Word: scrip
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Dates: during 1992-1992
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After 45 days without a state budget, Californians wondered how long they could continue to get by in their truly and surreally cashless society. Weariness turned to anxiety when a federal appeals court ruled that the state had no legal authority to continue to pay out scrip for state medical insurance, known as Medi-Cal, to doctors and hospitals that care for the needy...
...Soviet Union, however, was a very abnormal country. Genuine money did not exist. Instead, the state issued little pieces of paper like scrip redeemable only at the company store, or like the play money used in Monopoly, with the Kremlin making all the rules. Those rules had nothing to do with basic economics. What was in supply had little to do with what was in demand, and prices had little to do with the cost of production. Too many rubles chased too few goods, and too many citizens spent too much time in lines...
Other former Soviet republics are already turning their backs on the ruble. Ukraine will launch a new currency called the grivna this spring; Ukraine has made coupons for the money the sole legal tender in state-owned shops. Officially pegged at a rate of one coupon per ruble, the scrip fetches up to 13 rubles on the Ukrainian black market. Belarus intends to issue its own new currency in April, and Moldova and Kazakhstan are planning to print new money as well. Such defections will flood Russia with ever more rubles as the neighboring republics begin exchanging the shaky currency...