On Wed, March 7, 2007 6:39 pm, Tracy R Reed wrote: > Alan wrote: >> Why would you need insurance in a Communist country? > > ROFL! Riiiiight. ;) > > You probably wouldn't be able to get insurance because any insurance > company couldn't be trusted to pay off in a communist country. The only > thing that counts is cold hard cash. And even then sometimes that isn't > good enough. In Vietnam they buy houses with gold. Yes, actual > pounds/kilograms of gold changes hands. They don't even trust the local > currency with big transactions.
You have some confusion about life in socialist states. The governments sell insurance to augment government benefits. Cold hard cash is frequently avoided (although not in countries that practice responsible money issuing) because governments inflate the currency. What you're describing -- gold -- is barter. In the bad periods of the Soviet Union (and in many non-socialist countries when faith in the currency dissappeared) barter frequently replaces money. I'm nitpicking I suppose. I agree that people get cynical about their government when they lose faith in its intentions and can't change it. -- Lan Barnes SCM Analyst Linux Guy Tcl/Tk Enthusiast Biodiesel Brewer -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
