From: "James A. Donald" <jamesd@echeque.com>
Date: Tue, 1 Oct 1996 09:58:45 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: the theory of split currency
Message-ID: <199609302118.OAA11208@dns2.noc.best.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Fred Foldvary <ffoldvar@jfku.jfku.edu> wrote:
> Is there a name for a dual or split currency, in which
> there is one currency for domestic use and another, different
> appearing, currency for foreign usage?
>
> Does anyone know of any country which has had such a
> split currency?

Many third world nations employed this system, one currency 
for internal use only, and one currency for international 
transactions.  The international currency was sometimes 
denominated in hard currency, and reasonably convertible into it.

This strategy was frequently associated with police state tactics,
lawless imprisonment, and swift execution, for vaguely defined
economic crimes.  It has become substantially less common in
the nineties.

The external currency tended to spread into the internal economy,
despite police state measures to prevent this from happening,
and the internal currency tended to become worthless and could only be
spent while holding a gun to the head of the person accepting 
it.

In countries employing this system, women, and often children
of both sexes, are often cheaply available for sexual purposes
if you have foreign currency.

I speculate that this is because people find that they *must* 
obtain foreign currency, the internal currency being
unspendable, and any method available to them for obtaining foreign
currency is a criminal offense.

A retreat from this system, usually by allowing the international
currency to freely penetrate the internal economy, tends to 
be associated with a substantial reduction in the availability
of young girls, as for example in Cuba recently.

> This scenario is not entirely hypothetical.  I have read that
> Senator Patrick Leahy introduced Senate Bill #307 to create
> such a split currency. 

Why am I not surprised that it was Senator Patrick Leahy of
crypto bill fame?


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