• Tarte@kbin.social
    91·
    1 year ago

    The title is lacking context. The original quote from the article regarding expected economic damages reads „billions of rubles“.

    • Tangent5280@lemmy.worldEnglish
      18·
      1 year ago

      Every billion im rubles is more around 10 million USD.

      For a dam failure that sounds like a pittance.

      • Pons_Aelius@kbin.social
        9·
        1 year ago

        For a dam failure that sounds like a pittance.

        exchange rates comparisons, especially for a falling currency, undervalue what the local buying power /economic impact of Billions of rubles is, in Russia.

      • Echo Dot@feddit.ukEnglish
        5·
        1 year ago

        The exchange rate is no longer valid. You can’t actually exchange US dollars into Russian Rubbles so to say 1R is worth 0.1$ doesn’t make sense because how can you make that comparison if you can’t actually do the conversion.

        So at this point the exchange rate is just estimated but it might be much different if in theory we could actually do the exchange. Plus of course Russia is going to have to do this repair without actually having access to a large numbers of exterior markets. Again the fact that they can’t access markets that exchange rate calculations normally assume a country will have access to, messes up the calculations.

        • xill47@lemm.eeEnglish
          21·
          1 year ago

          You cant exchange millions of dollars (but tbf you couldn’t do that easily in the best times), but people can exchange theirs money into euro and dollar for that rate (realistic limit is $10k/month, but there are legal ways to cricumvent that limit). To say “you cant actually exchange USD to RUB” is untrue.

          • maynarkh@feddit.nlEnglish
            2·
            1 year ago

            I guess the argument is that if you can’t do it on a large scale, then it’s economically not that important. The market forces that would drive the price discovery of the exchange rate don’t work if you can’t trade freely.

            • xill47@lemm.eeEnglish
              01·
              1 year ago

              That is a valid, but still different argument. Exchange rate still exists for average Joe (or Ivan), it isn’t North Korea (yet?)

      • severien@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        1 year ago

        Not all dams are equal. Some are bigger and more important than others. This one was likely one of the smaller ones.

      • Pons_Aelius@kbin.social
        28·
        1 year ago

        Tja is one of the shortest but most versatile words in the German language. Close to the English ‘well’, you will hear it littered through almost every conversation.

        Tja is sometimes described as a vocalised sigh or shrug, and is often used at the start of a sentence before you launch into the real meat of what you want to say.

        Using this at the beginning of a statement sets the tone for your conversation, suggesting a slight sense of annoyance or resignation. Although the closest translation of tja in English is ‘well’, be careful using it too often, as it can have quite negative connotations in German.

        Tja can also be a way of sounding trotzig, or contrary. If someone asks you a question and you are about to give an answer they might not expect, you may begin your response with tja to let them know you are going to challenge their expectations - in this case it would mean something along the lines of ‘well, actually’.

        Source

      • theodewere@kbin.social
        10·
        1 year ago

        it’s sort of like saying “oh, well” and “there you go” together… like you got what you deserved and nobody cares… like “of course that happened! anyway…”

          • theodewere@kbin.social
            2·
            1 year ago

            my pleasure… it’s strange as an English speaker hearing both of those things in one syllable… you think, “wait, did you just agree with me? or totally dismiss what i said, i don’t get it…” they can do both in one motion, it’s amazing…