Ways of Payment (was: Price of a Lisa 2?)

Within Germany they are free (true for most private accounts, sometime restrictet to 100 or so sending (!) transfers per month) or only covered by a _very_ small charge like 0.3 or 0.6 USD and within Europe, depending on your bank and your account type, but generaly only a _very_ low fee). And if there is a fee, it's only for sending, never for reciving (with an exception of an automatic withdraw from your account - like for membership fees - where the reciving party is paying for the service). In fact, I'm always astonished about the fact that cheques, are still a common thing in the US to do regular payments, like rent, car loan, or what ever - I have seen the last personal cheque (with an exception of the Eurocheque) over 25 years ago - almost anything is done via bank orders. I had to learn a lot of new facts about money transfer over the past year for my classic computer deals. For example, there are bank institutes in the US that tell their people they don't know about a SWIFT number, or don't use them ... Gee - almost like a forgotten island in the international money world (no, not the UK - the Brits may be conservative, but they are not that stupid :). SWIFT is the international transfer system - thats the way how people like Soros shift billions of dollars within minutes around the world (and send whole countries to doom) - nobody carries boxes of bucks around the world since more than 30 years, and it is (if you pay a fee) open to everyone you could transfer 10 cent or 10 millions within some seconds - to be honest, for 'normal' people like us, it still takes two working days until you get a response. Gruss H. -- Ich denke, also bin ich, also gut HRK