Word: bullion
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...used to describe most Latin American nations, many banks and the United States Football League. The Syrian-backed P.L.O., an earlier hyphenated champion, had to be retired when the Syrian backers began shooting at the P.L.O. backs. Any dictator who leaves his homeland hastily, with or without his bullion and wife's shoe collection, is not fleeing in disgrace, merely heading into self-imposed exile...
...South African Krugerrand was far and away the world's top-selling gold bullion coin for years. Then the U.S. banned imports of the item last October in protest against South Africa's racial policies, and Krugerrand sales fell so sharply that production was halted. Canada, Australia and China, among others, are trying to take up the slack. This October the U.S. will begin selling gold coins in $5, $10, $25 and $50 denominations, though the sale price will vary with the value of the metal...
...sell significant quantities unless Pretoria eased some of its repressive measures, and then "private hoarders from Bombay to Brittany would be rushing to sell their gold at crashing prices." The U.S. is well positioned to do this, since it owns more than a fourth of all such banked bullion. Such an act, of course, would hurt all holders and producers of gold...
...Bullion extracted from Swiss banks would pay to remake the Dry Tortugas. Pastel villas for the Big Boys. A grand hotel for their rich friends. The bar would offer drinks like "the Caligula" or "the Vlad the Impaler." Imelda Marcos and Michelle Duvalier could meet by the pool for a "Lady Macbeth." The Big Boys could swagger around and try to seduce one another's wives. Steam baths, massages, the camaraderie of the locker room. They could shoot pigeons and get drunk, and now and then they could pretend to have one of their flunkies taken out and shot...
...suggested a similar approach for the Titanic. But raising the 418-ton Greenpeace ship from a shallow harbor is one thing, rescuing the 46,328-ton Titanic from 2 1/2 miles of ocean quite another. Says Keith Jessop, the Yorkshire diver who in 1981 salvaged $80 million in gold bullion from the World War II battleship H.M.S. Edinburgh: "You can't even speak of them in the same breath...