XPost: soc.culture.nordic   
   From: ddfr@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com   
      
   In article ,   
    holman@mappi.helsinki.fi (Eugene Holman) wrote:   
      
   > In article , David Friedman   
   >  wrote:   
   >   
   >    
   > >   
   > > "Worthless" was false. But the response, that the transactions were in   
   > > clearing dollars and rubles had nothing to do with it, was also false,   
   > > at least according to the long article discussed here--it was in   
   > > clearing rubles. And it looks as though the worth of those clearing   
   > > rubles, from the standpoint of the Finnish business exporting, came from   
   > > the willingness of the Finnish authorities to exchange them for Finnish   
   > > currency. That's consistent with James view of what was really going on,   
   > > although it doesn't compel that view.   
   >   
   > The trade was denonimated in clearing dollars. In the fiancial pages of   
   > all the major newspapers the clearing dollar rate was given every day.   
      
   How it was reported in the newspapers is irrelevant, so far as I can   
   see, to all of the questions we were discussing. The relevant issue is   
   how the accounting which determined who owed what to whom was done. If,   
   as the piece we have been discussing seems to be saying, it was done in   
   clearing rubles, then (for instance) it is the clearing ruble interest   
   rate, not the dollar interest rate, that's relevant to how big an   
   advantage the Soviets got out of the interest free loan implied by an   
   imbalance of trade in their favor.   
      
   --   
    http://www.daviddfriedman.com/ http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/   
    Author of _Harald_, a fantasy without magic.   
    Published by Baen, paperback in bookstores now   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)