Bartering coffee for goods and services is an economy not at all lost on me. Food, rides, different coffee, a precious few extra minutes of sleepโIโve traded coffee or the making of coffee for all of these things. What Iโm trying to say is, if America switched to the Gold Cup Standard, Iโd be just fine. But Indonesia, theyโre like next level. According to the New York Times, theyโre trading coffee for fighter jets.
The southeast Asian nation will trade “coffee, tea, palm oil, and defense equipment” to Russia for 11 Sukhoi Su-35 jets. According to Wikipedia, the going rate for the Russian-made sky fighters is between $40 and $65 million. A piece. That amounts to, literally, a hill of beans.
The trade was made possible, in part, thanks to sanctions imposed on Russia by the U.S. and Europeans governments, allowing Indonesia to spark trade with Russia that has โtumbled since 2012.โ
So let that be a lesson to you. If that one shady friend in your clique is getting ghosted by the rest of your group (because they’re being an asshole), use their exile as an opportunity to trade coffee for some nefarious shit you most likely wonโt ever useโlike a butterfly knife or a pet snake or somethingโand probably do so on the cheap.
Zac Cadwaladerย is the news editor at Sprudge Media Network.
*top image viaย defesaaereanaval.com.br.
