Word: columbus
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Maria L. St. Brisson Moreno Columbus...
...market break came on Tuesday. That was when the naition's banks reopened after the Columbus Day holiday, and made their response to the Fed's discount-rate rise. Led by Chase Manhattan, the nation's third largest bank, several institutions immediately raised the prime rate (the interest charged the most credit-worthy corporate customers) from 13.5%, already a record, to a new peak of 14.5%. Since quarter-point raises are the norm, the effect of the full-point boost in the prime was electric. Not only did it push the interest charged to margin investors up close...
Historically, bonds have been difficult to sell at a time of rapidly rising interest rates. The IBM paper carried a yield of 9.41%, whereas even the new Treasury notes and government bonds returned fractionally higher interest. Also, over the Columbus Day weekend, rumors began to circulate that IBM's third-quarter earnings were down. In fact, as announced late in the week, they fell 18%. The unsold paper, possibly $300 million worth, was dumped on the open market, where it fared badly. IBM's timing ignored a hoary Wall Street axiom: "Never commit yourself to a major issue...
...Columbus, greeted by the peaceful Arawaks on Hispaniola, was immediately warned about the man-eating Caribs on nearby islands. The conquistadors reported that the Aztecs butchered victims, ate the flesh and fed the entrails to zoo animals. Henry Morton Stanley said he was beset on all sides by savage cannibals during his famous trek through Africa to find Livingstone. Margaret Mead wrote about the man-eating Mundugumor of New Guinea. There is only one thing wrong with all these reports: they come second or third hand, and are probably false. That is the surprising thesis of a new book called...
Arens says Columbus passed on tales of cannibalism to his Spanish masters to help establish a slave trade. In one report he wrote of the Caribs: "The welfare of said cannibals. . . has raised the thought the more that may be sent over [to Spain] the better." Afterward, on one Caribbean island after another, natives were identified as cannibals, then enslaved. Says Arens: "Thus the operational definition of cannibalism in the 16th century was resistance to foreign invasion followed by being sold into slavery...