[jfroma]

it is interesting that you referred to “black market”. If you come from a working democracy where what is “just” is close to what is “fair”, then “black market” can make you think of drugs, weapons, or these sort of ilegal things. But I want to let you know that in some countries we have to go to the black market to buy another FIAT with less inflation because it is illegal to exchange our currency even to protect our savings.

So, yeah we can call it black market but I like the term “free market”.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentine_currency_controls_...

[lottin]

They call it black market because a black market is not the same thing as a free market, otherwise they would just call it free market.

[jfroma]

Say the central bank of XYZ set a fixed rate of 100 $xyz per USD but it becomes illegal to buy USD and no any bank is willing to sell you USD. In a country like the United States you might hedge against inflation by buying some treasuries.. but in other places they just make it illegal to do anything else.

This automatically creates a “black market” of USD where the price is whatever the people are willing to pay, in the end the free market finds its way.