-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- In <97Jun26.113748edt.32257@brickwall.ceddec.com>, on 06/26/97 at 11:37 AM, tzeruch@ceddec.com said:
Yes, but each currency would then have to be exchanged (at a discount!) and that almost every time any transaction occured. Unless you are willing to exchange any amount of currency without making any profit on it, not even to cover expenses or fluctuations in value, this won't work - it is trivial to convert currency, but it is not without cost.
I don't want to get to deep into this curency issue but from my experiance not all exchanges are done at a cost. This is directly related to the stability of the curency being exchanged. If I am exchanging US $ with a low inflation rate (say 4%) for IT lira with a high inflation rate (say 250%) it is to the advantage of the person holding the lira to give me a good rate of exchange for my stable dollars. Also if I may not actually need to make the exchange at all as many Italin merchants would prefer to be paid in US $ rather than IT lira and will discount his services on the simple fact that I am paying him in stable curency. From my travels I have found whole cities where there is an underground economy all in US $ because the local curency is worthless. These areas tend to have a thriving barder system also for the same reasons (a loaf of bread is still worth a loaf of bread regardless what the pinheads in the government do to screw up the economy). Where I see the cost of exchange is when dealing with curencies that are of relativly the same stablilty US $ (4%) Japan Yen (6%). Then there is not the overwhelming advantage to the person holding the Yens to exchange for the US $. There are exceptions to this also. Say you have Widgets Inc (USA) & Cogs LTD. (Japan) who do a large amount of business in each others countries and between each other. It may be to their advantage to accept purchaces in each others currencies as to avoid the cost & hassels of going through exchanges. Just some food for thought. :) PS: the inflation rates were just given as examples I have no ideal what the current inflation rates are in the above mentioned countries. - -- - --------------------------------------------------------------- William H. Geiger III http://www.amaranth.com/~whgiii Geiger Consulting Cooking With Warp 4.0 Author of E-Secure - PGP Front End for MR/2 Ice PGP & MR/2 the only way for secure e-mail. OS/2 PGP 2.6.3a at: http://www.amaranth.com/~whgiii/pgpmr2.html - --------------------------------------------------------------- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3a Charset: cp850 Comment: Registered_User_E-Secure_v1.1b1_ES000000 iQCVAwUBM7KYyY9Co1n+aLhhAQFLsAQAlZKt47lhcbDbnAjNzN6awy8t25JkYGmz n8TtzJqHX/4soTeiK1OGiz32lBiHz4N2X5odp0/Dm0AW8NTXJqkjRs8T19aZyowi Mz08YyQqR9MSGXySGbXMc+0Jq1J03doZGQzny6VxuUIvopGvsfuXsODLjRCdzpFW 7iwhLLdXQ1E= =1uhw -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----