OT: Fewer Millionaires and Billionaires in Turkey Now

[Guest guest]

Butch wrote:

 

In some of the remote villages there are no banks and in some cases the same

money passes from the butcher to the baker to the candlestick maker and doesn't

leave the village very often.

 

Quite! And I hope that some of those folks are

smart enough to notice this, and do some inspired

bartering to stretch the cash supply.

 

I love cash when it is available, but I have

done quite a bit of trading too. It is fun.

 

Ien in the Kootenays

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I can finish my own sentences again!

muddled

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[Guest guest]

Hi y'all,

 

Happy New Year.

 

For many years Turkey has had more millionaires and billionaires than

any other country .. over 65 million of them.

 

How much is a billion?

 

One billion seconds is around 31.7 years .. go back a billion seconds

and we are in 1974.

 

One billion minutes is roughly 1,901 years .. go back a billion minutes

and we are in the year 104 A.D.

 

One billion hours is roughly 114,000 years .. go back a billion hours

and we are in the period classified as Paleolithic or " Old Stone Age. "

 

One billion dollars is roughly the amount the U.S. Congress spends every

4 hours and ten minutes .. that's based on a total yearly expenditure of

a little more than $2 trillion.

 

But a billion Turkish Lira (TL) was but $689.66 .. yesterday.

 

I paid a billion and 200 million TL for an airline ticket to the USA.

 

And a million TL was a bit less than 69 cents .. yesterday.

 

Turkey was the only country in the world where the smallest bank note

was a 1 million note .. and the largest a 20 million note. The smallest

coin was 25,000 TL .. children used it to buy bubble gum.

 

When I first came to Turkey .. in 1964 .. the exchange rate was 9 TL to

$1 USD .. it fluctuated a bit with Kurus (100 Kurus was one TL) during

the three years I was here but it never got higher than 9 to 1. When I

returned it hit 100 to 1 and then later 1,000 to 1 and then 1 million to

1 and so forth. In the early 1970s Kurus were no longer used.

 

During 2004 the TL to US Dollar exchange rate fluctuated from between

1,750,000 TL to $1 and 1,350,000 TL to $1.

 

But that was yesterday.

 

At midnight last night they knocked off six zeros!

 

The Turkish Lira (TL) has been replaced by the New Turkish Lira (NTL)

and Kurus are back now .. 100 Kurus being 1 NTL.

 

Today the exchange rate is 1.36 NTL to $1 (1 NTL and 36 Kurus).

 

And a mug of beer dropped from 3 million TL to 3 NTL.

 

Inflation has finally been controlled .. somewhat .. we had around 15%

last year .. but there were years in the 1990s that it exceeded 100%.

 

The TL will still be legal tender for 365 days. Odds are we'll not see

much of it in the large cities even 30 days from now since money passes

through banks daily in cities and they will withdraw the TL and replace

it with the NTL. In some of the remote villages there are no banks and

in some cases the same money passes from the butcher to the baker to the

candlestick maker and doesn't leave the village very often.

 

But I will always be a millionaire cause I stashed a few mint condition

old bank notes. Trivia this is but some folks like trivia. ;-)

 

If you would like to see the New Turkish Lira and Kurus .. go here

http://www.geocities.com/turkeycoins/ytl.html

 

Y'all keep smiling. :-) Butch http://www.AV-AT.com

 

http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/trivia/billions.asp