Word: billion
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...only way to determine how the universe is developing is to study how it has developed in the past. Astronomers look backward in time by looking outward in space. The best optical telescope can see galaxies that are 2 billion light-years away, i.e., with light that left them (at a travel speed of 186,300 miles per second) when they were 2 billion years younger than they are now. But 2 billion years is a comparatively short backward leap into the cosmic past, does not reveal enough evidence of change to prove or disprove either theory...
...decision will be made by taking a galaxy census in a large chunk of space so distant that the galaxies in it are seen on earth as they were 5 or 6 billion years ago. If the galaxies prove to be crowded closer together than they are in the section of space near the earth, the primeval atom will have won the contest-since, according to the cosmic evolutionary theory, the universe was much smaller 6 billion years ago and its galaxies were therefore closer together...
Time to Digest. In the sense that the drop was the fastest and deepest, the recession was the worst since World War II. The gross national product lost $19.8 billion in six months. It was also the most carefully reported, closely analyzed and best understood of the three postwar recessions. Everyone knew the basic causes: businessmen, expanding at fantastic rates ever since World War II, had to slow down; the economy needed time to sit back and digest all the new capacity. Plant expansion, roaring along at the rate of $37.8 billion in 1957, dropped to $29.6 billion...
...that the number of stockholders passed the 10 million mark. Merrill Lynch alone is adding new accounts at the rate of 950 a week. Mutual funds are growing almost as fast. In 1940 there were only 68 mutual funds with $448 million in assets; today 149 funds hold $12.75 billion in assets, the great bulk of it stocks. Another $12 billion in stocks is held by other institutional buyers such as insurance companies and pension funds. Even such stiff-collared investment bankers as Lehman Bros. and Lazard Frères went into the fund business, unable to resist the clamor...
...Great Shortage. Inevitably, the rush to buy-and the reluctance to sell-created a shortage of stocks in 1958. Though the number of shares on the exchange has increased 400% (to 5 billion) since 1929, the number of long-term investors has probably grown 20 times. The year saw the fourth highest turnover in history; yet turnover as a percentage of shares outstanding was lower than in 49 out of the past 58 years. To make matters tighter, the number of new shares coming on the market had been small. The tax advantages of debt financing are so attractive that...