Word: scraps
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...Government has usually remained silent about the cancerous corruption that afflicts South Viet Nam today: the pilferage at the docks, the smuggling at Saigon's Tan Son Nhut Airport, and the large-scale theft and export of scrap metal. But Washington has reacted with anger and alarm to recent disclosures about the widespread use of heroin by American G.I.s (see THE NATION) and to charges that Vietnamese officials, high and low, are involved in the hard-drug traffic...
...illegal-scrap-metal network stretches across Viet Nam and involves not only barefoot street urchins who gather used casings, but also the wives of South Vietnamese generals. Even so, surprisingly little public attention has been given to the operation. "One reason it's so hard to prove," says a U.S. embassy source, "is that investigations are extremely dangerous. When so many people are making so much money, they aren't going to stand by and let someone ask a lot of embarrassing questions. It's much easier just to kill him when he gets too close...
Other profiteering can be traced to U.S. bureaucratic indifference. Scrap lumber in Danang was formerly donated for use by homeless refugees. Today it is sold by contract to a wealthy Vietnamese trash collector, who then sells it to refugees at inflated prices. In one refugee village, where the average daily wage is less than 200 piasters (73?), a 4-ft. by 8-ft. sheet of scrap plywood costs 800 to 1,000 piasters; a cardboard carton brings 200 piasters. Under the system that has evolved, the refugees pay rich Vietnamese for the privilege of living under cast-off American crates...
...buyer of a convertible car used to type himself as a free-spending sport. Today he types himself as a nostalgic eccentric. Once a symbol of status and romance, the convertible is well on its way to joining tail fins on the scrap heap. They account for only 1.5% of 1971-model sales, down from 1.6% in the 1970 model year and a peak 6.7% in 1963. The trend is toward an even lower percentage; American Motors stopped making cars with roll-down tops in 1968, and Ford may do the same in the next model year, which begins this...
...there's more to come. A free water fountain, plenty of scrap newspaper for your illegal pet's box, phone calls, and a chance for fame, glory, and even attention if you are good enough to make the All-Ivy Sports writing Team...