Word: cruzeiro
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Bank Note is kept busy these days filling orders for money from young nations and performing rush jobs for some old nations ravaged by inflation. Last week its printing plant in New York City's Bronx was busy printing a rush order of 5,000-cruzeiro notes (present value: $1) for inflation-ridden Brazil. "We really prefer a well customer to a sick one," says Chairman and President W. Frederic Colclough, 57, who runs the company's five plants (three U.S., one Canadian, one British), from a colonnaded granite building near Wall St. But, naturally, since inflation starts...
...recent years, the average return achieved by U.S.-owned companies in Latin America has dwindled to 9% v. 15% in Europe. Prime reason for this is inflation: Argentina's peso is now worth only one-eighth what it was five years ago, and Brazil's cruzeiro has dropped by two-thirds in less than two years. This means that companies must earn almost astronomical sums in present-day money to cover the real costs of their original investment...
When Goulart took office, some 275 billion paper cruzeiros were in circulation; in 14 months, he printed 150 billion more, and will probably have to run off another 75 billion to cover Christmas bonuses for workers. The cruzeiro, which stood at 280 to the dollar when Goulart came in, is now at 825. Some $900 million worth of foreign debts comes due next year, and Goulart's government faces an internal 1963 budget deficit of more than 600 billion cruzeiros (see chart...
...country together until next October's congressional elections, plus a promise to vote on returning Brazil from its unworkable parliamentary system to a strong presidency. "No more problems in Brasilia," crowed Goulart. There were plenty elsewhere. Food-hoarding speculators pushed the cost of living higher still, and the cruzeiro was down to almost 600 to the dollar. Off to Washington, on the same route as that taken by Argentina's Alsogaray, flew Brazil's Finance Minister, Walther Moreira Salles, to seek still another stretch-out in his country's $3 billion foreign debt...
...trying to get it watered down in the Senate. (President Goulart declared in favor of the bill.) Moreira Salles' finance ministry estimated that the measure would cost Brazil $250 million a year in investment and cause unemployment for 1,000,000 Brazilians. At week's end, the cruzeiro plummeted to a new record low of 400 to the dollar...