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To: Henry Volquardsen who wrote (12786)	6/9/1998 4:11:00 PM
From: Michael	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116822

Henry, There was an article in the Economist recently that put a figure of 13 Billion $ as the amount of US Dollars that circulate outside of the US system. They refer to it as seigniorage?. I understood it to mean dollars that are used as money in a foreign economy and are unlikely to be ever spent in the US. While 13B is not chump change, I would not have thought the figure all that big in the total scheme of things. Are we talking about the same thing? Michael

To: Henry Volquardsen who wrote (12786)	6/9/1998 8:09:00 PM
From: James F. Hopkins	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116822

Hi Henry; I didn't run into the premium for 100 dollar bills myself, but I don't doubt it exist in some places. I was cargo super on a ship when the agent brought some money down, and because the amount of 100s ordered was brought in smaller denominations, the Master had a fit and would not accept it. I think this was due to when many of the foreign seaman are paid off they want cash and of course 100s are easier to carry and conceal. I don't want to get into why they must often conceal what they honestly made, as that's not a nice story. I know that because of exchange rates, or the difficulty of agents to obtain cash , it was not unusual for me to carry a "purse" to the ship if they flew me to the job, rather than wire it via an agent. On the boats that I delivered I did my best to avoid any stops that required agents. Five times I had to pick up boats that for reasons I wont post here were stranded in a third world country, two of those times I was sent with to small a purse, and had to wire for more money, that was a mess. It's like the boats get stranded and the foreign agent will say most any thing to get the owner to send someone down with some money, then after that the other shoe drops. It's a real challenge to get one lose from the hands of some vultures if it accidentally goes into the wrong place. They stack one bill then the next against it. Like it's always one more thing. I learned to just carry a very big purse, get there and act like I've got all the time in the world, while I find out the pecking order and then bribe her way out. That can and is generally harder than it sounds <G> In one case it was so bad I had to steal the boat back, they thought I couldn't as they had taken most all her fuel off. I managed to get a local fishing boat to sell me fuel at night on the sly. ( on top of that he sold me fuel at 1/3rd the price I would have been forced to pay had I gone via the agent. ) I stole the boat with the local coast guard giving me an an unofficial escort out at about 3AM in the morning. If they know you got cash money, you can generally make a deal , ( it's tricky when your not sure who you can trust, and I don't want to give away all my trade secrets ) <G> -------------------- Jim republic.net