Finding a krone to give you a baht
JAKARTA (JP): It seems, if the letters to the editor are any indication, that the most read part of The Jakarta Post is the currency conversion rate table.
Not only the rates are interesting but the names of the world's currencies also have some fascinating and scurrilous stories behind them.
The Swiss? Are they really so frank? And the Japanese? Do they have a yen to yell banzai as Sony conquers the world? In Malaysia, the ringgit is loudly ringing the bells of the cash registers, and in Norway young men are enamored by old krones. My favorite is a Thai baht, complete with sauna and Danish krone (preferably under 25 years old) to scrub my back.
In Austria, they are still shelling out shillings 30 years after Britain dis-pence(d) with them. In Italy they are lyrical about the lira even though it is worth little more than the rupiah. The Singaporeans were ecstatic when their dollar matched the Australian variety one for one a month ago -- but look at it now.
The dollar had its origins in a German valley or thal where the silver mine produced Joachims Thalers from 1519 AD onward, embossed with an image of St. Joachim. At a time when not many countries had there own coinage, the value depended on the weight of metal in a coin and not on what the issuing country claimed it was worth. Thus the taler or dollar became a world currency which was more truly international than any we have today. No need for conversion rate tables.
The Germans have made their mark on history in many ways, but none so remarkable as the recovery of their mark from the world's weakest currency in 1930 to perhaps the strongest today.
Have you ever noticed what enormous and insuperable problems people have who come from rich countries with strong currencies? They cannot sell their products any more because their prices are too high. I weep for them. Better to be heavily in debt, with a weak currency, then everyone wants to do business with you. And yet everyone strives (or pretends to strive?) to join Germany and Japan as creditors.
Britain's pound sterling sadly no longer has the value of a pound of sterling silver. I was surprised when I looked up a reference book and found that "sterling" means only 92.5 percent purity, the remainder being copper. But the pound still has the distinction of being the heaviest currency of the lot. With just 300 pound sterling, I am a millionaire in rupiah -- fancy that.
The Dutch, of course, were always full of guile. Their tricks enabled them to become very rich, so they called their money guilders. The Filipinos, on the other hand, wanted to honor their peasants, so they called their money pesos.
Finally the rupiah. Indonesia has the distinction of being the country with the most millionaires in the world, possibly even the most billionaires. Someone should count them, and submit the result to the Guiness Book of Records. The currency got its name from the weight of paper which must be carried around to make an ordinary transaction in a country where cheques are not generally accepted. You pick up your money bag and groan "rupi-ahhh"!
-- Ted Sutton