Four finals later and I've wrapped up obligatory academic actives for the semester. Thank goodness! I only hope intermediate microeconomics makes use of some delicious multivariable calculus goodness. Otherwise I will spend another semester complaining about America's dysfunctional relationship with the glorious field of Mathematics.

But enough about me. Apparently the global economic downturn has given Russians reason to be more pessimistic than usual. According to Bloomberg, Russian consumers have so little faith in the ruble they're liquidating bank deposits to purchase foreign currency or real, tangible assets, like gold, silver and real estate. I suppose, given the current economic situation this is nothing unusual. People often hoard precious metals to hedge against economic uncertainty.

Russian consumers, however, have also begun using their newly liquid bank deposits to purchase consumer goods, like an extra flat-screen television set or a third refrigerator. This has some interesting implications. Unlike a gold bar or a diamond, consumer goods are an awful store of value. Even adjusted for inflation, an ounce of gold is worth far more today than it was worth 100 years ago. The same can be said for a diamond. On the other hand, consumer goods almost always depreciate in value over time. A high-end television from the 1990s would be worth a fraction of its original value today, both in real and nominal terms.

That Russian consumers consider a television or microwave a better store of value than their own currency implies that, on the whole, Russian consumers expect their currency to depreciate more quickly than consumer goods. Think what that means! Russians expect the ruble to depreciate more quickly than my laptop computer — purchased September 2006 — which now sells on eBay for less than half of its original purchase price. It would be equivalent to the dollar, currently trading at about .75 dollars per euro, falling by half against the euro to .375 dollars per euro in the next two years. At that rate, an Hermès Birkin bag, currently starting at around $7,500, would cost an American over $15,000 by 2010. A seven quart Le Creuset French Oven, now about $260, would run some $520. Or maybe Russian consumers still haven't shaken off 70 years of socialism.

Perhaps I should short some rubles.