Currency

When the upstart American colonists decided to declare their independence and start a war with the the troops of King George, the British devised a clever military strategy: They flooded the young country with counterfeit currency. "It was the first time there was a massive effort to use counterfeit to disrupt the economy," said Bill Troppman Jr., a ranger at Valley Forge National Historical Park. Yesterday, in preparation for the grand opening this weekend of a redesigned visitors' center at the park, Troppman was leading a tour of the facility for a select group of Revolutionary War historians and authors for whom this was old news.

Money, money everywhere, but for Jose Boveda Fernandez, gazing around at the one-ton mounds of Irish coins, all there is is copper. "For us, coins are metal," said Boveda Fernandez, director of Elmet S.L., owner of the two factories in Spain charged with giving the now-useless coins a new lease on life. "As copper producers, we are very interested in their copper content. " The two factories are among several around Europe where Europe's coins went to die when a common currency was introduced this year.

Some billionaires, like Warren Buffett, are known for their investment philosophy. Some billionaires, like Bill Gates, are feared for their market dominance. And some billionaires, like George Soros, can sound more like revolutionaries than pinstriped denizens of Wall Street. At the University of Pennsylvania yesterday to promote his new book, George Soros on Globalization, Soros lashed out at the Bush administration's foreign policy. The President has fallen into a trap set by terrorists who wanted this country to go to war and sow the seeds for further acts of terrorism, he said.

McDonald's Corp., facing a series of problems in international markets, is warning that its profits are likely to be below expectations for the first quarter and all of 2002. The fast-food company is being hurt by weak foreign currencies, especially the euro. Also, concerns about the safety of beef in Japan continue to affect sales in that country. In addition, sales in Latin America are down, and the company is closing stores in Turkey. McDonald's, in an earnings update, forecast quarterly earnings per share of 29 cents to 30 cents, excluding onetime charges.

It's auf Wiedersehen to the deutsche mark, au revoir to the franc, adios to the peseta, arrivaderci to the lira, hyv?sti to the markka, yeia sas to the drachma. As of Tuesday, all these honored (and in some cases beloved) currencies were tucked into the bed of oblivion. Hello to the euro, a single currency shared among 12 nations in Europe. All but three (England, Sweden and Denmark) of the European Union's members signed on to a dream 10 years old (since the Maastricht Treaty of 1991)

Starting today, a dozen West European countries will begin spending, saving and counting in a new common currency, the euro. Governments have distributed more than 65 billion euro notes and coins in place of the familiar national currencies, which will be phased out. The switch has prompted a surge in last-minute spending of French francs, Spanish pesetas and Italian lira hoarded by some citizens to avoid their governments' high tax rates....

Twelve European currencies - among them the mighty German mark and the colorful Dutch guilder, the ancient Greek drachma and the modern Irish punt - will begin to vanish on New Year's Day. They will be replaced by the euro, the European Union's tool for economic unity and its attempt to compete with the U.S. dollar as the world's money of choice. Since the decline of the British empire in World War II and the rise of America as the world's strongest economic and military power, American dollars have replaced British pounds as the leading currency for trade and finance, drawing trillions in foreign investment despite the nation's massive trade deficit.

A single European currency, linking the Arctic to the Azores, will make its debut Tuesday, retiring billions of lire, francs and marks, simplifying tourism, and opening up cross-border commerce. It also will weigh heavily on Reiner Foehr, a 40-year-old walking bratwurst vendor at Berlin's Alexanderplatz. Come "E-Day," the beginning of a bewildering two-month period in Germany, where both deutsche marks and the new euros will be legal tender, Foehr will have to add four times as many coins to the 40 pounds of gas, grill and sizzling Thuringer sausages he carries on the job. On a recent December day, Foehr had not yet received the new euro dispenser he had ordered, and he hadn't yet decided how many euros to charge for his wursts.

Amid the knee-high stacks of worn and smelly currency exchanged at the crowded Shahzada Market, a trader came forth the other day carrying a brick of brand-new Afghan notes, still shrink-wrapped from the printer, bearing a production date in July. In a country devastated by war, where the control of Kabul changed hands a mere three weeks ago, it is impressive that new notes professing to carry the full faith and credit of Afghanistan's central bank still manage to find their way into the market.

Members of the Edmonton Oilers ownership have come up with almost $8.9 million to keep the struggling franchise afloat. Cal Nichols, the team's governor and board chairman, said most investors agreed to contribute more cash in the interest of keeping the club in Edmonton. "This is going to a place no one wanted to go, but in the long-term interests of the franchise we thought we had to go there," Nichols said. Under the terms of the cash call, investors will have to write checks for half the amount they pledged by Dec. 1 with the balance due Dec. 10, 2002.