CURRENCY FOR SUPPORTERS OF CHANGES

It is normal to consider that the Belarusians are too emotional, that is why they vote "listening to their hearts". It is possible to give other facts of merely emotional-personal reactions of people to different events. However, if we step downwards from political events to everyday ones, we will find quite rational people, who do nothing if they know no profits should be expected.

Namely, rational Belarusians in December 2006 even before analysts' publications rushed to banks and started to transact money from ruble accounts into foreign currency ones. Namely, they during the period from January till April 2008 bought 32.365 gold bullions total weight of which is 1050 kilo, this is nearly 4.5 times more of weight of gold sold during the same period of time last year. According to opinion of analysts from the National Bank, "stable high demand for gold is explained, first of all, that population of Belarus, following the tendencies of world markets, where the price of gold keeps growing, uses it as one of the most profitable now means of keeping their savings".

The public poll of June gave us additional statistics to analyze rational behavior of Belarusians. Let's look at Table 1. Its data quite assuredly confirm the cited above opinion of analysts from the National Bank.

Since the beginning of 2004 the American dollar step by step has been losing its "attractiveness" in the eyes of the Belarusians, and at the same time the popularity of national ruble and euro is rising. In 2008 at the time the value of dollar against euro dropping at world markets and policy of value Belarusian ruble against dollar, conscientiously adhered by the National Bank, being stabilized, the dollar lost 13.8 points of its popularity, and euro practically added the same points.

It is evident, the dynamics given in Table 1 depicts the average "temperature in hospital", that is why let us enter if not the level of "a single ward" then at least the level of "a department", for this we will traditionally analyze dependence of our variable (in this case, the level of Belarusians' trusting the main currencies) on a standard set of socio-demographic characteristics, attitude to President and susceptibility to changes (Table 2).

As it was expected the unified "diagnosis" split into components. The contribution of different socio-demographic categories into the dynamics of Table 1 appeared to be different. The dynamics was caused first of all by young and educated people. On the one hand, this category of people is well informed, on the other hand, they are economically active. It is evident the old, with women prevailing among them in Belarus, have only occasional wages in foreign currency, and the demand to do shopping in foreign currency they experience not often.

Dependence of respondents' trust in main currencies on their political preferences is caused by peculiar effect of the depicted above interconnectedness of currency preferences with socio-demographic characteristics. Among those trusting A. Lukashenko, as it has been mentioned above by us many times, old people with a low educational level are prevailing, and among those distrusting him, visa versa, the young and educated are dominating. This principle is more just for grading the supporters of stabilization and changes. Thus 61.7% appear to be at a high record among those trusting euro and simultaneously supporting changes.

The data of Table 3 allow us to assess economical strategies of different categories of population. In general, to the question: "What life strategy do you adhere to today?" 44.5 % of respondents marked the variant of answer "To spend money on everyday needs till I have it", 29.5% answered "To invest money in goods with a long-term life" and 24.3% answered "To save as much as possible, to save for a rainy day". Thus an average Belarusian first wants to buy, but then to invest and save. After the end of the chronic period of commodity deficit which has lasted for more than 70 years, such a distortion in life strategy is typical of citizens of practically all post-Soviet republics.

And now from the level of the whole population let us turn to consider life strategies of a definite socio-demographic category. It may seem strange but the desire to spend money is stronger by men than by women. Probably it happens because women appear to be more economic. On the contrary they more often have to think not only about their own future, but also about the future of their children.

And the age of respondents influenced their life strategies in a predictable way. Young people want to spend money first, middle-aged people strive to invest, and pensioners want to save money for a rainy day.

Such a tendency of direct influence of educational level on life strategies was not seen. Citizens with elementary education or people having university diplomas, these both categories yield to consumer temptation practically in an equal way. But what concerns willingness to invest/save, here the picture appeared smooth: the higher the level of education is, the more the desire to invest, to the detriment of the desire to save. The amount of income influences in the same way: the rich invest, the poor have no chance but to spend it.

Not only sociologists notice a growing disposition of Belarusians to consume, but also analysts of the National Bank. According to official statistics, the willingness of population to save has decreased from 10.1% in 2006 to 7.9% in 2007 (and this in the year of the most durable crisis in Belarusian-Russian relationships!) During 2007 deposits from population have really increased by 20.6% – i.e. by 12.3 points less than in 2006.

The data in Table 4 convincingly demonstrate that a remarkable portion of grown-up population has to live "from wheels" (from wages to wages), but only a small percentage of people can save a substantial amount of income.

Thus, the Belarusian rationality has a short-term period. They are able to respond quickly to current market challenges, but the majority of them have problems in building long-term economical strategies.

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