----- Original Message ----- From: "M A Jones" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, April 28, 2000 3:57 AM Subject: Re: [PEN-L:18398] Re: Re: Re: Samir Amin: "Not a Happy Ending" > > Hey, Russia posted a whacking bal of payments surplus last year and has done > almost every year since 1991. Is it also a no-brainer to buy up some roubles > right now? While I think about, the US has run a b of p deficit for at least two decades, so obviously we should have been piling into roubles since at least 1973, when one rouble was worth 1.7 US$ (unlike today when one dollar buys a kilo of dried roubles). The UK (which recently overhauled France in GDP, thus proving again the superiority of Anglo-Saxon methods) ran a deficit for most of the 19th century; no doubt the brainless thing then was to bale out of Nepalese rupees, Bahamian cowry shells etc and jeopardise your children's inheritance by buying sterling. Mark Jones http://www.egroups.com/group/CrashList