And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more:<\/i><\/p>\n
\u2014Rev. 18:11<\/i><\/p>\n
1065<\/b> $1 B Every 4 Hours<\/b><\/p>\n
It took sixty years from 1789 to 1848 and the first eleven Presidents combined, before the US Government spent its first 1 billion dollars. Today, the government spends 1 billion dollars every 4 hours. <\/p>\n
Maxwell Droke has an interesting calculation: \u201cIf Christopher Columbus established a business firm in America the day he discovered this continent, and he and his successors in that firm managed their affairs so poorly that they lost a thousand dollars a day, they would have to operate until the year 4232 to pile up the first billion in losses.\u201d<\/p>\n
1066<\/b> 1977 U.S. Budget<\/b><\/p>\n
In 1977, for the first time ever, the Government in Washington spent more than 400 billion dollars in a single year. This was more than 200 million dollars an hour each working day of the year. <\/p>\n
Moreover during the 1977 fiscal year, the government was almost 70 billion dollars in the red. This topped the largest ever deficit of 66.5 billion in 1976. <\/p>\n
The budget for 1981 was another record $615 billion in spending. Deficit was brought down to $15.8 billion. <\/p>\n
1067<\/b> Budget Allocations<\/b><\/p>\n
More than half the total budget of the US centered on health, welfare and other programs in the so-called \u201chuman resources\u201d area. Nearly a quarter of the budget was allotted for defense. The remainder went for interest on the public debt, government programs and thousands of other activities. <\/p>\n
1068<\/b> Record International Borrowing<\/b><\/p>\n
The Morgan Guaranty Trust Co. says that the amount of borrowing across international borders\u2014both through bank loans and foreign bond issues\u2014set a new record of 78 billion dollars in 1976. <\/p>\n
Since a big amount of this borrowing is from developing countries without oil production, the spectre of an epidemic of bankruptcies among the debtor nations persists. <\/p>\n
1069<\/b> SDR\u2014New Kind Of Money<\/b><\/p>\n
A news report from Libreville Gabon says that the world\u2019s major oil producers have decided to drop the U. S. dollar in place of the \u201ccurrency cocktail\u201d known as Special Drawing Rights (SDR). This statement came from a meeting of the powerful Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), the oil cartel which accounts for 80\u201385% of world oil exports. <\/p>\n
The SDRs are a special reserve asset created by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the value of which is determined by a weighted average of 16 world currencies, including the US dollar. Its value is less subject to fluctuation. It was created in July 1974. <\/p>\n
1070<\/b> Black Friday<\/b><\/p>\n
American history had its Black Friday, when the great financial panic occurred on September 24, 1869, as a result of the manipulation of the securities market by Fisk and Gould. October 24, 1929, is remembered as Black Thursday when the Great Depression began with the crash of the stock market. Just one week before the 1929 crash, Professor Irving Fisher of Yale University had announced, \u201cStock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.\u201d And then sudden chaos. <\/p>\n
1071<\/b> Jefferson\u2019s Debt<\/b><\/p>\n
In 1803, near the end of his first term as President, Thomas Jefferson wrote to a creditor asking for more time to pay a debt of $558.16. During the depression year of 1936 the Morris Plan Bank of Virginia printed 30,000 copies of Jefferson\u2019s letter as proof that even the best of us borrow and sometimes have trouble making good. Since then copies of Jefferson\u2019s letter have kept turning up all over the United States. It seems that history is determined to remember Jefferson\u2019s debt. <\/p>\n
\u2014Prairie Overcomer<\/i><\/p>\n
1072<\/b> A 58% Interest<\/b><\/p>\n
A 1938 investigation of loan sharks in the south uncovered a firm in the Dallas area which was charging 58% interest annually from its destitute borrowers. One of the victims had borrowed $20 to settle a hospital bill. He was charged $2.25 a week. Nine years later, during the investigations, the interest had skyrocketed to $1,053 plus the $20. <\/p>\n
1073<\/b> Pay-As-You-Go Costly<\/b><\/p>\n
Said Governor Dewey, urging a pay-as-you-go policy in government: \u201cBack in the 1860\u2019s Borough fathers decreed a new road for what is now Central Avenue in the Bronx. It was to be the latest thing\u2014a plank road. The fathers sold bonds for that plank road at seven percent interest. The plank road rotted away and Central Avenue had to be paved. It probably has been repaved many times since. <\/p>\n
\u201cToday, decades after the plank road is forgotten, the City of New York is still paying seven percent interest on those bonds and it will continue to pay seven percent interest until the bonds are retired\u2014in the year 2147! <\/p>\n
\u201cThat plank road originally cost $390,000. When the last bond is retired, it will have cost the people three million dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014New York Daily Mirror<\/i><\/p>\n
1074<\/b> Baring The List Helps<\/b><\/p>\n
William Webb, a butcher of West Worthing, Canada, put up this notice in his window: \u201cThis business has been compelled to close owing to bad debts. A list of the names and amounts owing will shortly be shown.\u201d Money rolled in; the shop is open again, and business is flourishing. <\/p>\n
\u2014Regina Leader-Post<\/p>\n
1075<\/b> Mark Twain And Bankers<\/b><\/p>\n
Mark Twain made a fortune out of his books, went bankrupt when he turned publisher himself, and then paid every cent of his debts and became rich again by virtue of new writings and fabulously successful lecture tours. His financial troubles did not increase his affection for the banking fraternity. He defined a banker as a man who \u201cloaned you an umbrella when the sun was shining and demanded its return the moment it started to rain.\u201d<\/p>\n
He invented the story of a bank president who was proud of a glass eye that had been made for him by the greatest artist in Paris. \u201cTwain you need $5000,\u201d he quoted this gentleman. \u201cI\u2019ll give it to you if you can guess which of my eyes is the glass one.\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s the left one, of course,\u201d snapped Twain. \u201cIt\u2019s the only one with a glint of human kindness in it.\u201d<\/p>\n
1076<\/b> Birth Of Credit Union<\/b><\/p>\n
Millions take their credit unions for granted until they need a low interest loan. But how many know that the credit union idea was born in the mind of a devoted Christian who established the first union as part of his discipleship. <\/p>\n
Friedrich W. Raffeisen was the almost-blind mayor of a small German town. His father had died the year after he was born and he was tutored by a minister. As a child and later in public life he kept as his motto: \u201cInasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.\u201d<\/p>\n
He saw the hardship of poor people during a time of famine when peasants existed on a diet of sauerkraut and chicory brew. Most of what they grew was pledged as payment on loans to local money lenders. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut this is not the only reason for misery,\u201d he wrote. \u201cThey have to change their ways. Look how they spend their money on cards and drinking each Saturday night.\u201d<\/p>\n
His first credit union, a cooperative of poor people, was so successful that he was asked to start others. Before he died, he had personally organized 423 credit unions and the fame of his plan had spread throughout Europe. <\/p>\n
\u2014James C. Hefley<\/p>\n
1077<\/b> Poor John Closing Shop<\/b><\/p>\n
A depression victim in Sedalia, Mo., displayed the following sign in his cigar store window:<\/p>\n
\u201cJohn is closing this shop on the first. The following services we have rendered for the past twenty years will be found at these places: Stamps at the post office. Free ice water at the soda fountain next door. Telephone at the hotel. Baseball scores at Western Union. Road information at the Chamber of Commerce. Railroad information at the depot. Magazines at drug stores. And loafing on the courthouse lawn\u2014Poor John.\u201d<\/p>\n
1078<\/b> She Wants To Pay Full<\/b><\/p>\n
A little girl had saved up enough money to buy her father a present for Father\u2019s Day but was concerned about one thing. \u201cI can\u2019t be going downtown every month to make payments,\u201d she said to her mother. \u201cIs there a store where they\u2019ll let you pay the whole thing at once?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Bill Gold in Washington Post<\/i><\/p>\n
1079<\/b> Let Creditors Worry<\/b><\/p>\n
A man from Pergia was walking down a street with a sad and worried look on his face. He ran into a fellow who asked him what the matter was. He replied that he had a lot of debts and that he couldn\u2019t possibly meet the payments. \u201cYou stupid!\u201d said the other, \u201cmind your own business, and let your creditors worry.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Italian Renaissance Wit<\/i><\/p>\n
1080<\/b> Epigram On Debts<\/b><\/p>\n
\u2022 Its cheaper to buy than to receive something as a gift. <\/p>\n
\u2014Japanese Proverb<\/p>\n
\u2022 If you would know the value of money, go and try to borrow some. <\/p>\n
\u2014Benjamin Franklin<\/p>\n
\u2022 Before borrowing money from a friend, you\u2019d better decide which you need more. <\/p>\n
\u2022 He who borrows sells his freedom. <\/p>\n
\u2014German Proverb<\/p>\n
\u2022 About the time you struggle up even with the Joneses, they refinance! <\/p>\n
\u2022 The following sign is said to be prominently displayed in a coffee shop in Milwaukee:<\/p>\n
\u201cYou want credit\u2014I no give, you get sore. You want credit\u2014I give, you no pay, I get sore. Better you get sore.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2022 For a price, Californians can choose any six-letter combination for their auto-license plates. In a Los Angeles parking lot this choice on a big new Cadillac: IN DEBT. <\/p>\n
\u2022 Woman to credit manager: \u201cWe re having trouble with your easy-payment plan. Do you have an easier one?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014National Enquirer <\/i><\/p>\n
\u2022 Notice sent by the Ministers Life and Casualty Union of Minneapolis: \u201cOur limited supply of the booklet Facts You Should Know About Budgeting<\/i> has run out. Instead, we have enclosed the booklet Facts You Should Know About Borrowing<\/i>, which we hope will be useful to you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2022 A black granite abstract sculpture recently unveiled in the plaza of the new Bank of America headquarters building in San Francisco quickly became known as \u201cThe Banker\u2019s Heart.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Wall Street Journal <\/i><\/p>\n
1081<\/b> France\u2019s Nobility Directory<\/b><\/p>\n
A newly-published directory of the French nobility lists only 4,057 genuine noble families for all of France, leaving out 23,943 other families who have tacked titles onto their names. The Dincionnaire De La Noblesse Francaise<\/i> is authored by Count Fernand De Rouvroy and Baron Etienne de la Sereville who spent 15 years researching and 14 months writing the 1,214-page book. <\/p>\n
The research showed about 28,000 families in France with noble titles, but only 4,057 true noble families with blue blood decreed by the French crown in recognition of their lands or services under the pre-revolution, the restoration or the empires. <\/p>\n
Under the book, with about 24 persons per family in France, a total of 564,632 French citizens claiming titles were false. <\/p>\n
1082<\/b> His Courtship By Mail<\/b><\/p>\n
Chipping Norton, England, truck driver Leonard Clifford, 26, arrived in the village of Over Norton to meet the girl he had courted by mail for two years and planned to marry. But instead of the 22 year-old blonde, whose picture he had been sent, Clifford found he had been courting Mrs. Elizabeth Cain, 37-year-old mother of two. <\/p>\n
Mrs. Cain pleaded guilty in Chipping Norton court to obtaining by fraud an engagement ring, presents and $860 from Clifford. She was sent to Oxford crown court for sentence. <\/p>\n
\u2014United Press International<\/i><\/p>\n
1083<\/b> Genuine Fakes Guaranteed<\/b><\/p>\n
For a decade after 1918, an Italian sculptor, Alceo Dossena, reproduced numerous pieces of Renaissance sculpture and sold the majority, at an average price of $200, to an art dealer, who claimed that he disposed of them as copies. However, as they were such clever imitations, the dealer sold the pieces as originals for fabulous sums to the world\u2019s leading art museums and private collectors. <\/p>\n
Dossena happened to learn the fact in 1928 and sued the crooked art dealer for a part of the huge profits. The resultant publicity made Dossena and his imitations so famous that, at an auction of his works in New York five years later, the Italian government felt it advisable to give each buyer an official document that guaranteed his purchase to be a genuine fake of the sculptor. <\/p>\n
\u2014Freling Foster<\/p>\n
1084<\/b> Horse Was Just Horsing<\/b><\/p>\n
Late in 1969, there was an unusual sight at a race track. One horse apparently became discouraged by its distance behind the front-runners, and jumped the fence to cut across the oval and catch up. But the sulky didn\u2019t quite make it, and a photograph in a sports magazine showed the horse halted by the vehicle: one wheel had cleared the fence, and one was still on the other side. Commented the magazine, \u201cHorses are for courses\u2014shortcuts not allowed.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more: \u2014Rev. 18:11 1065 $1 B Every 4 Hours It took sixty years from 1789 to 1848 and the first eleven Presidents combined, before the US Government spent its first 1 billion dollars. Today, the government … Continue reading “DEBTS”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4986\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}