Book Of Facts
(Reader's Digest)
THE WORLD?S RICHEST PEOPLE- I
BIG SPENDER
On inheriting more than $1million in cash and oil wells? one of the fastest fortune- losers in modern times deserted his wife, moved into a smart New York hotel and began offering champagne and oysters to all comers. In one year of riotous living in 1864, John Washington Steel, known as Coal- Oil Johnny, got through his entire inheritage. Then, sober and bankrupt, he went back to his wife, moved west to Nebraska and found a job as a railway goods yard supervisor. He dies- solvent again, but not rich ?in 1920
NOT WORTH THE PAPER
In Germany after First World War the government printed money frantically as the mark?s value plunged. Wheelbarrow loads of paper notes were needed to buy bread and common household goods. In 1921, the German rate of exchange was 81, marks to one American dollar. By July 1923, a dollar was worth a million German marks.
In Indonesia in the 1960s, prices were rising at 1000 per cent a year. But even if inflation stays at only 1 per cent a year, prices will double in about 60 years: at 10 per cent, they double in 7 ½ years
The world?s worst inflation happened in Hungry in 1946. Hungry, like many other countries, had gone off the Gold Standard in 1931. By June 1946, one 1031 Gold pengo worth was worth 130 million million million paper pengo, and prices in the Hungarian capital, Budapest, were being raised as often as ten times a day. The pengo was replaced as a unit of currency by the present forint and by, 1980; inflation was down to a modest 4 per cent a year.
THE FIRST INCOME TAX
Taxes have been collected since ancient times. The earliest- recorded in Mesopotamia and Egypt- were taxes on imported goods (the equivalent of Customs Duties) on houses and land. Income tax, however, is a relatively recent invention. It was first introduced in Britain in 1799 by Prime Minister William Pitt- with a top rate of just 10 per cent- to help pay for the Napoleonic Wars. Progressive income tax- increasing in proportion as earning rise- was developed in Prussia in 1853 and has been in Britain since 1907, in the United States since 1914 and in France since 1917.
Resumos Relacionados
- Financing The First World War
- Black Gold - Rise Of China
- Stock Market - The Five Myths_4
- Stock Market - The Five Myths_4
- Uae Population Will Swell To Five Million
|
|
