designed to keep themselves in power and in the good graces of powerful economic interests regardless of the consequences to the overall population.  This move by Erdogan will prove tremendously damaging to the Turkish economy and will hurt the vast majority of its own citizens.  It’s another strong argument for cryptocurrencies.  People deserve to be able to make a choice.

So you’d be training dependence on a nationally gamed system, for that of an internationally gamed system.  Not seeing much of a choice there boss.

I think we’ll take choice between a single state currency and a good number of cryptocurrencies over having no choice any day of the week.  Not sure why you would assume a cryptocurrency would be gamed.  It could be I suppose.  But few would willingly sign up to a gamed currency.  These would be virtual banks, where trust is everything to customers and financial markets.

Turkey’s citizens are used to this. There are money exchange kiosks on every street corner. Anyone is free to buy any currency within limits. When the Turkish Lira is stable everyone quotes in Lira for small items and big ticket items like property, cars, appliances, salaries etc. When it’s not, everyone reverts to using the US dollar or Euro for big ticket items. The average Turk will know the price of anything in those three currencies. Apple pegs the price of it’s products to the dollar. If a currency drops 15% in a day, they can't display prices in the local currency on their website.

Alex_V said:

Apple pegs the price of it’s products to the dollar. If a currency drops 15% in a day, they can't display prices in the local currency on their website.

This is exactly it. Apple (and other online retailers) aren’t set up to adjust pricing minute by minute as a currency dives. 

The alternative is people buying out their stock at an “old” price as currency arbitrage.

I won’t be surprised if the currency continues to drop if Apple just changes its prices in Turkey to dollars or euro.