Ecuador adopted the dollar as its national currency to help stop soaring inflation.

Money got more expensive last week, as the Federal Reserve acted to stop inflation before it appears.

The longer the delay, the greater the downward thrust of monetary policy would have to be to stop inflation.

By mid-1975, the government set forth an economic policy of free-market reforms that attempted to stop inflation and collapse.

Soaking up excess rubles will not do much good unless measures are also taken to stop inflation.

"The record on trying to stop inflation slowly is not a good one," a senior American official said.

So governments put money into the economy to create demand, then tax money out of the economy to stop inflation taking off?

But they worry that if they are wrong, raising interest rates to stop inflation could halt the nation's growth.

Two previous attempts to stop inflation by freezing prices, begun in 1986 and 1987, were failures.

For weeks, investors here have expressed a lack of confidence in the Fed's determination to stop inflation by raising interest rates further.