Lei down and dieOne of my spies attended the Association of Futures Markets conference in Bucharest, Romania last week, and after getting over the shock of being shown a cab meter displaying the number 850,000 he sent me his report. To be honest, a cab fare of that order would be a dream to me: all I would do is doctor the receipt to a slightly more plausible currency and suddenly my expense claim would be looking significantly more healthy. For instance, I could substitute the original Romanian Lei (exchange rate approximately 50,000 to the pound sterling) to, say, Senegalese Francs (exchange rate approximately 1,000 to the pound). That way I'd be 850 quid better off and have a great sob story to tell ("Of course I had to get a cab - I'd like to see you try getting a night bus back from downtown Dakar on a Monday...