POSIBNIK_1_KURS
.pdf118 BC: Leather Money
Leather money was used in China in the form of one-foot-square pieces of white deerskin with colorful borders. This could be considered the first documented type of banknote.
800 - 900 AD: The Nose
The phrase "To pay through the nose" comes from Danes in Ireland, who slit the noses of those who were remiss in paying the Danish poll tax.
806 AD: Paper Currency
The first paper banknotes appeared in China. In all, China experienced over 500 years of early paper money, spanning from the ninth through the fifteenth century. Over this period, paper notes grew in production to the point that their value rapidly depreciated and inflation soared. Then beginning in 1455, the use of paper money in China disappeared for several hundred years. This was still many years before paper currency would reappear in Europe, and three centuries before it was considered common.
1500s: Potlach
"Potlach" comes from a Chinook Indian custom that existed in many North American Indian cultures. It is a ceremony where not only were gifts exchanged, but dances, feasts, and other public rituals were performed. In some instances potlach was a form of initiation into secret tribal societies. Because the exchange of gifts was so important in establishing a leader's social rank, potlach often spiralled out of control as the gifts became progressively more lavish and tribes put on larger and grander feasts and celebrations in an attempt to out-do each other.
1535: Wampum
The earliest known use of wampum, which are strings of beads made from clam
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Extract 3
Virginia Clary said: "The savings banks use the Ubco as a correspondent bank. We sell mortgages to them. We're all doing the same thing — banking. But there is our side and their side. Why?"
"Do you know the difference between a commercial and a savings bank?"
She nodded, blew out smoke and waved it away in a business-like manner, as if disposing of the question. "They can't make business loans."
"That's a by-product of the real difference." "Which is?"
"Which is shrouded in the mists of time," Palmer explained. "Back, oh, about a century and a half. Right after the turn of the nineteenth century. Poor people could do only two things with their money: hide it under the mattress, or spend it. It wasn't safe under the mattress, so they spent it on the thing that would let them forget their
poverty: whisky." |
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"Ah, well I know the feeling." |
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"The |
do-gooders of the day were appalled. Drunkenness was all |
about |
them. |
So they imported an idea developed in Scotland by a dominie. Minis |
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ters, |
philanthropists, educators, reformers ... they began organizing |
savings |
banks to accept the savings of poor people." |
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"Sounds pretty dastardly." |
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"Terribly. The regular banks of the period wouldn't touch anything but business deposits or the estates of wealthy men. But the savings banks would accept anything, a penny a week, whatever a wage earner wanted to put aside. And the really dastardly thing was that they invested those pennies and paid back interest to the wage earners as an incentive to save more."
"Criminal!"
"No, the worst part hasn't been explained yet." "What could be worse?" she asked.
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