He will also receive ten percent of any other charge Peters rings up during his stay in Hanoi as he looks after him, including taxis he calls for him from his friend's hotel.

If Peters and Hung do enter into a partnership, Hung will also receive standard ten percent broker's fees for most or all awarded feasibility studies, construction, and even office supply purchases -- all legitimate, according to standard domestic practice. In certain cases, Hung will demand dollars or gold, the two forms of currency needed to make any large purchase, such as private and "gray market" state-owned land-lease rights, or a Honda motorbike.

Along the way, others also turn a profit. There's the 2,000 dong given to the man who "guarded" Hung's motorbike outside the café, to the "consultants" who, if Peter's and Hung's partnership materializes, dutifully process reams of necessary paperwork (read red tape) through various agencies, from building and land-use permits to travel visas.

This cash also allows him to purchase subsidized imported gasoline, and household appliances sold at inflated price due to the many hands involved in smuggling them from the Chinese border. And many more tasty meals at that same café, which are, to him and other non-foreigners, available at 5,000 dong or less.

All this was accomplished while Hung remained at his permanent position. Most telling was that throughout, Hung considered this described method of profit as the very definition of a legitimate businessman operating within an ordered business environment.

The problem, illustrated in recent months, however inarticulately, by the State Bank, is that in the hypothetical involving Peters and Hung, absolutely nothing was produced. Further, none of the profits described entered Vietnam's banking system, or for that matter generated tax revenues. More likely, profits remained in safes or hiding spots which homes traditionally feature, and which further disarm the State Bank's potential economic management.

Dramatically hindered is the Bank's foreign reserve, which is said to stand at about $1.6 billion (the precise figure is kept secret), enough to last only eight to ten weeks.

Is the system described above a page from the book on "market-oriented socialism?" After all, each employee earns a comparable salary, and cash comes from outside sources based largely on initiative. Certainly, the approach is somewhat explainable in the context of Vietnam's decades-long participation in Soviet-style socialism, where entrepreneurism was prohibited and a role in the state-owned, state-run economy meant a roof over one's head.

Today, according to official policy, it still does. While reform is a stated and debated primary goal of Vietnam's government, the "dominant role of the state-owned enterprises in the economy" remains the bedrock of dynamics here, as reinforced by last June's Communist Party Congress. Aside from money, much of the state's intellectual efforts are consumed by trying to keep this "socialist" bedrock firm.

But where does that leave banks, the institution mandated with ordering the country's use of money?

The State Bank and Ministry of Finance in early August matter-of-factly identified causes of current banking problems. It blamed lax issuance of loans and letters of credit and loose reigns on foreign exchange. To hear the government's response, one might assume that thieves have angels, and with this case they were busy indeed.

The announcement came on May 31 from the State Bank Governor, a member of the elite Politburo of the Communist Party, and one would be correct to assume that the impetus came from his colleagues at the top. Henceforth, "efficient" state companies are permitted to borrow from banks without pledging any collateral. This enables them, among other things, to borrow foreign currency, necessary for importing machinery, more motorbikes and TVs, and to repay outstanding foreign-currency loans.

It was a let-down for any Vietnamese proud of its country's ostensible movement toward a "Socialist economy with free market mechanisms," which is the sanctioned description of the country's economy. "A state-owned company's land pledged as collateral serves as a placebo," reported official VNA prior to the announcement. After all, the majority of   state-owned companies have defaulted on their loans, and were by far the largest recipient of such loans.

This privilege also hit a raw nerve with foreign invested companies here, because they recently saw their right to convert non-traded local currency virtually severed. "It had always been a stock Vietnam risk, and now its reality," said a HCMC lawyer who represents a stymied consumer product joint venture.

Simultaneously, The State Bank ordered foreign companies to make all domestic purchases in dong, not dollars, yen or German marks. Carrier air-conditioners made in Saigon, for example, must be purchased by a hotel under construction in dong -- not the currency that most shareholders in Carrier's parent, United Technologies of Connecticut, might fully appreciate. Said the attorney, "This is either bad PR or it's a crisis where they need dollars at any expense. You get the impression their hands are being forced, that they're saying, 'we need the dollars more than you do.'"