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The Cross of Gold speech was delivered by William Jennings Bryan, a former congressman from Nebraska, at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on July 9, 1896. In the address, Bryan supported bimetallism or "free silver", which he believed would bring the nation prosperity. He decried the gold standard, concluding the speech, "you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold". Bryan's address helped catapult him to the Democratic Party's presidential nomination; it is considered one of the greatest political speeches in American history. For twenty years, Americans had been bitterly divided over the nation's monetary standard. Many Americans believed bimetallism (making both gold and silver legal tender) was necessary to the nation's economic health. Bryan's speech, delivered at the close of the debate on the party platform, electrified the convention and is generally credited with getting him the nomination for president. However, he lost the general election to William McKinley and the United States formally adopted the gold standard in 1900.

Tripoli, financial capital of Libya

The economy of Libya depends primarily on revenues from the petroleum sector, which represents over 95% of export earnings and 60% of GDP. These oil revenues and a small population have given Libya one of the highest nominal per capita GDP in Africa.

After 2000, Libya recorded favorable growth rates with an estimated 10.6% growth of GDP in 2010. This development was interrupted by the Libyan Civil War, which resulted in contraction of the economy by 62.1% in 2011. After the war, the economy rebounded by 104.5% in 2012. It crashed again following the Second Libyan Civil War. As of 2017, Libya's per capita PPP GDP stands at 60% of its pre-war level. (Full article...)

"The type of fallacy involved in projecting loss experience from a universe of non-insured bonds onto a deceptively-similar universe in which many bonds are insured pops up in other areas of finance. “Back-tested” models of many kinds are susceptible to this sort of error. Nevertheless, they are frequently touted in financial markets as guides to future action. (If merely looking up past financial data would tell you what the future holds, the Forbes 400 would consist of librarians.)

Indeed, the stupefying losses in mortgage-related securities came in large part because of flawed, history-based models used by salesmen, rating agencies and investors. These parties looked at loss experience over periods when home prices rose only moderately and speculation in houses was negligible. They then made this experience a yardstick for evaluating future losses. They blissfully ignored the fact that house prices had recently skyrocketed, loan practices had deteriorated and many buyers had opted for houses they couldn’t afford. In short, universe “past” and universe “current” had very different characteristics. But lenders, government and media largely failed to recognize this all-important fact.

Investors should be skeptical of history-based models. Constructed by a nerdy-sounding priesthood using esoteric terms such as beta, gamma, sigma and the like, these models tend to look impressive. Too often, though, investors forget to examine the assumptions behind the symbols. Our advice: Beware of geeks bearing formulas."

—Warren Buffett, To the Shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., 2009

• ... that railroad transportation executive William Phillips Hall was known as the "business millionaire evangelist"?
• ... that Dane Hansen started a road-construction business with about 100 mules that he was unable to sell to the US Army after World War I ended?
• ... that New Zealand politician Hamish Campbell is a cancer researcher and runs a flower-delivery business?
• ... that the Electronic Arrays 9002 microprocessor was developed to get the company out of the calculator business, but instead led to their disappearance?
• ... that according to witnesses, the plutonium charge in the bomb used in the nuclear weapons test Gerboise Verte was transported in an economy car?
• ... that the 2017 acquisition of Katz Broadcasting by the E. W. Scripps Company was seen as a validation of the business of diginets?

July 15:

• 2011 - Friedrich Wilhelm Schnitzler, a German landowner and business manager, died on this day.

• ... that Well No. 4 in the Pico Canyon Oilfield was the first commercially successful oil well in the Western United States and the longest producing oil well in the world at 114 years?

• ...that, unlike the accounting systems that help in the preparation of financial reports periodically, cost accounting systems and reports are not subject to rules and standards like the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles?

• ... that during the Great Depression, violence in Seattle's Smith Cove between longshoremen, strikebreakers and police ultimately resulted in the loss of much of the city's maritime traffic to the Port of Los Angeles?

Wikinews Economy and business portal

• July 21: Technological University Dublin senior lecturer Dr Lorcan Sirr speaks to Wikinews on housing market in Ireland
• July 15: California governor signs new state budget, eligible Californians to get stimulus payments
• July 4: 130 OECD countries agree to back global corporate tax rate
• June 30: 'Each makes the other more difficult to recover from': University of Sussex professor L. Alan Winters speaks to Wikinews on trade, COVID-19, Brexit
• June 16: Wikinews interviews Victor Kline, leader of newly registered The New Liberals party in Australia
• April 23: Irish Finance Minister Donohoe criticises OECD's global minimum corporate tax rate
• April 17: People protest in Berlin against German Court overturning five-year rent cap
• March 5: Chancellor Rishi Sunak announces UK budget 2021
• February 10: Disney to shut down Blue Sky Studios, animation studio behind 'Ice Age'
• January 24: World Trade Organization declares US tariff hike illegal, rules in South Korea's favour