Word: lira
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Italian economy, however, ignores the problem. For the past six years, its annual growth rate of 3.5% to 4% has been one of Europe's highest. Inflation has come down smartly from more than 20% in 1980 to 5% last year. The lira has appreciated against most other currencies. To be sure, interest rates are still in double figures, and unemployment is stuck above 10%, but that figure is skewed by a higher jobless rate in the backward south; in the thriving north, it is lower. Overall, Italy's economic performance is sparkling. How do the Italians...
Crisis time in Rome. Had another government fallen or the lira tumbled? Worse. Thanks to a ruling issued this month by the European Community's Court of Justice, Italy's lasagna may go limp and its fettuccine flaccid. For a nation that eats its pasta al dente, or firm to the tooth, such news is hard to swallow...
...explain this popularity, there may be another reason for the tourism explosion. "Let's not be coy," says Briton Charles Stanford, who is traveling through the country in a camper with his wife. "The exchange rate has a lot to do with it. Every week we're here, the lira improves." Three years ago the Turkish lira was about 600 to the dollar; today it hovers around 1,300. Pamela Douglas, 24, a Los Angeles student, has been sharing rooms at boardinghouses for 2,500 liras a night. At the current exchange rate, that comes out to slightly less than...
...zones have known they were in Italy after being showered with vast sums of lire in return for a traveler's check or two. But that heady experience may go the way of the Medici, thanks to a proposal by the Italian Cabinet to lop three zeros off the lira. Instead of doling out 1,250 or so lire for a dollar, bank clerks would slap down a single new lira and 25 centesimi, or cents. Advocates of the plan say the current huge denominations of lire turn such mundane calculations as balancing a checkbook into nightmares...
...redenomination of the lira may be delayed, however, by Italy's usual political turmoil. Days after the plan was unveiled, the country's 47th postwar government collapsed during a budget crisis. Even so, broad support for currency reform may encourage the new regime to move forward on the proposal...