STRANGE BUT TRUE
z Want to test how ripe your cranberries are? Drop them on the ground! Cranberries are nature’s bouncy ball – farmers even use this technique to see if the fruit is ready for shipment.
z In America’s casino capital Las Vegas, it’s against the law to pawn your dentures.
z Near the end of World War I, the French built a “fake Paris” designed to throw off German bombers and fighter pilots, complete with a replica of the Champs-elysees and Gard Du Nord. It even included a fake railway that lit up at certain points, creating the illusion from the sky of a train moving along the tracks.
z Allergy sufferers, take note: One ragweed plant can release as many as 1 billion grains of pollen.
z Adolf Hitler helped design (with Ferdinand Porsche) the Volkswagen
Beetle, as part of an initiative to create “the people’s car” – an affordable, practical vehicle that everyone could own.
z Tablecloths were originally designed for use as one big, communal napkin.
z Each of the suits on a deck of cards represents the four major pillars of the economy in the Middle Ages: hearts for the Church, spades for the military, clubs for agriculture and diamonds for the merchant class.
z A person who plays the bongo drums is known as a “bongosero”.
z According to research done by American university MIT, the number 17 is the most common randomly chosen number between one and 20.
z Henry Ford produced the Model T only in black because the black paint available at the time was the fastest to dry.
Hardly a day passes where we hear or read of some corruption activities focused on money. With the Federal Budget recently introduced the opinions and strategies flowed. A book being a #1 Best Seller “The Deficit Myth” by Stephanie Kelton writes on “how to build a better economy.” Supporting the economy, paying for health care: saving businesses, creating new jobs, preventing a climate apocalypse; how are we going to pay for it all? The title shows that things we’ve been led to believe about deficits and government is wrong. Instead, the author describes how we can use our resources responsibly to maximise our potential as a society. The USA and UK media is very supportive – as one says ,“Convincingly overturns conventional wisdom” – and notes “a radical new plan for building a just and prosperous society.”
#52566 Pb 352 pgs $22.99
Graham Hancock wrote “Lords of Poverty” which relates to the aid care for poor nations. Every year the world’s cost for all official aid is paid by the richest countries. Ordinary tax payers who contribute think that the money goes to the poorest.
But it doesn’t. Where it does go beggars belief – and this book examines so many examples. In India
300 million subsist below the poverty line. When Imelda
Marcos and her husband were in control of the Philippines they were estimated to have embezzled some $10 billion
– most taken from foreign aid provided by Western taxpayers. It is now a recent book but it deals with the situations in Africa where the issue continues.
#05038 Pb 234 pgs $5.00
Author Jeffrey Sachs wrote “The End of Poverty” which covers how we can make it happen in our lifetime. Our generation has the opportunity to end extreme poverty in the world’s most desperate nations. The author, recognised as “probably the world’s most important economist” has travelled to over 100 countries advising leaders of economic development and poverty reduction. He lays out how poverty has been beaten in the past, and how we can make a difference the 20% of humanity can escape the poverty trap.
$19.95
MONEY LAND
By Oliver
Bullough. Subtitled “Why
Thieves & Crooks
Now Rule the
World & How to Take it Back” this reveals the obscene dark side of globalised finance. Read about the realm of oligarchs and gangsters, their power and zero accountability. You can see its effects are occurring everywhere. How did we get there? A small group of bankers in London had the idea - “offshore,” a zone where money could flow free. That created a reservoir of secret wealth, and one that bends the laws of every nation on Earth so that it protects it’s masters.
#57937 Pb JUST #22.95