Word: lira
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...pistol shot abruptness Italian "food profiteers" were whisked to jail, average Rome food prices downed slightly during the week, butchers were ordered to close shop Tuesdays and sell no beef Wednesdays, and II Duce rapped that "Fascist discipline" will keep Italians from overeating. Famed Count Volpi, stabilizer of the lira, again moved in Government circles which he left after one of the Dictator's orders to "change the guard" (TIME, July 16. 1928). Italy's tempo last week was definitely staccato-and the King came out openly...
Though the lira is a managed currency, II Duce has kept it on his technical gold standard through eight long years of rumors that he was bluffing and might be expected to devalue any day. To frosty bankers it must eternally seem like bluffing when a fire-eating politician shouts at the top of his lungs, screams in headlines and has cut into a monument at Pesaro: "We will defend the lira to the last breath, to the last drop of blood...
...Paragraph I of Article IV of the Royal Decree of Dec. 21, 1927 not even II Duce himself could reduce the gold cover behind Italy's lira below 40%. Last week the purchase of war supplies had piled up at the Bank of Italy half a billion lire ($41,250,000) worth of bills on which foreign munition makers demanded prompt payment. To have sold enough lire on foreign exchange to meet these bills would have broken the market for the lira, forced its devaluation. This could be avoided by paying out half a billion in gold from...
...Billions!" Results were that Dictator Mussolini formally assumed the absolute discretion over Italy's gold most foreigners had supposed he always possessed; shipments of munitions to Italy continued at lowest gold cash prices; the lira, after falling nearly ½? on international exchange last week, bounced back; and activity quickened furiously on Italy's bourse. Fiat motors rose from 394 lire to 401; Snia-Viscosa rayon from 401 to 410 and Montecatini mines from 188 to 193. These movements of course reflected fear by Italians that eventually the lira will be forced off the gold standard. Abroad many...
...general Italian economic picture last week was thus one of strong crosscurrents. Conservative in keeping the lira pegged, II Duce remains liberal in expenditures for social service, radical in his policy of war preparedness at any price. Profoundly influenced by Niccolo Machiavelli, the great Florentine who understood Italians better than anyone else, Dictator Mussolini considers that in an hour when all investments are bad, the best is to speculate on a program of conquest or, better still, obtain Ethiopia by intimidation. No leader ever fell and no people ever revolted or were basically unhappy, Il Duce feels, while they were...