> Heh, I don't particularly enjoy walking across the street carrying money. At least > there is a small police 'base' nearby. > > These days someone is paying with fake R$ bills over there, the other day the parking > garage attendant at the market received a fake 100 Reais note (~60 USD) and the bank > had called us because we had deposited two fake 20R$ bills. Now we have to check each > note. And we don't take credit cards in our store (I get to say "profit margin" again > lol).
Here in the US cashiers tend to use a special pen and verify that $20's and above are legit. I have seen this practice on the rise in the last +10 years though this is not as invasive as having to show a rent-a-cop your store receipt when leaving a CompUSA or Best Buy.
> We did that! Except it's not an island - we bought ~2000m land in a small town not > far from the city, a half hour drive. There's nothing out there, dirt roads, cows, > cell phone barely works. But there's some activity and construction spread around in > the area, apparently we made a really good deal because they are telling us that it's > worth 50% more than we paid for it. It's our private wild west. > > Don't mention filling out forms...it turned out that the previous owner had not > registered the land (don't get me started), even though the zone is now labeled as > urban. We had to track down the original owner, from when it was farmland, who parted > out his land to sell and get his signature on some stupid form from the prefecture. > We've been through paper hell with this but it's all done now and we have started > cleaning it up.
How soon before the building is erected and the cabs get moved in?