Word: lire
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Henry Fondant) who comes to Rome for an International Monetary Fund meeting. En route, Marzi stops at a tobacco shop. "I'm a gumdrop in here to get some coins for the Trevi fountain," he says. Instead of a few coins, his change is a chocolate bonbon. "Nougat lire," the tobacconist explains. "Plus ca change, plus c'est la creme chose," observes the professor...
...held at Rome's Palazzo Corsini, principally in a conference room decorated with Renaissance paintings of voluptuous nudes. At midweek the Finance Ministers and central bankers of the Ten shooed their aides out of the room and began talking numbers-just how many pounds, francs, marks, yen and lire a dollar should be able to buy. They did not fully agree, and they did not even begin to settle some basic controversies over tariff, farm, investment and defense policies (see box next page). But then progress on the money front vastly increased the chance that the currency crisis will...
Restaurants in Rome offered an improvised menu for Americans unable to buy lire: a fat sandwich and a Coke for $1. When the unofficial rate for Swiss francs sank to 3.25 per dollar, one hotel manager in Montreux took his guests' home addresses and promised to send them refunds if and when the rate is fixed at a higher level. And the Palm Beach Casino at Cannes continued to accept dollars at the official rate of 5.4 French francs. "Why should we create a security margin for ourselves?" asked Jean Toutain, the casino's director. "Taking risks...
...bloody profession. The film opens on his last visit to her. "How will you kill me this time?" she coquettishly asks. "I'll cut your throat," he replies. And so he does, as they make love. With deliberate clumsiness, he steals her jewelry (but not her 300,000 lire), leaves his fingerprints in the shower and bloody shoeprints. Then he takes two bottles of champagne back to the office to help his colleagues celebrate his new promotion to head of the police department's political intelligence division...
Administrative Ploy. Devaluation was prevented by Guido Carli, governor of the Bank of Italy, who made three shrewd moves. First, he raised the interest rates on Italian bonds to make them as attractive to lire investors as foreign issues had been. Next, through a neat administrative ploy, Carli made currency speculating less profitable. Foreign banks had been required only to report their lire intake by phone to their nearest correspondent bank in Italy to receive full credit in any currency. Carli decreed that banks abroad would have to send the lira bills to Rome before they could get foreign funds...