Category: money
‘Spillionaires’: Profiteering and Mismanagement in the Wake of the BP Oil Spill
Some people profiteered from the spill by charging BP outrageous rates for cleanup. Others profited from BP claims money, handed out in […]
04/14/2011. Category: money. Tags: bp, oil
Quantitative easing explained easily
Quantitative easing (QE) is a simple electronic method by which a government or central bank “prints more money” to support private banks. […]
11/18/2010. Category: money. Tags: bailout, banks, economy
All the gold ever mined still exists today
Gold is virtually indestructible; almost all the gold ever mined still exists today… all 170 000 tonnes (187,393 tons) of it, only […]
10/20/2010. Category: money. Tags: gold
To Insure Promptness
Edward Lloyd opened his coffee house in Tower Street in London in 1688. One corner of the coffee shop was reserved for […]
09/27/2010. Category: money. Tags: coffee, lloyds, tip
Dress worth $20 million
Marie de’ Medici (1575 – 1642) was a member of that famous Italian family and, as wife of Henry IV, queen of […]
09/14/2010. Category: money. Tags: diamonds, kings, medici, pearls, queen
World’s heaviest gamblers
Australians are the heaviest gamblers in the world; an estimated 82% of Australians bet. That is twice as much per capita as […]
04/28/2010. Category: money. Tags: gamble
Odd-price tickets of items started by newspaper publisher
When Melville Stone started the Chicago Daily News in 1875, the price was a penny. At first, circulation was high but then […]
03/16/2010. Category: money. Tags: credit card, newspapers, price, shopping
The origin of the dollar
A mining hole in the mountains of Bohemia produced so much silver it became the official source of coinage for the entire […]
02/07/2010. Category: money. Tags: dollar, silver, taler
Bank of America started as Bank of Italy
Amedeo Giannini, son of Italian immigrants to the US, started the Bank of Italy in a converted saloon in San Francisco at […]
02/07/2010. Category: money. Tags: banks
Bank deposits and the risks you take
Banks are the most unsafe institutions in the world. Worldwide, hundreds of them crash every few years. Two decades ago, the US […]
02/06/2010. Category: money. Tags: banks, cash
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