Word: lire
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Mediterranean countries, the sacred and the profane exist side by side. There is nothing like a good shrine, for example, to attract a raggle-taggle of sausage vendors, post card hawkers, fortune tellers, pickpockets, shooting-gallery barkers and common gyp artists - all waiting to peel the pilgrims of their lire. And if the shrine honors a particularly popular saint, the traffic in counterfeit relics is brisk...
...takes Catherine to a party at his mother's villa. In his mother's bedroom, crowning a marriage proposal to the girl whose favors can be had for the price of an espresso, he generously covers her nude body with some of Mama's 10,000-lire banknotes. The door opens. In sails Bette, rococo-eyed, jewels ajangle, a one-woman spectacular. She sees her darling at play, drops into her deep-fried Southern drawl and issues what must be the last word in ultrapermissive Momism: "Please put the money you don't want back...
...twisted bicycle. A flattened toy gun. A silver corkscrew. A blue-handled screwdriver. A brass hand mirror. A child's pencil case. A green alarm clock. A yellowed baby picture. A small wad of lire. A mattress. A red and black shawl. A lone playing card (the king of clubs). An ancient Olivetti typewriter. A crumpled Fiat. An electric pylon twisted off its concrete base. A church steeple protruding from the mud. Such were the scattered remains of a town called Longarone, which last week was wiped off the face of the earth...
...Swiss dodge is not new to Italian investors, but they have never used it in such numbers. In this year's first half, $976 million in lire re-entered Italy in disguised form v. $435 million for 1962's first half-and authorities can only guess at how much has not yet completed the round-trip journey. In a nation in which only 1,194,328 of 53 million people filed tax returns last year, this tax dodge is generally admired rather than deplored...
...traffic in lire has not unsettled the Italian economy or seriously affected Italy's balance of payments. Nor has it affected the price of the lira, which has remained remarkably steadfast at 100 lire for 16? for 14 years. But the traffic is not without its dangers. The accounts opened by Swiss banks in Italy can be converted into foreign currencies on demand. Should the government's "opening to the left" take it too far to the left, or should the tax collector become too zealous for the businessman's taste (there is talk of imposing...