Date: Mon, 31 Jul 1995 12:12:16 +0800 (HKT) From: Enzo Michelangeli <enzo@ima.com> How could it be worse than with the U.S. of A.?? ;-) OK... think about Venezuela. It has bad inflation. It has laws against converting local currency to US dollars on the black market, which is basically defined as any agency/person/corporate entity exchanging at a worse rate than the government rate (at least in Venezuela itself; you can pay your foreign creditors in Bolivars and exchange them on the open market for twice the official exchange rate); all government-rate currency transactions must go through a special currency review board that checks to see if you _really_ need to exchange currency. It is illegal to bribe this board and impossible to get a request acknowledged inside a year without bribery (if it isn't denied because you didn't bribe the members of the board). Of course, one day the U.S. may be this bad. Phil