tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6704573462403312459.post9178015632541846642..comments2024-03-29T02:53:03.321-04:00Comments on Moneyness: C-day and military moneyJP Koninghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02559687323828006535noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6704573462403312459.post-50956944165892294972017-04-11T00:28:16.924-04:002017-04-11T00:28:16.924-04:00Hmm, this seems to be the only other rational reas...Hmm, this seems to be the only other rational reason. The locals must have hoped to dump all MPCs before the Americans left, since the latter would be happy to take those back home and get Dollars in exchange. Prabhathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12976952371448602236noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6704573462403312459.post-40885754026535854402017-04-10T21:13:21.766-04:002017-04-10T21:13:21.766-04:00Hi Thomas, thanks for stopping by. Great comment, ...Hi Thomas, thanks for stopping by. Great comment, plenty of fascinating detail. Successfully imposing monetary controls is difficult enough to achieve with a competent administration let alone an incompetent one.JP Koninghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02559687323828006535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6704573462403312459.post-47052794392563113562017-04-10T15:16:17.484-04:002017-04-10T15:16:17.484-04:00I was a Military Police Officer (Captain) assigned...I was a Military Police Officer (Captain) assigned to the II CTZ (South) in Cam Ranh Bay from 1 Jan-10 May 1968 as the Physical Security Officer in the Provost Marshal's Office, as well as the Acting Provost Marshal of Cam Ranh Bay during part of that time.<br /><br />My desk was at the end of a quonset hut opposite the Provost Marshal's office and the desk of the PM Operations Officer. Along the back wall of the quonset hut behind my desk there were metal filing cabinets designed to hold drawers for IBM punch cards. When a serviceman went through the process of buying a postal money order he was required to fill out one of these IBM punch cards. All of the file drawers were full of the IBM punch cards and the space under the file cabinets was full of dirty gray/white canvas bags full of the IBM cards that did not fit in the file drawers.<br /><br />I asked why the IBM cards were being stored there. I was told they were supposed to be sent to Saigon for processing but there was not enough computer capability to process them. Thus, the advertised ability for cheaters to be caught in this manner was non-existent.<br /><br />After the war, news came out that some Military Police officers and NCOs, as well as officers and NCOs of the 1st Logistical Command, were involved in various black market and Post Exchange illegal activities. Indeed, the PM of Vietnam was removed from his position. In the heart of the Cam Ranh Bay compound, there was a ranch style white house built with, rumor had it, GI materials and manpower. The occupants of the "white house" were the logistical commander of all Vietnam, the Cam Ranh Bay logistical commander and the Provost Marshal of II Corps Tactical Zone (South). After my release from active duty, and upon hearing of the scandals involving military police and logistical command officers and NCOs, it occurred to me that the failure to process the postal money order IBM cards was part of the various schemes to make fortunes in Vietnam. <br /><br />To put a fine point on it, all of the money illegally gained in Vietnam was never caught by processing those IBM cards to build dossiers on servicemen exchanging excess amounts of money.<br /><br />In my opinion, this was a failure of leadership and supervision.Thomas Leo Briggsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6704573462403312459.post-20530361732943358352017-04-10T10:12:20.496-04:002017-04-10T10:12:20.496-04:00Yes, anonymous's answer is in-line with some o...Yes, anonymous's answer is in-line with some of the reading I've been doing on MPC; Vietnamese could make use of GIs as go-betweens at the military store.<br /><br />Piastres suffered from significant inflation, so even with periodic C-days it may have made sense for Vietnamese to store value in MPC.<br /><br />Also, while in theory troops did not have dollars, some of them smuggled bills in to Vietnam in order to buy MPC in the black market, earning arbitrage profits. David Hackworth, a Vietnam war hero, was accused of this:<br /><br />http://www.west-point.org/publications/cushman/4-VolumeFour.pdf<br /><br />"...and selling green US dollars for MPC on the Saigon black market for personal profit over a period of two and one-half <br />years in RVN."JP Koninghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02559687323828006535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6704573462403312459.post-28798995924434597582017-04-10T09:10:16.232-04:002017-04-10T09:10:16.232-04:00At a guess: because they could then use MPCs to bu...At a guess: because they could then use MPCs to buy goods from GIs (which the GIs had bought from the army store using MPCs). So: Bob pays Nguyen $10 in MPCs to buy local goods. Nguyen then goes to Charlie and offers to buy cigarettes for MPCs. Charlie goes to the army store and buys cigarettes for $10 in MPC; he takes the cigarettes to Nguyen who pays Charlie $10 in MPC. Nguyen now has cigarettes which he can sell to Pham for piastres.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6704573462403312459.post-70806291385022020222017-04-10T06:38:25.762-04:002017-04-10T06:38:25.762-04:00Question - why did Vietnamese accept MPCs at all? ...Question - why did Vietnamese accept MPCs at all? <br /><br />Presumably, it should happen only when they hope to exchange it for Dollars (and eventually convert that to local Vietnamese currency). But since American troops hardly had any Dollars, how was this accomplished?Prabhathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12976952371448602236noreply@blogger.com