They're selling our country

[owtcast]

Proof our politicians are selling our country away little by little.
This is freakin' sad. And we have no one to blame but ourselves for electing who is in office right now AND in the past.


Euros Accepted signs pop up in New York City | U.S. | Reuters

NEW YORK (Reuters) - In the latest example that the U.S. dollar just ain't what it used to be, some shops in New York City have begun accepting euros and other foreign currency as payment for merchandise.

"We had decided that money is money and we'll take it and just do the exchange whenever we can with our bank," Robert Chu, owner of East Village Wines, told Reuters television.

The increasingly weak U.S. dollar, once considered the king among currencies, has brought waves of European tourists to New York with money to burn and looking to take advantage of hugely favorable exchange rates.

"We didn't realize we would take so much in and there were that many people traveling or having euros to bring in. But some days, you'd be surprised at how many euros you get," Chu said.

"Now we have to get familiar with other currencies and the (British) pound and the Canadian dollars we take," he said.

While shops in many U.S. towns on the Canadian border have long accepted Canadian currency and some stores on the Texas-Mexico border take pesos, the acceptance of foreign money in Manhattan was unheard of until recently.

Not far from Chu's downtown wine emporium, Billy Leroy of Billy's Antiques & Props said the vast numbers of Europeans shopping in the neighborhood got him thinking, "My God, I should take euros in at the store."

Leroy doesn't even bother to exchange them.

"I'm happy if I take in 200 euros, because what I do is keep them," he said. "So when I go back to Paris, I don't have to go through the nightmare of going to an exchange place."

(Reporting by Angela Moore, writing by Bill Berkrot; Editing by Doina Chiacu)

[Colotow]

lots of places all over the world accept dollars, the registers are programmed to figure out the amount required and the change (usually in local currency)

2 points-

there is usually a rather high % figured in, stores are normally the worst place to exchange, so they are making more $$$ off the customers to offer the convienence.

think of it this way, it means that tourists and business people are spending money IN our country, so maybe it's not as bad as it seems.

and, all other things being equal, maybe they are selling more by offering the service.

[lilredpowerstroke]

Thats not selling our country piece by piece. Thats doin what is necessary to survive. Thats the great thing about a capitalist economy. Do what ever it takes to get a piece of someone elses pie.

[CHUCK]

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