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What stood out the most in this story for me, it’s how pack of cigarettes seem to operate as some kind of currency. They are not particularly expensive (about
by whoisjuan 6y ago
What stood out the most in this story for me, it’s how pack of cigarettes seem to operate as some kind of currency.
They are not particularly expensive (about 85 EGP or 6 USD a pack) so I wonder why they seem to prefer them over money.
Are they just being hypocritical and thinking that just because they are asking for a pack of cigarettes (instead of money) they are not engaging in bribery?
- kqr 6y agoI would assume that they either have direct value (bank notes cannot be smoked), or they're a more reliable store of value than bank notes, or they're more liquid than bank notes in the types of business they would need money for later. In short, maybe cigarettes are a better money than whatever fiat bank notes could replace them. (Though the text does seem to indicate that payment was often made in a combination of fiat and cigarettes, so maybe they're about equal in value after all.)
- isolli 6y agoTangentially related: cigarettes were a currency in Nazi concentration camps [0]. Obviously money was not an option there... [0] https://www.finance-watch.org/the-perfect-draw-when-cigarettes-became-a-war-camp-currency/ https://www.finance-watch.org/the-perfect-draw-when-cigarett...
- Ichthypresbyter 6y agoThey were also a currency in American federal prisons, until the prison system banned smoking. At that point, they were replaced with pouches of mackerel...