Ankur Desai

Yeah, reserves are being drained by the day for sure.

A lot of people listening will wonder, well, how is this affecting me?

How is this affecting my pocket, my bank balance and the finances of many people around the world?

Well, it pushes up inflation and inflation is a killer in two ways.

One is it increases the cost for businesses of doing business.

And at the same time, it takes money out of the pocket to those customers.

So it's a double whammy on, if you like, economic growth.

So inflation goes higher, economic growth goes lower.

For many governments, that means that the amount of tax they get in from that economic activity will also go down at the same time as interest rates being higher, the amount they pay on their borrowings.

This is particularly true in Asia, which has a lot of US dollar denominated debt.

So the public finances can get very stretched very quickly.

And the longer this goes on, the worse it gets.

And there's one commodity which really gets battered in a situation like this.

And it's not oil and it's not helium and it's not fertilizer.

It's confidence.

Confidence means that businesses don't spend money.

They hoard cash.

They don't invest.

And that can affect growth for many weeks, months, even years down the line.

And finally, in every situation, someone benefits.