So can you tell me....

SatStorm,
I hope you'll explain some things to me here. I still have relatives in Europe, specifically, in what remains of Jugoslavia. My cousin here has been there many times, my cousins there have been here once. I don't know how many more of my relatives are still living, as my mother died a few years ago, at 87, and she was the only one in my limited family who listened to her mother, and was the unofficial biographer of our family.
My cousin has sent coffee ( and wasn't your analogy prophetic?) to my krajan cousins, and they had to pay more in duty than she paid here for the coffee and the shipping.
I can't understand how something can cost a dollar here, and cost either 3 cents, or 10 dollars, there, dependig on where you are, and what your rate of exchange is. Does rate of exchange mean nothing? To go back to Turkey, how can there be 1.65 million (some European countries use different numeric systems ; I mean thousand times a thousand ) to the dollar US?
The Russian ruble is officially about 3 US cents, and a loaf of bread is 2 rubles. A loaf of bread here is 2 US dollars. Does that mean that 2 rubles has the buying power of 2 US dollars?
My daughter was stationed in Germany with her husband 10 years ago. They barely existed on his pay in the US Airforce, in the German economy, and watched the exchange rate religiously, to see if they should convert their dollars, so as to be able to stretch their pay from one month to the next.
Your coffee analogy seems to me to be what caused the breakup of Jugoslavia. All the industry was in Croatia, as was Tito's plan, to keep the Serb's subjucated as farmers, and the breadbasket of the federation. When the Croations decided they would rather be a manufactoring, self governing entity, it was the same as our California saying, "To hell with you. We make all the money. Why should we share it with you. We are breaking away."
Ah well. I don't understand all this..
George

So can you tell me....

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