Monday 13 July 2009

Well that didnt work to well page 2

and now I cant delete it

So I try again !

In the beginning.

Heres a little song I wrote, you might want to learn it note for note... ( all through this debate I have
highlighted important dates or points of interest ).
296CE Roman Emp. Diocletian ordered the burning of alchemical manuscripts for fear their
discoveries would debase his coinage. This may have set back the science of distillation.
269BC The Roman system of coinage was established.
Not a lot happened until man got greedy , 1720 Jan-Aug, Speculators in London bid up the price of
the South Sea Co., which had been granted a trading monopoly with South America and the Pacific.
The South Sea Bubble burst and London markets crashed. Speculation in government chartered trading
companies had led to artificially inflated equity prices with high leverage. The average stock dropped
98.5%. It reportedly took 100 years for markets to recover. In 1999 Edward Chancellor published
"Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation." In 2002 Malcolm Balen authored “The
Secret History of the South Sea Bubble.”
1720 Mar 24, In Paris, banking houses closed in the wake of financial crisis. The "Mississippi Bubble"
burst as panicked investors withdrew their money from John Law's bank and Mississippi Company.
[see South Sea Bubble, Jan, 1720]
1945 Dec 27, The International Monetary Fund and the Int’l. Bank for Reconstruction and
Development (World Bank) were created. 28 nations signed an agreement creating the World Bank.
The IMF was created to promote healthy international trade and began transactions in 1947. The World
Bank was designed by Englishman John Maynard Keynes and American Harry Dexter White.
1946 Jan 30, The 1st issue of Franklin Roosevelt dime.
1946 Apr 21, John M. Keynes (62), English economist, died. He had recently negotiated a loan from
the US to keep Britain afloat. One condition of the $5 billion loan was that Britain make sterling fully
convertible into dollars.
1947 Mar 1, International Monetary Fund began operations.
1947 The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was first signed to supplement the IMF.
The agreement was designed to provide an international forum that encouraged free trade between
member states by regulating and reducing tariffs on traded goods and by providing a common
mechanism for resolving trade disputes.
1952 Apr 15, Franklin National Bank issued the 1st bank credit card.
1953 Aug 21, The SF Chamber of Commerce reported that the city's 1951 per capita gross income was
$1,512, 40.8% above the state average.
1955 Aug 12, Pres Eisenhower raised the minimum wage from $0.75 to $1 an hour.
Hey life's looking up !
1955 Sep 26, The New York Stock Exchange suffered $44 million loss, the heaviest one-day loss since

Just so you know p3

So where did it start


1929 following word that Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower had suffered a heart attack.
Here we go , again . We need help.......
1957 Oct 1, The motto "In God We Trust" began appearing on US paper currency.
1957 Alex Guinness, William Holden and Jack Hawkins starred in the film "Bridge on the River
Kwai." Carl Foreman was the screenwriter. It premiered at the RKO Palace Theater in New York City
on Dec 18 and later won multiple Oscars. It was rated #13 by the Amer. Film Inst. in 1998. Holden was
the 1st Hollywood actor to earn a $ 1 million for a film.
Hey feeling good ? Lets hit the town .......( this is where it starts .....)
1958 Oct 1, American Express launched its first credit card.
1962 Milton Friedman and his wife Rose published "Capitalism and Freedom," a good summary of
Friedman’s economic thinking.
This might hurt, but some light entertainment to keep the masses happy ......
1963 The film "Cleopatra" starred Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and Roddy McDowall and ran for
243 minutes. Taylor was the 1st Hollywood actress to earn a $ 1 million for a film.
1964 Mar 24, Kennedy half-dollar was issued.
1967 May 18, Silver hit a record $1.60 an ounce in London.
1967 Jun 27, The first recognizably automated teller machine (ATM) was placed outside the Barclays
PLC branch in Enfield, a north London suburb.
1968 Mar 15, The U.S. mint halted the practice of buying and selling gold.
1970S Stagflation, a period of rising inflation, high oil prices and weak labor markets, marked
the global economy.
1971 Feb 15, Britain abandoned the unit of the penny on Decimal Day, February 15, 1971, replacing
the shilling with five new pence, so that one pound sterling became divided into 100 new pence.
1973 Oct 18, Congress authorized a bicentennial quarter, half-dollar and dollar coin.
1973 The market for traded uncertainty came into being with the publication of a paper by Myron
Scholes and Fischer Black (the Black-Scholes model).
1974 Jan 31, Gold hit a record high of $195.5 an ounce.
1974 May 1, The US Federal Hourly Minimum Wage was set at $2.00 an hour.
1974 Oct 28, A US law banned discrimination of sex or marital status in credit application.
1977 The International Monetary Fund (IMF) drafted rules regarding currency exchange rates
following the collapse of the int’l. gold standard and the fixed-exchange-rate system (1971).
1978 Jul 28, Price of gold topped the $200 per oz level for 1st time. Spot gold closed at $201.30.
1978US net foreign assets in 1978 equaled 9% of GDP. By 2005 this dropped to net liabilities of 25%
GDP.
1979 Mar 13, European Monetary System (EMS) entered into force.
1979 Jul 1, The Susan B. Anthony dollar was issued. It was the 1st US coin to honor a woman. The 1st
coin was struck Feb 2 in San Francisco. The SF mint produced 100 million of the coins. Another 400
million were made in Philadelphia and Denver. It was not widely accepted and production stopped in
1981.
1979 Oct 6, Paul Volcker, new chairman of the Federal Reserve, raised interest rates sharply to clamp
down on inflation knowing that it would send interest rates soaring. Volcker held his position until
Aug, 1987
1979 Gold, fine art, and antiques rose in value under the inflationary economy. America’s core
inflation, which excludes oil and food, rose at a 7% rate.
1980 Jan 21, Gold peaked in NY at $875 a troy ounce. By mid-March gold prices fell to below $500
per ounce.
1980 Mar 31, President Carter deregulated the banking industry.
1980 The US Monetary Control Act deregulated interest rates.
1980 The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC), established in 1933, raised its limit to $100,000.
The previous limit, set in 1969, was $20,000.
1980 A group of banks led by J.P. Morgan made massive bailout loans of $1 billion to the Hunt
brothers who had allegedly tried to corner the silver market.
1981 Singapore implemented a managed float for its currency. It pegged its dollar to a basket of
currencies that mirrored its trading patterns. The Monetary Authority of Singapore does not
announce the contents of the basket. It just tweaks the mix as needed.
1985 Sep, In NYC ministers of the Group of Seven (G-7) major industrial countries unified and
adopted the Plaza Accord for currency intervention and struggled to control capital exchange-
rate movements. Led by the US Treasury's Sec. James Baker, it was the first effort to restore
some semblance of order to the monetary system since the collapse of the postwar Breton Woods
gold-anchored finance systems in the early 1970s. In the wake of the accord the dollar lost almost
30% of its value.
1987 Feb 22, The Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors of six major industrial countries
(Canada, France, Germany, Japan, United Kingdom, United States, G6) met in Paris and agreed in the
Louvre Accord to bring down the value of the dollar.
1987 Oct 19, Black Monday, the stock market crashed as the Dow Jones Industrial Average,
amid frenzied selling, plunged 508 points, 22.6%,-- its biggest-ever one-day decline. The crash
was preceded by legislation to block tax deductions for debt incurred in corporate takeovers
which were fueling the market. It was also preceded by plunges in other international markets.
Hong Kong suffered a 46% decline in October.
1987 The US government slashed interest rates following the stock market crash.
1987 The US government gave banks permission to sell bonds.
1987 Andy Krieger sold short more kiwis than the entire money supply of New Zealand. The
kiwi collapsed and Krieger banked his profits.
(Econ, 12/18/04, p.108)
1989 New Zealand became the 1st country to introduce inflation targets.