Word: lira
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
When Haldeman advised the President that Britain had decided to let the pound float, and that the Italian lira was also in serious trouble, Nixon displayed remarkable casualness...
Rumor's remedies are too new for soundings yet on their efficacy. But tight money (even state industries are happy to pay 24% interest) inside Italy has already bolstered the lira by forcing Italians to repatriate some of the estimated $16 billion they have sent out of the country for safekeeping in the past decade. International bankers at this point believe that the government's emergency measures are tough enough for Italy to squeak through its current economic crisis...
Italy has had to borrow so heavily to support the lira that annual interest runs to $700 million. Last March the International Monetary Fund made another loan of $1.2 billion, but only on the proviso that Italy put its economic house in order by reducing deficits, limiting spending, increasing taxes and holding down credit expansion...
...against other European currencies is difficult to judge because of a series of special circumstances. The greenback has dropped just a bit against the French franc because Paris is deliberately holding the value of the franc down in order to gain a trade advantage over other countries. The Italian lira is in trouble as usual but even so, it has gained against the dollar since January-though only because the Bank of Italy has been spending as much as $100 million a day to prop up the lira's price...
...scheme is intended to cut Italy's mammoth trade deficit, thus easing the country's 15.5% inflation and relieving pressure on the beleaguered lira. Of all the countries in Europe, Italy is the most dependent on Arab oil and therefore the hardest hit by the quadrupling of petroleum prices in the past seven months. The government has been predicting that unless something drastic is done to curb imports, the trade deficit may reach a whopping $8 billion this year, more than half of which would go to meet the petroleum bill alone...