BUSINESS NEWS APRIL 21ST, 2016
The Dow's run at a record high stalled Thursday amid a drop in blue chip shares as traders react to the European Central Bank leaving interest rates unchanged and mixed U.S. economic data. After rising in seven of the past eight previous trading sessions and climbing to its highest level since July and within 1.2% of a new record high, the Dow Jones industrial average ended down 114 points, or 0.6%. The benchmark S&P 500 index in recent days had rallied to within 1 percent of its May record high, buoyed by a softer dollar and recovering crude prices. But investors had little patience for quarterly scorecards failing to meet already toned-down expectations.
ESPN ANALYST FIRED OVER ANTI-LGBT COMMENT
According to a statement from ESPN on Wednesday, Major League Baseball analyst Curt Schilling has been let go due to an anti-transgender meme that he posted on his Facebook page. The caption read: "Let him in to the restroom with your daughter or else you're a narrow minded, judgmental, unloving, racist bigot who needs to die!". Schilling later commented that he did not create the image, and just “made a comment about the basic functionality of mens and womens restrooms”. However, this kind of behavior is not new with Schilling. In August, while covering the World Series, Schilling posted a picture that drew a comparison between Muslims and Nazis. He was banned for the entire MLB season that year.
THE QUEEN’S TRUE INCOME
Queen Elizabeth will spend her 90th birthday at Windsor Castle, the oldest occupied castle in the world. However, despite this extravagance, the Queen is not nearly as rich as one would expect. She is neither the richest woman in the world (Liliane Bettencourt, net worth $40 billion) nor the richest Briton (Gerald Grosvenor, net worth $12.9 billion). The Queen’s personal fortune is worth approximately $340 million, enough to live quite comfortably, but pocket change to most of the world’s richest people. So where does the Queen get her money? CNN Money reports that she has three verifiable sources of income: the Sovereign Grant, the Privy Purse, and her personal fortune.
TUBMAN TO BE INCLUDED ON $20 BILL
Harriet Tubman, most famous for the Underground Railroad, will be joining former President and verified slave owner Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill. After much debate over whether to kick Hamilton off the $10 bill and Jackson off the $20 bill, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew announced that Hamilton would remain on the 10, with a collage of women on the back, while Jackson would be moved to the back of the 20 in favor of Harriet Tubman. When asked about the fairness of this decision, Lew pointed out that Andrew Jackson has a statue facing the White House in Lafayette Park. While many revere Jackson as an American hero who opened the White House and politics to the common man, many say his views on slavery, as well as his involvement in the Trail of Tears should disqualify him from representing U.S. currency.
PENNY’S FUTURE UNCLEAR
The penny is the most ubiquitous currency in America. There are nearly 240 billion pennies in the economy, sitting in donation jars, lying on the streets, lining the inside of people's’ wallets. Their end has long been called for, but like a bad penny, the penny just continues to turn up. While most pennies are not in circulation, their cost has increased ever so slightly. It now costs approximately 1.4 cents to make one penny, which is now made of zinc. The U.S. Mint shipped 9.2 billion pennies last year, spending $130 billion to make them. Gregory Mankiw, author of a widely used Economics textbook, said that when people start leaving a monetary unit at the counter for the next customer, that monetary unit is too small to be useful.