725cc42f   
   XPost: soc.culture.baltics, soc.culture.czecho-slovak, soc.culture.russian   
   From: ddfr@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com   
      
   In article   
   ,   
    holman@mappi.helsinki.fi (Eugene Holman) wrote:   
      
   > In article , David Friedman   
   >  wrote:   
   >   
   > > In article ,   
   > >  holman@mappi.helsinki.fi (Eugene Holman) wrote:   
   >    
   >   
   > > > That would transform him from a person who was ill informed about the   
   > > > issue when he started to make pronouncements about something he really   
   > > > didn't know about or understand, into a world class expert,   
   > >   
   > > I note that, despite having the advantage of already reading Finnish   
   > > (and, for all I know, Russian), you have not engaged in this project,   
   > > and yet you do, and I do not, make confident pronouncements about the   
   > > conclusion that would follow from such research.   
   >   
   > I read (and speak and write) Finnish as well as Russian. I do not claim to   
   > be an expert on Finnish-Russian trade, but I worked for many years as a   
   > translator for a Finnish magazine dealing with the Finnish economy and   
   > thus gained a consideable amount of insight into what was gling on.   
      
   As we get actual information from serious scholarly work on the subject,   
   it looks more and more as though your "insight" was in various ways   
   mistaken, perhaps because it represents a popular view pushed by the   
   Finnish government, or some Finnish politicians, in order to make the   
   deals they had agreed to look attractive to the voters. The oil was not   
   routinely sold at a discount, the bookkeeping was not in clearing   
   dollars but in clearing rubles, the accumulation of interest free debt   
   by the Soviets was apparently not limited to the final period of   
   breakdown--I think you asserted it was, but I may be confused there   
   about who said what.   
      
   > I am a   
   > linguist, not an economist, even if economic and trade issues intrigue me,   
   > partially because they have a suprising nuber of things in common with   
   > languages and interlingual commuication. Trading X for Y had many things   
   > in common with creating a target text Q in language b from a source text P   
   > of equivalent value and function in language a.   
   >   
   > There was indeed an internal book-keeping unit called the clearing ruble.   
      
   A fact you did not mention when you were accusing James of obvious   
   ignorance for talking about trade in rubles.   
      
   > Since the ruble had no precise international value and more than a dozen   
   > "official" exchange rates, the public statistics about Finnish-Soviet   
   > trade were in clearing dollars. The financial pages in the leading Finnish   
   > daily always had the exchange rate for the clearing dollar in its list of   
   > foreign exchange rates. The clearing ruble was mentioned only rarely,   
   > mostly in arcane discussions about exchanging wood chips for nylons, or   
   > vodka for boloney sausage.   
      
   The relevant question is not in what form the trade was reported in the   
   press but in what form it was conducted. And on that, your claim was   
   mistaken and James' at least partially correct. If the debt owed by the   
   USSR to Finland on the clearing account was denominated in rubles, it   
   would be changes in the value of the ruble, not the value of the dollar,   
   that would affect how much it was worth when it was eventually repaid.   
      
   The U.S. Statistical Abstract reports lots of data for lots of countries   
   in dollars--that doesn't mean that the countries actually conduct their   
   internal transactions in dollars.   
      
   --   
    http://www.daviddfriedman.com/ http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/   
    Author of _Harald_, a fantasy without magic.   
    Published by Baen, paperback in bookstores now   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)