Business: Clash over Stateless Cash

Struggling to crack down on currencies without a country

Faster than a speeding dollar. More powerful than a Krugerrand. Able to leap national boundaries with a single telex message. Look! In all the banks! It's a mark. It's a franc. No, it's supermoney!

It is also mysterious, pervasive and, in the cold eyes of Western policymakers, dangerous and disruptive to current at tempts to combat inflation. Supermoney is the immense and swift-moving pool of currencies deposited in banks outside their home countries— and thus out of the control of any government. No body knows the...

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