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[Editor’s Note: As we’re coming up on the end of the year, we thought it would be appropriate to republish some of our most popular articles. Today’s was originally published on March 14, 2017] Thousands of years ago, as far back as 3000 BC, the ancient Egyptians had developed a highly advanced system
[Editor’s Note: As we’re coming up on the end of the year, we thought it would be appropriate to republish some of our most popular articles. Today’s was originally published on March 13, 2017] In the year 1517, one of the most important innovations in financial history was invented in Amsterdam: the government
[Editor’s Note: As we’re coming up on the end of the year, we thought it would be appropriate to republish some of our most popular articles. Today’s was originally published on January 2, 2017] Last week during a long overdue vacation, a close friend of mine recommended reading the autobiography of Rich DeVos
It’s that time of year again– the time when everyone seems to be channeling his or her inner Nostradamus, peering into the crystal ball, and making predictions about what we’re going to see next year. There’s a great quote that’s often mis-attributed to Mark Twain: “Predictions are hard, especially about the future.” (The
Last weekend while I was in Denver, I had the opportunity to speak with a young man from the Netherlands who was attending our charity event. It was his first trip to the United States, and I’m always interested to hear people’s first impressions. He told me he was really overwhelmed with the
The same day Bitcoin cracked its all-time high above $11,000, the government dealt its first blow to the crypto world… On Wednesday, a federal judge in San Francisco ordered the popular Bitcoin exchange, Coinbase, to provide the IRS with information on over 14,000 account holders. The taxman noticed that only 800-900 people reported
Another day, another major banking scandal. It’s getting to the point where you can practically set your watch to these things. The latest involves our old friend Wells Fargo. The Wall Street Journal reported last night that Wells has been screwing its customers on foreign currency exchange rates. According to the Journal, Wells
On the morning of February 27, 1992, 79-year old Stella Liebeck and her grandson Chris pulled up to a McDonald’s drive-through in Albuquerque, New Mexico and ordered a $0.49 cup of coffee. Chris pulled the car over and parked momentarily so that his grandmother could add cream and sugar. While doing so, she
By January 1920, much of Europe was in total chaos following the end of the first World War. Unemployment soared and steep inflation was setting in across Spain, Italy, Germany, etc. But an Italian-American businessman who was living in Boston noticed a unique opportunity amid all of that devastation. He realized that he
About twelve years ago, at the height of the real estate boom in the United States, banks began issuing what became known as NINJA loans. You’ve probably heard the term before– NINJA stood for No Income, Job, or Assets. These were the famed ‘no money down’ loans at low, teaser interest rates given
Roughly two thousand years ago, the government of ancient Rome was facing a serious problem. The tributium capitus, or poll tax, they had imposed across their provinces was becoming unpopular. And there was a growing minority of Roman subjects who felt they were being forced to pay an overly burdensome and disproportionately high
Every quarter the United States government publishes a list of individuals who have chosen to renounce their US citizenship. The latest list came out yesterday, and 1,376 people are on it. That might sound like a small number, but the total for 2017 is projected to be more than 20% higher than 2016…
500 years ago to the day, on October 31, 1517, a German monk of the Augustinian order named Martin Luther sent a letter to his Archbishop expressing concern about certain practices of Church officials. In Luther’s era it had become typical for clergymen to sell ‘indulgences’ to anyone who wanted to be pardoned
There’s been something happening this month that very few people have noticed. It’s been lost beneath all the other headline-dominating news, from the Las Vegas shooting to Harvey Weinstein to the Mueller investigation. But very quietly behind the scenes there’s been an extremely rapid uptick in the US national debt. In the month
On April 30, 1934, under pressure from Italian-American lobby groups, the United States Congress passed a law enshrining Columbus Day as a national holiday. President Franklin Roosevelt quickly signed the bill into law, and the very first Columbus Day was celebrated in October of that year. Undoubtedly people had a different view of
