An older acquaintance of mine told me in the early 2000s that it was no longer possible to make money by trading goods because everything became about financial operations. He was engaged in very high-volume trade and was able to maintain a perfect balance between suppliers and dealers without using capital money. His success continued until he could not collect payments for months.

The fact that the Government has finally realised that it has a 50% chance to win the elections drove it to deal with many promises that has been on the agenda for a very long time. Including the EYT (elimination of age requirement for retirement), the cancellation of interviews in recruitment to government jobs, and many other commitments, which were originally promised to be undertaken by the Opposition, the Government started to put those into effect, one by one.

My readers’ comments told me that yesterday’s article was missing some details, so today I decided I should write a new one with more specifics. Obviously, a single article will not be enough to discuss everything as thoroughly as I would like to, but I’ll give it a try.

The 1990s have been called the "Golden Years" in the global economy, especially in advanced economies. The Golden Years began with Clinton in 1993 and came to an end with the terrorist attack of September 11. The Turkish economy, on the other hand, has been quite volatile during that period. The 1994 financial crisis and the prominent political instability were two chief characteristics that marked the 1990s for the country.

Sometimes, the government officials in Turkey make positive or negative comments about the positive and negative data obtained through analyses comparing Turkey and European. These comments include statements such as "Germany is jealous of Turkey", which tend to trigger different reactions in the society. I was recently in Berlin and had the chance to observe the public services offered in the country at first hand.

I happen to visit many countries of the world as part of my job. No matter what country it is, each of them have certain behaviours that almost never change.

You don’t have to be a genius to guess that the markets will rapidly decline until the elections. As the exchange rates continue to rise every day, everyone has the same concern…What will happen after the elections?

I should say that I no longer take the CPI rates into account since the gap between the cost of living and the CPI has severely grown. The huge difference between the CPI and the Istanbul Chamber Commerce’s Cost of Living Index is already obvious.

The exchange rates in Turkey are gradually increasing every day, which is hardly useful to exporters, given the circumstances. It is not possible to guess whether this "slow" rise in exchange rates will mitigate the inflationary effects.

Countries like Turkey, which desperately need raw materials, intermediate goods and investment goods to run their import activities, have no choice but to export high added value products. However, this is not a goal that could be achieved without making the necessary efforts. The Marshall–Lerner condition tells us that a country with high elasticity of export demand and low elasticity of import demand cannot easily become competitive and that exchange rate rises can be of limited help.