Word: lira
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Devaluation had plugged the leak, but sterling's recent fall has once more made such deals profitable, thus put new pressure on the pound. As sterling wobbled, other currencies sensitive to sterling shook also. In Italy, the lira skidded to 688 to the $1, the lowest point since last March...
...helping the Turk is by no means finished. The load of supporting his military establishment is simply too great for his economy. This year alone his deficit, out of a total budget of 1.5 billion Turkish lira ($530 million), is 234 million lira. In 1946, the last year before we joined up with Turkey, the army cost 40.59% of the country's budget. We have cut this to 30.9% and trimmed an oversize force of 900,000 men to just about half that, and at the same time actually doubled its firepower...
...Marino's freespending Reds ran the country's budget into the red, the Communist government adopted a capitalistic trick: it repealed an old law against gambling and granted a nine-year gambling concession to a group of Genoese financiers. The gamblers put up an 800 million-lira casino and a couple of hotels and promised to pay San Marino a cut of a million lire ($1,600) a day. The Communists piously forbade San Marinese themselves to enter the casino, relied upon a steady stream of wealthy, land-owning Italians and foreign tourists. Said San Marino...
...Wealth. Turkey's economy is advancing, albeit slowly. The lira stood at 4.5 to the dollar (free market) a year ago, is now 3.5. Foreign capital, long almost pathologically feared, is now free to enter. A new hydroelectric plant, which will increase electrical power by 50%, has been started with ECAid...
...youth rushed into a Rome art gallery one day six years ago, and thrust a portfolio full of drawings at the startled proprietor. "You must buy these," he said. "I don't have enough to eat!" The dealer accepted the portfolio, pressed a few dollars' worth of lira notes into the stranger's hand, and got rid of him. Then he looked at his purchase...