Word: marketing
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Instant Losses. When the word got out, the speculators tried to dump the old MFCs they were holding. The black-market price dropped to 50 piastres by midafternoon. As the market crashed, money-changers along Saigon's Tu Do Street suffered instant losses that ran as high...
Obviously, the military's move had all but ended black-market manipulations in the old MFCs. But what of the new scrip? Within 48 hours after C-day, it was selling on Saigon's black market at the familiar rate of 140 piastres to the dollar. "Now that the switch has happened," explained one speculator, "we know it won't happen again for some time...
Fast Profit. Military scrip was introduced three years ago as a way of curbing the growing black market in regular U.S. currency. The new red-colored MFCs were meant to be valid only in such U.S. establishments as post exchanges and officers' clubs...
...trouble was that a new black market, this time dealing in MFCs, quickly developed. Although scrip was not supposed to be tendered off the base, G.I.s who were short of Vietnamese piastres often used it to pay bills in native stores and bars, generally exchanging it near the official rate of 118 piastres to the dollar. Such MFCs would then wind up in the hands of Chinese and Indian money-changers, who in turn realized a fast profit by selling them at 140 piastres to the dollar...
Some of the buyers were Americans, who preferred to spend MFCs whenever possible and save their regular dollars to sell on the black market. They had ample reason. "Green" dollars, which wealthy Vietnamese coveted for squirreling away outside the country, brought about 200 piastres in illicit dealing. The scrip was also purchased by natives, who used it to buy military PX goods through G.I. contacts...