First Prize for the Quetzal

Except for the Dark Ages, when prices fell for 600 years, the value of money has generally diminished. Last year was no exception, as Manhattan's First National City Bank reports in its annual survey of the shrinking worth of currencies.

Beset by war, the Vietnamese piaster fell 38.6%. That chronic invalid, the Brazilian cruzeiro, lost another 31.8% of its value in 1966, and thus would pay for only 2% of the goods and services it could command a decade ago.

Among industrial nations, Austria's schilling (down 2.1%) was last year's most stable currency, and Denmark's krone (down 6.9%) the least. The purchasing power of the U.S. dollar sank 2.8% last year, but its performance during the 1956-66 decade was better: it eroded by an average of only 1.8% a year, the lowest rate among major industrial powers. In little Guatemala, sound management has kept the quetzal from depreciating in the past ten years. A sampling of inflation's global grip:

Index of Annual Rate of Value of Money Depreciation (1956=100) 1956- 1965-1966 1966 1966 Guatemala 100.. 0.0% . . 0.7%

United States 84. . 1.8 . . 2.8

Canada 82.. 2.0 ..3.6

Australia 82.. 2.0 ..2.7

Belgium 80. . 2.2 . 3.9

South Africa 80. . 2.2 . . 3.6

West Germany 79. . 2.3 . . 3.4

Switzerland 78. . 2.4 . . 4.6

New Zealand 77. . 2.6 . . 2.4

Austria .: 75.. 2.8 .. 2.1

Britain 74.. 2.9 ..3.8

Italy .... . 72.. 3.2 .. 2.3

Norway 72.. 3.3 ..3.3

The Netherlands ... 71.. 3.4 . 5.6

Denmark 69. . 3.6 . . 6.9

Mexico 69.. 3.7 . . 4.0

Sweden 68. . 3.8 . . 6.3

Japan 66. . 4.0 . . 4.0

France 62. . 4.7 . . 2.6

Israel 58. . 5.4 . . 7.2

India 57.. 5.5 ..9.7

Spain 49. . 6.9 . . 6.0

South Viet Nam 46.. 7.4 ..38.6

Chile 10.. 20.6 ..18.6

Argentina 6.. 24.5.. 24.2

Brazil 2 ..31.0..31.8

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