Word: pesos
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...whose term ended last month. Portillo had attempted an ambitious program of quick economic growth based on revenue from oil exports, and it brought Mexico a brief period of prosperity. But last year, the worldwide price of oil fell drastically, sending Mexico's economy reeling. The value of the peso plunged, and nervous Mexican businessmen began investing their money abroad. Finally, in late August of this year, Mexico was scheduled to erase about one fourth of its $81 billion debt--the largest in the world--and Portillo had to announce that his country could...
Mexican and American towns suffer from peso jitters...
...Mexico's severe shortage of U.S. dollars, the main currency of international trade. In recent months, Mexico has not earned enough dollars from its exports to pay for imports and keep up with interest on its foreign debt. That imbalance has helped drive down the value of the peso against the dollar. In the meantime, wealthy Mexicans, fearful that drastic moves like last week's nationalizations might soon take place, have been making the problem worse by sending money to foreign banks...
Shock waves from the Mexican economic slump have already jolted dozens of American border towns from the Gulf of Mexico to Southern California. Merchants in these communities have long depended for much of their business on Mexicans coming across the border to shop. Now the value of the peso has dropped so low that Mexican purchasing power has dried...
...owner in El Paso: "My business is off 80%. It's dead out there in the streets, and it's like a morgue here in the store." Last week the U.S. Small Business Administration set up a $200 million loan program for merchants devastated by the falling peso...