Happy Labor Day middle class

[Dardedar]

TODAY'S PIG IS TOMORROW'S BACON (a Labor Day recipe)

By Greg Palast
September, 3 2006

Some years from now, in an economic refugee relocation "Enterprise Zone," your kids will ask you, "What did you do in the Class War, Daddy?"

The trick of class war is not to let the victims know they're under attack. That's how, little by little, the owners of the planet take away what little we have.

This week, Dupont, the chemical giant, slashed employee pension benefits by two-thirds. Furthermore, new Dupont workers won't get a guaranteed pension at all -- and no health care after retirement. It's part of Dupont's new "Die Young" program, I hear. Dupont is not in financial straits. Rather, the slash attack on its workers' pensions was aimed at adding a crucial three cents a share to company earnings, from $3.11 per share to $3.14.

So Happy Labor Day.

And this week, the government made it official: For the first time since the Labor Department began measuring how the American pie is sliced, those in the top fifth of the wealth scale are now gobbling up over half (50.4%) of our nation's annual income.

So Happy Labor Day.

We don't even get to lick the plates. While 15.9% of us don't have health insurance (a record, Mr. President!), even those of us who have it, don't have it: we're spending 36% more per family out of pocket on medical costs since the new regime took power in Washington. If you've actually tried to collect from your insurance company, you know what I mean.

So Happy Labor Day.

But if you think I have nothing nice to say about George W. Bush, let me report that the USA now has more millionaires than ever -- 7.4 million! And over the past decade, the number of billionaires has more than tripled, 341 of them!

If that doesn't make you feel like you're missing out, this should: You, Mr. Median, are earning, after inflation, a little less than you earned when Richard Nixon reigned. Median household income -- and most of us are "median" -- is down. Way down.

Since the Bush Putsch in 2000, median income has fallen 5.9%.

Mr. Bush and friends are offering us an "ownership" society. But he didn't mention who already owns it. The richest fifth of America owns 83% of all shares in the stock market. But that's a bit misleading because most of that, 53% of all the stock, is owned by just one percent of American households.

And what does the Wealthy One Percent want? Answer: more wealth. Where will they get it? As with a tube of toothpaste, they're squeezing it from the bottom. Median paychecks have gone down by 5.9% during the current regime, but Americans in the bottom fifth have seen their incomes sliced by 20%.

At the other end, CEO pay at the Fortune 500 has bloated by 51% during the first four years of the Bush regime to an average of $8.1 million per annum.

So who's winning? It's a crude indicator, but let's take a peek at the Class War body count.

When Reagan took power in 1980, the One Percent possessed 33% of America's wealth as measured by capital income. By 2006, the One Percent has swallowed over half of all America's assets, from sea to shining sea. One hundred fifty million Americans altogether own less than 3% of all private assets.

Yes, American middle-class house values are up, but we're blowing that gain to stay alive. Edward Wolff, the New York University expert on income, explained to me that, "The middle class is mortgaging itself to death." As a result of mortgaging our new equity, 60% of all households have seen a decline in net worth.

Is America getting poorer? No, just its people, We the Median. In fact, we are producing an astonishing amount of new wealth in the USA. We are a lean, mean production machine. Output per worker in BushAmerica zoomed by 15% over four years through 2004. Problem is, although worker productivity keeps rising, the producers are getting less and less of it.

The gap between what we produce and what we get is widening like an alligator's jaw. The more you work, the less you get. It used to be that as the economic pie got bigger, everyone's slice got bigger too. No more.

The One Percent have swallowed your share before you can get your fork in.

The loot Dupont sucked from its employees' retirement funds will be put to good use. It will more than cover the cost of the company directors' decision to hike the pension set aside for CEO Charles Holliday to $2.1 million a year. And that's fair, I suppose: Holliday's a winning general in the class war. And shouldn't the winners of war get the spoils?

Of course, there are killjoys who cling to that Calvinist-Marxist belief that a system forever fattening the richest cannot continue without end. Professor Michael Zweig, Director of the State University of New York's Center for Study of Working Class Life, put it in culinary terms: "Today's pig is tomorrow's bacon."

******

Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller, ARMED MADHOUSE: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Class War," just released from Penguin/Dutton, from which this is adapted.

And go to www.GregPalast.com for a special Labor Day treat: an excerpt from Air America Radio's Thom Hartmann's new book, "Screwed: The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class -- and What We Can Do About It."

[Savonarola]

No wonder I'm so damn poor...

[Glen]

I monitor the economy quite closely. The productivity claim is a sham. It is accredited by many economists to be a result of outsourcing jobs to foreign workers and allowing businesses to hire and underpay illegal immigrants. Businesses can claim they are more "productive," but they are doing it by forcing wages down. Many business are reporting record profits in the last few years, hence the increase of the wealthy people cited above. Eventually the middle class will disappear and we will be similar to countries like Mexico, where a tiny per cent owns almost all the wealth, and the rest are at or near poverty levels.

If I were under thrity years of age, I would be furious over what this current administration has done. They have cut taxes, and increased spending, so that we borrow nearly TWO BILLION dollars every single day of the year with no reasonable plan to pay it back.

They have stupidly started a war based on lies. The money wasted on it could have gone for research on alternate fuels, different transportation systems, insulation or replacement of enery wasting buildings, and so forth. They have pushed for legalization of the 11 to 12 million illegal immigrants who depress wages and add to social costs. The New York Times in the last year had an article where a doctor showed how one of the illegal immigrants with TB and other medical problems with no health insurance, ran up over $200,000 in bills that were paid by taxpayers. All sorts of sham arguments are floated about how we need these people. Hu Jintao of China has offered our government as many LEGAL workers that we might need. One hundred, two hundred million, you name it, they can send them, all with papers, etc. India probably could do the same.

Eventually debt has to be REPAID, or LIQUIDATED. Debt can be liquidated by bankruptcy or default, but those two actions would likely lead to a depression. The usual strategy is to inflate the currency --- print more money. Inflation always favors the borrower, who pays back in cheaper currency. Check the Internet for a site that shows you how the value of the US dollar has declined precipitously in the last 35 years. The last six years of the Bush admnistration have run up more public debt that all US Presidents before him.

Look for inflation where prices rise, wages stay the same or decline. Why do you think Bush and his buddies are so pro-illegal immigration. You younger people will be the ones that pay the price for all this nonsense with a lowered standard of living.

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

Glen, most of the illegals are paying into the tax system and not getting any more out of it than the infrastructure benefits (roads, etc). Most of the uninsured folks who cost taxpayers for medical whathaveyou are citizens who work for Wal-Mart.

Personal debt, and even state or municipal debt, can be liquidated by bankruptcy or default - but not the national debt. That would make the U.S. dollar literally worthless - right up there with the Confederate dollar you sometimes see in museums in the South - since it is what Hogeye calls "fiat money" - it's back by the full faith in the U.S. government. Even if we don't default and totally crash the economy and possibly the government itself - no more constitutional democratic republic - one thing the kids are going to have to deal with is a government that cannot borrow any money - our credit will be so bad that nobody will loan us anything. While it is not a good thing to max out the credit cards, it is a good thing to have credit to deal with emergencies. This is a totally bad situation and I do not know if it is retrievable. Having grandchildren, I hope it is.

[Glen]

Two reports yesterday in the New York Times, Monday, September 5, 2006, show the fallacy of illegals paying into our tax and Social Security system and supposedly getting nothing out. One story was on how a mother suddenly found that some illegal immigrant had stolen the Social Security number of her three-year old daughter. SHE, not the Social Security Administration has to spend the money and time to clear up the mess. A multimillion dollar illegal business in fake and illegal documents has arisen. Get into a serious auto accident with an illegal immigrant, and find out the problems you will have. They will get deported, and you will get the bills.

The second report was on the sinking wages of the former middle class high school graduates. Why do you suppose fat-cat Republicans and businesses love illegal immigrants? They can increase their profits and undermine wages. We pay for these people. Economists always tell you there is no free lunch, but these people want free lunch at your expense. If we need cheap labor, Premier Hu Jintao of China has told our leaders that China can supply any number we want ---- 100,000,000 or 200,000,000 or even 300,000,000. Hu will be glad for us to solve his economic problems too.

Several months back the New York Times interviewed a group of these illegal immigrants, and found out that most of them had a job in their home country. We have no obligation to solve the economic problems of other countries by taking their labor and undermining ours. Another previous report was by a New York doctor who told how he had to provide $200,000 of free medical care to an illegal immigrant. That or let him die.

Rest assure, these people cost you money and a lower standard of living, despite what all the authories lie about. I worked for governments for over 30 years, so anything they say is almost always untrue.

[Glen]

The article also mentioned that theft of Social Security numbers also caused problems with some people's medical records in Medicare and Medicaid. This can lead to fatal errors. If you are hospitalized in an emergency, and the wrong record is pulled up. and you need a blood transfusion, and the other person has an incompatible blood type, you are in big time trouble. Moreover, any illegal wages ARE NOT accredited to you account, and do not increase your benefits. When you start looking at the total costs of any ILLEGAL activity, there is little benefit to any society. That is why it is illegal.

[Doug]

Two reports yesterday in the New York Times, Monday, September 5, 2006, show the fallacy of illegals paying into our tax and Social Security system and supposedly getting nothing out. One story was on how a mother suddenly found that some illegal immigrant had stolen the Social Security number of her three-year old daughter. SHE, not the Social Security Administration has to spend the money and time to clear up the mess. A multimillion dollar illegal business in fake and illegal documents has arisen. Get into a serious auto accident with an illegal immigrant, and find out the problems you will have. They will get deported, and you will get the bills.

DOUG
SS#'s are stolen in order to be able to work, not to get benefits. The undocumented immigrants are paying into someone else's account and they are never going to see that money.

The second report was on the sinking wages of the former middle class high school graduates. Why do you suppose fat-cat Republicans and businesses love illegal immigrants? They can increase their profits and undermine wages. We pay for these people. Economists always tell you there is no free lunch, but these people want free lunch at your expense. If we need cheap labor, Premier Hu Jintao of China has told our leaders that China can supply any number we want ---- 100,000,000 or 200,000,000 or even 300,000,000. Hu will be glad for us to solve his economic problems too.

DOUG
Blame the employers. They are the ones undermining wages. The employers COULD pay undocumented workers just as much as they pay legally registered workers, but they don't. It's not the fault of the person getting exploited. They are just trying to survive.

Several months back the New York Times interviewed a group of these illegal immigrants, and found out that most of them had a job in their home country.

Yes, a job that payed next to nothing. The same potato-picking job here in the U.S. pays low wages, imagine how much less it pays in Mexico, and prices are not that much lower there for many household items.

We have no obligation to solve the economic problems of other countries by taking their labor and undermining ours.

DOUG
You're right, but no one is saying that we ought to solve the problems of other countries. (Except Bush, who only says it as a ploy to invade.) Our rich take the labor of other countries because they are willing to work for low wages.

Another previous report was by a New York doctor who told how he had to provide $200,000 of free medical care to an illegal immigrant. That or let him die.

DOUG
Yes, it is a drain on the medical field. But we can't have it both ways. We can't on the one hand entice thousands of people from other countries to come here illegally and pay them dirt low wages and then on the other hand get angry because they don't have $300 a month to insure their families against illness.

Tyson advertises for Mexican workers in newspapers in Mexico. So do many other companies. Our country wants them here. Our country depends on their labor. That's why the immigration issue divides the Republican party. Part of the Republican base wants to keep out the nonwhites. (Allegedly because it is illegal, but we know the real reason.) The other part of the GOP are the ones that hire undocumented workers, so they don't want them kept out. Their greed trumps their racism. They want cheap labor, legal or not.

Did you see the 60 minutes report on undocumented labor a few months ago? In some industries, such as the hotel industry, almost half of the workers that clean the rooms are undocumented. And undocumented workers tend to shy away from joining unions and demanding living wages. They don't want to draw attention to themselves.

Rest assure, these people cost you money and a lower standard of living, despite what all the authories lie about. I worked for governments for over 30 years, so anything they say is almost always untrue.

I haven't heard government agencies deny that undocumented workers lower wages or the standard of living. It is pretty well known that they do, but it is the decision of the employers to do this. The undocumented workers don't demand low wages. They just show up as requested and take what they can get.

[Glen]

If we need all this cheap labor with all the alleged benefits, then China and India are more than willing to provide ALL the workers we want. They will provide all the legal documents, etc. It will take a while, but eventually people will realize they have been had. The economic fallacy is looking only at the short term benefits, and not looking at all the costs and the long term picture. It takes a while, but reality finally sinks in. If George W. Bush supports it, you should all be extremely wary.

[Glen]

I agree that the employers and politicians are the ones who are mostly to blame, but the immigrant is not totally innocent. It is their pattern of illegal behavior that makes me less than enthusiastic about having them here.

This would be a possible exercise for one of Doug’s ethics classes. Here is illegal immigrant X who has no loyalty or responsibility to his native country to change the political and economic climate therein. It is claimed that X is in an underpaid job, but somehow manages to find hundreds if not thousands of dollars for someone to smuggle him into the United States. Why X does not use that same money to start a business in his home country is a question that never appears to be asked. X is fully aware that entering the U.S. without the proper papers is an illegal act. Obtaining a false Social Security number is a felony, a fact that X is aware of. Obtaining other documents illegally to obtain work is also a felony. A multimillion industry producing illegal documents for illegal immigrants has arisen in southern California, if not elsewhere. We seem to have a pattern here. At what point is X going to become a law-abiding and loyal citizen of this country?

[Dardedar]

If we need all this cheap labor with all the alleged benefits, then China and India are more than willing to provide ALL the workers we want.

DAR
And they are, in effect. China is awash in construction cranes.

They will provide all the legal documents, etc.

DAR
The US "legal" immigration system is completely busted. They are just now getting to people who have applied from Mexico (1st priority), in 1992. For third priority, that is a married son or daughter over 21, they are now just getting to look at... 1988. Many Americans have a mistaken idea that their "legal immigration" system is quite workable and humming along nicely. It isn't. My mother is American and I have a sister in Canada that has been trying to immigrate here since the mid 90's. She has basically given up. And that's a shame. We babble about freedom and free countries but what does this mean if it is nearly impossible to live with your family, to live where you want? I am not saying throw the borders open, but what we have now is not workable and a mess.

At what point is X going to become a law-abiding and loyal citizen of this country?

DAR
When they are given some form of amnesty like has almost always happened in the past. Reagan did it in the 80's and life went on.

We all look the same from 50 feet in the air. I am not a big proponent of making it a life or death matter that a human was born on this or that side of temporary, tribal, man made line. I have seen too much suffering and broken families over it.

D.

[Guest]

If we need all this cheap labor with all the alleged benefits, then China and India are more than willing to provide ALL the workers we want. They will provide all the legal documents, etc.

TAM
I don't think you understand how the US immigration process works. China nor India can supply the legal documents required to immigrate and work here legally. Those documents come from the US immigration services. I bet that the illegal Mexicans could show you their legal Mexican documents too, but that obviously doesn't get them into the system here.

The only way foreign people can come to live and work in the US legally is to be sponsored (except in a few isolated circumstances which I can describe if interested), either by a family member or by an employer. The family immigration process will take a minimum of 7 years at present (for Mexicans the wait is MUCH longer as Darrel mentioned), and an employment visa for all but exceptionally educated persons, takes at least four years.

See Visa wait times HERE

Many people are under the mistaken impression that the illegal immigrants could have easily gone the legal route and I think that is what makes a lot of people upset. The truth is that the US makes it next to impossible to immigrate here legally. That is the real reason there are so many illegals here.

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

Another problem with the MSM-driven popular perception is that all aliens are illegals and all aliens are Mexicans. Many of the draconic laws being proposed to deal with the situation threaten legals - and of all nationalities.

As to China providing workers - we did that already. The Chinese population of the west coast is totally due to the influx of Chinese workers in the 19th century. They built the railroads from the Pacific east until they met the Irish and Black built railroads coming from the east and south. And then California whites got so freaked about the "Yellow Peril" they made nasty, bigoted laws about where the Chinese could live, what they could own, and who they could marry! TR had many good points, for a Republican, but one of them was NOT his attitude towards the non-white populace. He was so afraid of the situation currently facing America (loss of "majority" or over 50% status for whites), he awarded medals and even monitary rewards for white women having 5 or more kids.

That's what this crap is all about - the divide and conquer racism that makes the rich and powerful richer and more powerful. I heard all this growing up in TX - about blacks as well as "Mexicans" (some of whose families had been in TX longer than it had been a state). Business played workers of different races against each other to keep wages and standard of living down while lining their own pockets. Now federal law prevents them from overtly doing that with citizens, so they bring in aliens and play the same scam with the same results. You want to see the problem of aliens bringing down wages and standard of living, help them unionize.

As to the "law-abiding and loyal" - they mostly are. They have to be, they don't have papers. If they do something illegal (other than being here in the first place), they get deported, at best. They can't afford to even look suspicious, much less do anything. They mostly stay away from our medical system, too, for the same reason. Those low-paid folks using the medical system without insurance or ability to pay are citizens (over 45% of Wal-Mart workers, for example, utilize the state& fed tax-supported healthcare systems).

[Glen]

Well, I won't be alive when the long term effects of this finally are realized. I am retired from the bureaucracy. One does not make a bundle in the stock market by denying economic One of the most critical skills of professional bureaucrats is problem denial. Good luck to all of you. Twenty or thirty years from now the reality will be apparent. I ran into these same attitudes for years in the bureaucracy. Never fix the dike at the first leak. Legal applicants can't get in, so we let in the illegal ones. Great policy.

[Dardedar]

Well, I won't be alive when the long term effects of this finally are realized.

DAR
What are those long term effects going to be? I just learned last night that the US has right now less of an immigrant population per capita than it has had at many times in the past. There are a LOT of very common misconceptions floating around this issue. Tamara is somewhat of an expert on this issue and I know quite a bit about it because of my family situation (and I am a Canadian immigrant kind of LPR) and we hear these things repeated all the time. In fact, I would go so far as to say that everyone we talk to about this issue has basic profound misunderstandings about what is involved in immigrating to the US (except Doug, who is also very knowledgable on this, I believe his mother is an INS worker and Doug used to be employed doing this as well).

I think we should get Tamara to do a presentation on this. It's not directly rated to freethought and it is very contentious, but there is so much basic misinformation believed by the general public that needs to be debunked. We used to try to stay away from political issues but as Brian Bolton told me (he founded a humanist group in Fayetteville years ago) "it's these political issues that people are the most interested in." Immigration is a political issue but it is also an important moral issue.

Being open to having your mind or opinion changed because you learn new information and discard false information is what freethinking is all about I think.

D.
-------------------------
"Freethinkers are those who are willing to use their minds without prejudice and without fearing to understand things that clash with their own customs, privileges, or beliefs. This state of mind is not common, but it is essential for right thinking; where it is absent, discussion is apt to become worse than useless."
--Leo Tolstoy, "On Life and Essays on Religion

[Doug]

Well, I won't be alive when the long term effects of this finally are realized.

DAR
What are those long term effects going to be? I just learned last night that the US has right now less of an immigrant population per capita than it has had at many times in the past. There are a LOT of very common misconceptions floating around this issue.

DOUG
I used to do immigration work for a living. Pro bono work for clients at a nonprofit organization. The U.S. has always had pretty much open borders. Illegal immigration is nothing new. Any long-term effects we might have are already things we have dealt with decades ago. The only reason it is a topic now is that the Republicans have decided they can energize their base by appealing to both racism AND homeland security at the same time on the immigration issue. A two for one deal.

The average Mexican whose extended family can raise thousands of dollars to smuggle a guy into the U.S. can't just use that money to start a business in Mexico. The pay is low, corruption is high, and the economy is still at the third-world level. For many Latin American countries, the economy is heavily dependent upon dollars that workers here in the U.S. send home. Living in those countries is not like living in the U.S. Honest businessmen and women can on average hardly make ends meet even at a subsistence level. Low wages in the U.S. are still head and shoulders above anything they could make in their country.

[Betsy]

There is a great show on some cable channel called "30 Days" - a documentary-type show by Morgan ...somebody - the same guy who did the movie documentary about eating only McDonald's food for 30 days. In his show, he puts someone in a situation for 30 days to see what happens to him or her. In one show I saw, he put a republican who had all the misconceptions about illegal immigrants, very black-and-white thought patterns about what he thought was right and wrong regarding immigrants, and had him live in a house for 30 days with a family of illegal immigrants from Mexico. During that time, he went to Mexico to see where they used to live and meet their family members who still lived there.

It was quite an eye opener for him, and he ended up realizing that if he were stuck living in Mexico, in abject poverty, with no hope of education or making a decent living for your family or cleanliness and food and running water and all those things we take for granted, he would run away to the US, too. He did say something about how he'd try to do it LEGALLY, but it was obvious he would come to the US whether it was legal or not. The family he lived with were hard workers, the daughter was going to college, they were warm loving people and he ended up crying when he had to leave after 30 days because he'd grown to care about them.

[Tamara]

Hi Betsy,
I've heard about that show. I wish it was on regular old cable so I could see it sometime. It sounds great. All it takes for most people to become more tolerant is to get to know the people that they think make them so uncomfortable. When we get to reallly know someone, we find that most of us have the same basic drives and character traits no matter what we may have assumed previously.

Stupid side note for Betsy...Watching Idol last season has gotten me hooked on reality talent shows....GEESH. Now I am watching Rockstar Supernova. Is there any help for me?

[Doug]

Stupid side note for Betsy...Watching Idol last season has gotten me hooked on reality talent shows....GEESH. Now I am watching Rockstar Supernova. Is there any help for me?

DOUG
The only reality show I've ever watched regularly is "Who Wants to be a Superhero?" on the Sci-Fi Channel. (I did see one episode of WifeSwap because a friend of mine was on it, and he interviewed me on the phone when he was being filmed.)


"Feedback," the winner of "Who Wants to be a Superhero?"
Secret Identity: Matthew Atherton, Software Engineer


DOUG
If they have another season, I may try out for the show. I need a costume and a character.

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

That was one of the great things about Franklin & Eleanor Roosevelt. Eleanor was actually better at concepts than Franklin, but once she brought in a (one) person to illustrate, Franklin was great at getting radio listeners to put themselves in that person's place. To a large extent that's all it takes, but is what it takes. Of course, then there are the "one man, one gun" types who think it's OK for THEM to sue people ("I got cause!"), but anybody else taking their issue to court is a crook, scamming the system and making things more expensive for everybody else. Nothing gets through to them.

[Hogeye]

Eventually debt has to be REPAID, or LIQUIDATED. Debt can be liquidated by bankruptcy or default, but those two actions would likely lead to a depression. The usual strategy is to inflate the currency --- print more money. Inflation always favors the borrower, who pays back in cheaper currency. Check the Internet for a site that shows you how the value of the US dollar has declined precipitously in the last 35 years. The last six years of the Bush admnistration have run up more public debt that all US Presidents before him.

We had a long discussion on inflation and fiat money here. Sadly, most people here just don't "get" the concept of monetary inflation. As soon as I showed how it worked using prices of common items over time using gold and US$, the conversation suddenly stopped. One poster even denied the connection between printing up funny-money and rises in prices!

Look for inflation where prices rise, wages stay the same or decline.

This is generally true, but there may be exceptions due to the advantages of being the first to get "new" money. E.g. Some munitions industry workers and govt employees may do okay. The farther away from the printing presses, the more screwed you are.

My prediction is that sooner or later a hyperinflation will occur, just as it did after the American Revolutionary War, 1790s France, post-WWI Germany, etc. The United States will be in crisis, what with the money worthless and all govt pensionaires and welfare recipients SOL. Then one of two things will happen. Either Boobus Americanus will opt for a dictatorship (like happened to France with Napoleon and Germany with Hitler), or the US will break up much like the old USSR did.

I prefer the latter, and consider it more likely. In the meantime, we should talk up secession and the advantages of local governance, to maximize the likelihood of the latter. Barbara is more pessimistic and sees a dictatorship as more likely after the breakup:

Even if we don't default and totally crash the economy and possibly the government itself - no more constitutional democratic republic - one thing the kids are going to have to deal with is a government that cannot borrow any money - our credit will be so bad that nobody will loan us anything.

Note that if the US disbands, then the new entities (probably 50 or so new ones roughly corresponding to current states plus some city-states) will be able to use real (commodity) money (or a new brand of fiat money) and not be burdened with the old Federal Reserve Funny-Money. So Barbara's fear that no one will loan money to startups anymore is unfounded. US$ will be in museums alongside Confederate money, and not be a factor. Also, the children will not be burdened with the debt of an extinct State - they essentially start fresh.

In the meantime, one thing we can do is to support hard money by using and popularizing silver rounds, Liberty Dollars, e-gold, or some such. Localities that are accustomed to such currencies will no doubt have an easier transition to normalcy after the breakup.