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Old May 6th 20, 11:46 PM posted to rec.photo.digital
Tony Cooper[_2_]
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Posts: 188
Default currency exchange rates, was: adorama flogging facemasks

On Wed, 6 May 2020 21:40:14 +0000 (UTC), danny burstein
wrote:

[lots snipped including attribs. Sorry...]

Except for ice cream sold in a square in Havana, there was little of
interest to spend money on while were there, so most of us had most of
the $100 left. One peso was US $1.00 at the government exchange, but
Cubans would offer up to 5 pesos for an American dollar. It was
illegal to do that, though, and I never did.

Today there are two rates for the Cuban Peso, Normal, or Cuban Convertible Peso:

Normal Cuban Peso: CUP1= US $0.039 / $1= CUP25.75

Cuban Convertible Peso: CUC$1= US $1


Back in the 1960s/70s, there were two official
exchange rates for US dollars to Israeli Lira.

One was the standard conversion used, for example,
if an American tourist was paying for a hotel room.

The other was the "investment rate", that is, if
an American or Brit, etc., was building a textile
factory in Dimona, Israel, they'd get a better one.

For the sake of illustration, the standard rate
might have been 5 Lira per dollar, while the investment
rate was 20...

And then..... there was the black market rate which you
(as a tourist) could get both in alleys and... in
plenty of brick and mortar real stores. Or, for that
matter, in your hotel lobby.

What was fascinating back then was that the Jerusalem
Post (the primary English language daily in Israel
with copies avialble in NYC...) had a listing for
all three. Yes, including the black market number...


In 1988 my wife and I went to Kenya. We'd booked a game park tour,
and the tour guide drove us around Nairobi the first day we were
there. We witnessed a policeman beating the **** out of some guy. The
tour guide shrugged it off and said the guy had probably stolen
something, and local justice was swift.

One of the things we had been advised about was that it was illegal in
Kenya to exchange American dollars anywhere except in an approved
currency exchange.

Walking around Nairobi later that night, several men approached us
asking if we had American dollars and offering large amounts of Kenyan
shillings (about 6 cents, then) for US$s. Remembering that policeman
and the local swift justice, we backed away quickly.



--
Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida