You can't establish an exact
black-market rate," he said.
Minin, like most of the new breed, arranged
black-market transfers with only "the pure motive of pure profit" in mind (as George Bernard Shaw put it in Major Barbara, his satire of the arms business).
As a direct consequence, the
black-market rate rose to S|pounds~330=$1 as more people exchanged their money at the banks because the difference did not appear worth the risk associated with dealing in the black market.
Despite the crime and the black market, there is a strong sense of community, with neighbors sharing rations, homegrown vegetables (nobody grows flowers anymore), and
black-market spoils.
A more objective survey of steroids' role in sports shows that their health risks, while real, have been grossly exaggerated; that the political response to steroids has been driven more by a moral panic over drug use than by the actual effects of the chemicals; and that the worst problems associated with steroids result from their
black-market status rather than their inherent qualities.
While the Cuban peso is still exchanged at an official rate of one to one, the
black-market rate was running at 100 to one the week we were in Cuba.
