Lebanon 🇱🇧 and Zim 🇿🇼join in and tell us your story too please
Discussion
🇨🇲 — Lessons learned from the mid-nineties collapse of the CFA Franc, and IMF-imposed austerity measures:
When the money dies, the people who tend to be most affected are not necessarily the materially poorest members of society, but more likely those whose lives are built on weak moral and spiritual foundations.
that sounds interesting, can you explain some more detail? maybe an example?🙏
The currency losing 50% of its value, combined with 70% pay cuts, wiped out the middle class overnight. We're talking about doctors, engineers, teachers - all of them government employees - who can no longer afford a second car, their monthly rent, three meals a day, school fees, etc.
What they will do to survive in such desperate situations, I leave it to your imagination...😔
I want to hear those stories! Vital
Overnight, doctors on the government payroll suddenly found themselves making ~half the salary of an illiterate army soldier! (The army was exempt, and their salaries remained untouched.)
The consequences on society: massive unemployment, exodus (first, the former middle-class...), promiscuity, alcoholism, nihilism, crime, deaths, all sorts of fraud and corruption. Many family structures have been irreparably destroyed. It was wild and chaotic!
The silver lining: people quickly realised that formal education was not for everyone and started exploring alternative paths, such as football, music, entrepreneurship etc. The Internet came and created new opportunities, and new hopes. I wish bitcoin could follow in its footsteps...