More on those Somalian pirates:
After sticky negotiations, which several people involved likened to bazaar-style haggling, a deal seemed to be close in which the pirates would be paid millions of dollars and the ship would be freed.
The pirates on the Ukrainian ship have said that after the money is paid — in American dollars and preferably in $100 bills, they will release the ship, its cargo and the 20 sailors on board.
From an initial demand of $35 million down to $8 million, and they stipulate US dollars. SMART pirates would have demanded their ransom in a currency that isn't tanking....
(Still, I suppose it's better than the Zimbabwean dollar, currently inflating at 231 million percent. No, that wasn't a typo. The Zimbabwean dollar was revalued 1000:1 on August 1 2006, then again by ten billion to one on August 1 2008. Prior to that second revaluation, a single egg cost 50 billion ZWD, and the ATM withdrawal limit was 100 billion. From 2000-2002, the Zimbabwean dollar — now referred to as the "first dollar" — traded for about 55 to the US dollar; two revaluations later, one US dollar would now buy roughly 2x1019 Zimbabwean "first dollars", or two billion "third dollars".)
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think of the origami!
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$8 Million is hardly a fail. It sounds like a hefty profit.
Author Christopher Stasheff writes about a government that created a nearly indestructible currency, and the government went bust. The currency survived, and was being used as a foundation of transaction while current governments were in turmoil. There is a reason that North Korea counterfeits so many US Franklin portraits.
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Of course, then they'll have the problem of getting it home alive and living to spend it .....
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http://bigpicture.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/09/03/zimbo.jpg
(Apparently it is to a long-established car dealership for approximately $20kUSD that day.)
And the dollar has actually bounced back, because it is still safer than other currencies. The Yen is crashing because of the "carry trade" unwinding. (Interest rates were low in Japan, so people were borrowing money there, converting it into other currencies, and speculating elsewhere.) There's even some speculation that the Euro may not survive this financial crisis.