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Black Market

Posted February 26, 2010 @ 1:15 am In Black,Colors | No Comments

The “black market” refers to the purchasing and selling of goods or services that either are:

illegal—such as illicit drugs, gambling or prostitution
rationed—such as during war time, or
sold without paying taxes or tariffs—such as cigarettes ^[1]

Another term for “black market/economy” is “underground economy”:

“Prof. [Kenneth] Rogoff ^[2] estimates that as much as 75% of U.S. notes in circulation, or more than $600 billion, are held outside the U.S. Most of that is likely in what he calls the underground economy, where transactions are made beyond the oversight of government—much of which is juiced by the black market. ‘This money is not in cash registers, it’s not in bank vaults,’ Prof. Rogoff says.”—Nguyen Anh Thu, Darcy Crowe, and Will Connors, “Globally, the Greenback Remains King,” The Wall Street Journal ^[3], October 29, 2009.
“The Ontario government is launching a review into unsafe labour practices following a spate of deaths on construction sites, including those of four men who died on Christmas Eve when scaffolding collapsed at a Toronto apartment building. The government announced yesterday that an advisory panel will look at a range of issues, including the impact of the underground economy on health and safety, as well as workplace practices, training and existing labour legislation.”—Karen Howlett, “Government launches review of workplace safety: Follows a spate of deaths on construction sites, including those of four men who died on Christmas Eve when scaffolding collapsed at a Toronto apartment building ^[4],” The Globe and Mail (Canada) ^[5], January 28, 2010.
“[George] Papandreou ^[6], who is poised to announce social security reforms and tax increases (homing in on doctors, lawyers, bar and nightclub owners who are among the biggest tax evaders in an underground economy estimated to be about 30% of GDP ^[7]) has found help from an unlikely quarter. Amid all the talk of bankruptcy and bailouts from the EU ^[8], conservative opposition party leaders have also publicly backed the measures as imperative for the country’s survival.”—Helena Smith, “Size of public debt catches up with Greece: Value of Greek black economy estimated at 30% of GDP: Budget deficit at 12.7% of national income ^[9],” The Guardian (UK) ^[10], February 7, 2010.

How It's Used

“In the kitchen, black-market marshmallows slide languid into syrup atop Pirate’s double boiler, and soon begin thickly to bubble.”

—Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow, (New York, NY: Penguin Books, 1973), p. 9.

“Before Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in August 1991, the dollar traded at an official rate of three Iraqi dinars. Today, though the official rate remains in place, a dollar can buy about 1,800 dinars on the black market.”

—Stephen J. Glain, “On Baghdad’s Stock Exchange, U.S. Airstrikes Represented Mere Blips on Investors’ Radar,” The Wall Street Journal, December 24, 1998, p. A5.

“Sometimes people still kill for ivory, blasting an elephant full of high-caliber slugs, hacking the face off to wrench out the tusks, moving that ivory into the black market.”

—David Quammen, “An African Love Story,” National Geographic, September 2008, p. 61.

“Major Arnold has an American assistant called Lieutenant Wills (Moritz Bleibtreu) and a German secretary called Emmi Straube (Birgit Minichmayr), and I lived in hope that the two of them might buy a jar of black-market schnapps and work out some postwar ways to unwind after a heavy day’s Furtwängling. No such luck. She may have a prim, wide-mouthed allure, but he is a dud and a drip who would barely notice if she slouched into the office dressed like Sally Bowles.”

—Anthony Lane, "Background Music: István Szabó’s 'Taking Sides,'" The New Yorker, September 8, 2003.

“For those who don’t work for advertising agencies or in high-tech industries, or haven’t been able to try their luck abroad—the losers in the free market’s crapshoot—all the old uncertainties of the black economy beckon. It is this Warsaw underworld, with its scamming and its subsistence culture, that is so vividly evoked in Andrzej Stasiuk’s new novel, 'Nine.’"

—Irvine Welsh, “Warsaw Underground,” The New York Times, June 10, 2007.

Also Known As (AKA)

Black Economy, Underground Economy

Links

Beyond eAlmanac
Wikipedia article on the Black Market

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URLs in this post:

[1] cigarettes: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/10/nyregion/10stamps.html

[2] [Kenneth] Rogoff: http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/rogoff

[3] The Wall Street Journal: http://www.wsj.com/

[4] Government launches review of workplace safety: Follows a spate of deaths on construction sites, including those of four men who died on Christmas Eve when scaffolding collapsed at a Toronto apartment building: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/government-launches-review-of-workplace-safety/article1446987/

[5] The Globe and Mail (Canada): http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

[6] [George] Papandreou: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Papandreou,_junior

[7] GDP: http://www.ealmanac.com/422/letters/gdp/

[8] EU: http://www.ealmanac.com/373/letters/eu/

[9] Size of public debt catches up with Greece: Value of Greek black economy estimated at 30% of GDP: Budget deficit at 12.7% of national income: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/feb/07/greece-budget-deficit-crisis

[10] The Guardian (UK): http://www.guardian.co.uk/

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