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I think they are in trouble and trying to maintain the USD / LBP exchange rate.

I'm afraid the fixed rate is going to drive us into the ground. From Wikipedia:
Additionally, the stubbornness of a government in defending a fixed exchange rate when in a trade deficit will force it to use deflationary measures (increased taxation and reduced availability of money), which can lead to unemployment.
It looks like we are in the midst of a currency crisis.

Moreover:
The announced exchange rate may not coincide with the market equilibrium exchange rate, thus leading to excess demand or excess supply
Everyone knows that the market value for USD is 1600+ LBP. Therefore if you can get yours from the bank at 1505 then everyone will get all the USD they can and resell them on the black market for benefit. This is another reason why they are setting all kinds of limits on USD.

What a mess.
AVOlio wroteFransabank appearantly stopped exchanging money from lbp to usd in the online banking.
How am I supposed to cover my payments then?
Sorry, do you mean that you are not able to pay online bills in USD using your Lebanese card?
Appearances can be deceiving, the exchanges are taking a risk selling usd for 1600 and 1700 lbp, I wouldn't do it. 1700 lbp for usd seems cheap to me given that we have a country that is the most indebted in the world, does not produce anything, NEEDS imports constantly for food energy and medicine. That is a financial death sentence right there. Our credit rating was downgraded again yesterday.

All of you, get all the USD bills you can, stash it at home. Whether or not you have money in the bank could become meaningless if things keep getting worse(and it seems they will) People who have farm lands maybe buy some plastic tents for farming and a system to collect rain water, it might become useful. Things are going to shit very fast, very very fast.

also this https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10162846020780457&id=526730456&sfnsn=mo&d=n&vh=i
@user dont forget to buy a cow just in case...

there is no war to exaggerate the situation, its bad not same level venezuela bad.
How do we know it is not Venezuela level of bad? I see a lot of similarities. No local production of goods and foreign money stopped coming in.
No dollar = no bread and no medicine.

Cows need medicine and feed, requires maintenance, no good.
rolf wrote
AVOlio wroteFransabank appearantly stopped exchanging money from lbp to usd in the online banking.
How am I supposed to cover my payments then?
Sorry, do you mean that you are not able to pay online bills in USD using your Lebanese card?
I have an LBP salary account.
I have a USD credit card.

I cannot transfer money from lbp salary account to usd credit card account.
I have payments on it.
I was at the bank today and the number of people trying to withdraw huge amount of cash is unbelievable.. I'm not talking about few thousands... I'm talking about people how have millions of dollars asking for " cheques bancaire...

Obviously the banking system in lebanon lost credibility and trust and I'm pretty sure that although people have money in their account, most of it doesn't really exist. Banks have been known for giving crazy interest rates, this alone had a very detrimental effect on the economy.

Just forgot to mention, BLOM starting from today, will not accept LBP for credit card payments.
user wroteAppearances can be deceiving, the exchanges are taking a risk selling usd for 1600 and 1700 lbp, I wouldn't do it. 1700 lbp for usd seems cheap to me
Explain cheap. Do you want the rate to be above 1700 or back down to 1500?
VincentKeyboard wrote
user wroteAppearances can be deceiving, the exchanges are taking a risk selling usd for 1600 and 1700 lbp, I wouldn't do it. 1700 lbp for usd seems cheap to me
Explain cheap. Do you want the rate to be above 1700 or back down to 1500?
Rate is unrealistically low. it should be around 2500 LBP. Look around you.... Syria, Turkey, Iraq, Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria... their currency couldn't hold against USD in the last 5 years.

We can't export anything anymore as it becomes more and more expensive to transport and sell goods abroad. We can't rely on immigrants money and tourism to survive each and every crisis.
VincentKeyboard wrote Explain cheap. Do you want the rate to be above 1700 or back down to 1500?
He us saying that $1 for 1700LBP is cheap. It should cost more to buy USD. More than 1700.
We are not discussing wants but expectations.
I think he is clear.
exactly, it's not what I want. I want one lira = 1 usd, but I'm discussing what I see. The country has no economy, it does not produce anything. And what little it does produce we don't sell in liras anyway. Because of our genius dual currency system, tourists when they come here just use dollars, they are not forced to buy the local currency like they would be in other countries. So there is 0 natural demand for lira, government employees are pretty much the only group forced to take liras as their salary. And depositors were fooled to putting money in Lira for higher interest.

The only reason 1500 liras was one usd was because Riyad Salameh was pouring billions of dollars to support it at that rate. He is out of money to artificially support it now and it has no base or natural use. And so I think it will go to shit.

The banking system that used to attract money from abroad has lost confidence and lost its reputation. We used to get 4 billions a year in foreign deposits, it would be a miracle if our net flow is even positive this year at all...
Stop spreading panic, you are pushing people to withdraw too much money and exchange b***es to steal people, you are pushing people into a vicious circle.
A new government and hopefully technocrats one will be able to bring help in $ from friendly countries, I am perhaps one of the rare optimistic dude here but instead of shouting ''fire'' let's poor water on it
infiniteloop wroteStop spreading panic, you are pushing people to withdraw too much money and exchange b***es to steal people, you are pushing people into a vicious circle.
A new government and hopefully technocrats one will be able to bring help in $ from friendly countries, I am perhaps one of the rare optimistic dude here but instead of shouting ''fire'' let's poor water on it
We are spreading panic ? WE ?

It's just that we're sharing our experience nothing less nothing more. It's the banks who are issuing capital control statements and we're SPREADING THE NEWS.

If they didn't tell you, my parents woke up one day when the dollar hit 3000 LBP. They had everything in LBP and lost most of their money. That was 3 decades ago. We've been there and no, we're not gonna go through the same again just because the BDL is in denial of the crisis.

If you still don't find any reason to panic i think Moody's report should ring a bell....
infiniteloop wroteStop spreading panic, you are pushing people to withdraw too much money and exchange b***es to steal people, you are pushing people into a vicious circle.
A new government and hopefully technocrats one will be able to bring help in $ from friendly countries, I am perhaps one of the rare optimistic dude here but instead of shouting ''fire'' let's poor water on it
I'm in Canada and my money is in TD bank. I am not in cahoots with the Lebanese exchange people. Don't rely on the corrupt politicians that broke it to fix it. They are ALL corrupt, and those who cried chastity turned out to be the dirtiest. It's better if everyone takes a cut of their money and survives rather than smart people savign all their money and the less savvy losing it all. If we had a morally decent government, they would have killed the peg and did a USD account haircut back in 2017 suddenly and overnight before anyone escapes, and they would have spread the pain and the system would have limped on. But what we have now is people who knew saved all their cash, and other people are grasping for hope.

Blom bank in 2015 warned that the debt will become unsustainable in 2020
http://blog.blominvestbank.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Debt-Sustainability-Analysis-for-Lebanon-2015-2020.pdf?fbclid=IwAR1AAOqMEXjSvUFThLw62LOUMupmcP-FqqSXMzocjCr_NMNKOtxsbdGKc5U (see page 6, 2020 is one month away, cudos for the writer)

And politicians first pretended it is a rumor. When that failed they pretended it is the world conspiring against them. And all that wasted time while they hid their money and while wiser people got their money out. It is getting worse if you have not noticed. If you need to pay 10% extra for security so be it, insurance costs money. It's better to lose 10% and be wrong than regret it later...

The country loses 7 billion or so a year on trade deficits, dollars wasted on electricity ships, dollars wasted on projects and corruption. And you think because I am telling you to take out what? 10 000 usd at best (because the bank will not let you take more) that that is what crashes the economy?

Greece is expected to end austerity and finally be done with its crisis by 2064 or something, Venezuela is in shit mode. I am worried that our people in Lebanon are not really grasping what it means to have a financial crisis. Many think that it is something they will just shrug off and move on from in a year or 2. Financial sector confidence has been broken, and countries that used to help us abandoned us, nothing will fix itself.


I do admit I am a coward. I withdrew my money since 2015 and lost a lot of potential income from interest for 3 years straight which could have amounted to half of what I have now. But some things I cannot afford to gamble with or leave for luck and uncertainty.
Thanks for the link. World bank studies contained warnings as well.
You did well to withdraw your money and refuse to be part of this.
What about safety of keeping cash at home ? I see a lot of risks like fire and theft.
Kareem wroteIf they didn't tell you, my parents woke up one day when the dollar hit 3000 LBP. They had everything in LBP and lost most of their money. That was 3 decades ago. We've been there and no, we're not gonna go through the same again just because the BDL is in denial of the crisis.
In this case, the best solution is to convert the amount you have in LBP to USD right?
Withdrawing the money in LBP will not help i presume?

I remember when i was little my parents used to tell me that my grandparents lost a huge amount of money because they had stored their savings in LBP and did not convert it into USD.
6 year old me was like, how can this happen, banks are thieves...

But with the passing of years, i started getting what really happened.

I still think banks are thieves anyway and i do not trust banks or the banking system.
i prefer my money to be with me "under my mattress".
nosense wroteWhat about safety of keeping cash at home ? I see a lot of risks like fire and theft.
An ideal solution would be some sort of P2P banking.
Kareem wrote
VincentKeyboard wrote
user wroteAppearances can be deceiving, the exchanges are taking a risk selling usd for 1600 and 1700 lbp, I wouldn't do it. 1700 lbp for usd seems cheap to me
Explain cheap. Do you want the rate to be above 1700 or back down to 1500?
Rate is unrealistically low. it should be around 2500 LBP. Look around you.... Syria, Turkey, Iraq, Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria... their currency couldn't hold against USD in the last 5 years.
This makes zero sense. Other countries messed up so let us jump on the wagon and mess up too?
I remember when the dollars was a few Liras and suddenly jumped to 3000+ and people lost their money's worth. Do you want that to happen again? Why not make the dollar is 20,000,000LL? I'll have just one dollar then.
I remember buying food with 20Liras.
Also in Egypt, the dollar fluctuates between 16 and 18 pounds, not 1500 and 1800. There is major difference. I have relatives living in Cairo near tahrir square and a few in Alexandria plus a few working in KSA. In Egypt, everything is in local currency even imported items with tailored prices.
Anyway you raise an interesting point. You say you remember buying food for 20LL.

So during the devaluation, people such as AVOlio's grandparents lost much wealth.

At the level of the country, this is huge wealth lost.

Wealth does not just disappear like that.

So I am wondering. Where did it go?

I guess to find the answer we need to find the reason for the hyper devaluation from the 80ies.

One possible reason is that the central bank printed too much money.

if you really really do not trust thanks and want to be safe then you should keep gold instead or something else.