Thursday, April 24, 2008

The Euro to Be a Failed Currency?

Now I find this extremely dang interesting. According to a column in the April 21, 2008, issue of Forbes magazine, there is some possibility that the whole common currency thing in Europe is failing. That is to say, the Euro will fail and the countries over there will revert to their old currencies, i.e., the franc, the deutsche mark, the lira, etc. Who knew?

The writer, Avi Tiomkin, is described as a "macroeconomic adviser to hedge funds." The gist of his argument is that different countries want and need different things economically, and it is these tensions that will ultimately lead some countries to abandon the euro and return to what they used before. He begins the column stating that
It is only a matter of time, probably less than three years, until the euro experiment meets its end.
He also states that
Along with the steep selloff that will precede the disintegration of the high-flying euro, other markets will be shaken.
He then goes on to recommend that investors should
Gradually start to hoard dollars and short the euro. Another strategy is to sell investments in Italy and Spain and buy German fixed-income assets.
I don't know about you but this is the first I've heard of this. Not that I'm some big investor to take measures to prepare, but I never dreamed something like a currency in use in such a large area even could fail. You live and learn, I guess. I know I'll be watching with interest in the next three years.

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

A Digression Just To Make Some Money

I'm going to do this just because I can. If you're not interested just ignore this particular post. Besides, making a bit of cash this easily is pretty dang interesting to me.

Everyone is familiar with PayPal, right? That company that lets you send and receive money via the Web? Well, they now have competition. Apparently Steve Case, one of the cofounders of AOL, has started this thing called Revolution Money Exchange, and for everyone who signs up before May 15 gets an immediate $25 in their account to spend, withdraw, or whatever they want to do. So you can't lose, right? And I checked it out--they are legit. They're a registered bank and you do have to give them your social security number, as you do with any bank account. Then, if you refer anyone else to them who signs up you get an extra $10.

So here's the link. Just click on the image to get started. Do it if it appeals to you. Either way, I'll be back to regular posts after this one.


Refer A Friend using Revolution Money Exchange

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

When The Jews And Muslims Were Friends

I mentioned last time that I was reading Christianity and Islam in Spain, A.D. 756-1031, by Charles Reginald Haines, and that the Jews of Spain aided the Moors in their conquest of that country. Here's some more on that subject.

The persecution of the Jews by the Gothic Spaniards naturally made them the implacable enemies of the Christians. Being a very numerous colony in Spain--for Hadrian had transported thither many thousand families--the Jews gave the Arabs very effective help in conquering the country, both by betraying places to them, and garrisoning captured towns while the Arabs went on to fresh conquests. Consequently the relations between the Jews and Moslems were for a long time very cordial, though this cordiality wore off in the course of time. . .

In France the prejudice against the Jews shewed itself very strongly among the clergy, though Louis I and his wife Judith favoured them. They were generally ill-treated, and their slaves were induced by the clergy to be baptized. Thereupon they became free, as Jews were not allowed to have Christian slaves. But it must be admitted that the Franks had reason for disliking the Jews, as it was well known that they sold Christian children as slaves to the Moslems of Spain.

Wow. That last remark is one of the things I often find most interesting in reading old texts. This is one of the things that makes Haines especially interesting as a writer. He shows his prejudices openly and yet still manages to view the overall picture with amazing objectivity in light of his prejudices. Did the Jews really sell Christian children to the Moors as slaves? I have no idea, but it sounds like one of those urban legends that everyone knows but no one can prove or find a source for. Still, considering how badly the Jews were treated it wouldn't surprise me if it happened at least once or twice. Vengeance leads people to do pretty outrageous things some times.

Anyway, all things must pass and a bit later Haines notes that:

The good understanding between the Jews and the Arabs with the gradual process of time gave place to an ill-concealed hostility, and at the beginning of the twelfth century there seems even to have been a project formed for forcing the Jews to become Moslems on the ground of a promise made by their forefathers to Mohammed that, if in five centuries their Messiah had not appeared, they would be converted to Mohammedanism.

Of course, when the Christian retook Spain the Jews were in a bit of a bind. The Christians still hated them and now they had the added impetus of the Jews' collaboration with the Moors. Interestingly, the Jews of Toledo appear to have pulled a fast one in 1085 when the Christians reclaimed that city. Says Haines:

They waited on Alfonso and assured him that they were part of the ten tribes whom Nebuchadnezzar transported into Spain, and not the descendants of those Jerusalem Jews who crucified Christ. Their ancestors, they said, were quite free from the guilt of this act, for when Caiaphas had written to the Toledan synagogue for their advice respecting the person who claimed to be the Messiah, the Toledan Jews returned for answer, that in their judgment the prophecies seemed to be fulfilled in Him and therefore He ought not by an means to be put to death. This reply they produced in the original Hebrew. It is needless to say that the whole thing was a fabrication.

A little fast footwork there, wouldn't you say?

Eventually, the Inquisition murdered and drove out all the Jews from Spain, with the exception of those known today to have continued their rituals in private while publicly accepting Christianity. The remaining Moslems were also killed or driven out, and you have to give Haines credit that he states, "The story of the treatment of Jews by Christians is indeed one of the darkest in the history of Christianity."