The pain barrier
I suppose it was all too painful for Karl Otto Pohl. As the truckloads of his marks rumbled away in their billions, to be exchanged at par for the little blue lun- cheon vouchers from the East, the Presi- dent of the Bundesbank did not stay to watch the monetary union which was forced on his supposedly independent cen- tral bank by its political masters. Instead he was in London, to tell us about a supposedly independent central bank for Europe. Back in the homeland, his suppor- ters will have been making some interest- ing discoveries. A banker just returned from Berlin tells of a large factory on the eastern side of the wall, which has proved to be staffed in its entirety by Russian soldiers, moonlighting. After all, if you are paid in roubles, even to be paid in Ost- marks is a long way up the ladder, and now that you can swap them for real marks. . . Some people know what is meant by a convertible currency.
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