Word: kipness
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While sojourning in London, the wife of Ghana's Minister of Industries Krobo ("Crowbar") Edusei, 46, whimsically picked up an $8,400 bed. Back in Accra, the indignant minister telephoned his wife to return it at once. So conspicuous a kip, insisted Crowbar (who has risen from a pre-independence job as a $22-a-month debt collector to ownership of five mansions), just was "not socialism." He explained that his spouse has been abroad for months, and perhaps "does not know all the dynamic and progressive changes that have taken place in Ghana since." Distinctly unprogressive, Mrs. Edusei...
...Geneva for more talks with the permanent international conference on Laos. But Phoumi was not about to buy a plane ticket for Geneva without a fight. In a belt-tightening measure to safeguard his dollar reserves, he ordered the National Bank of Laos to stop exchanging dollars for Laotian kip. The black market price for the dollar promptly jumped from 80 to 150 kip, and food prices spiraled. He floated rumors of dollar loans from other sources, announced new Communist invasions from Red China and North Viet Nam to make the U.S. rally to him (as of last week...
...rushed into Vientiane to show them. Favorite device: the import license. Laotians with political pull got import licenses for everything from feather dusters to nail polish to television sets-though there is no TV station in Laos. They could then buy foreign exchange at the official rate of 35 kip to the dollar, sell the dollars on the black market for 100 kip or more, and then rush back to buy more dollars. Corruption became appalling...
...capitalize on the growing chaos. But Premier Phoui (pronounced Pwee) Sananikone, 55 (TIME, Sept. 1), a muscular and quick-witted six-footer, was ready for them. Last August he had formed a government shorn of the two Communist ministers. He instituted a currency reform that allowed the Laotian kip to find its normal level of 80 to the dollar, and he brought a halt to the scandalous abuse...
...primary purpose was to supply kip to pay and support the army. But in the two years since then, as the U.S. steadily broadened its aid program, the free rate has soared as high as 120 kip for $1 in the markets of Vientiane, Bangkok and Hong Kong. The disparity between official and free-exchange rates has become an open invitation to speculators. The system works this way: a Laotian importer wants to bring in 20 radios at a unit cost of $50 each. He gets an import license for $1,000 worth of radios from the Laotian government...