Content tagged with “finance” under “The Interesting List”

“ Some US currency have a star a the end of the serial number because they were reissued to correct a manufacturing error. ”

“ Gold from a lot of different countries is stored in a vault under New York City. Exchanging funds many countries therefore just involves moving gold from one shelf to another. ”

“ When you win a hole-in-one contest (or any other longshot contest), the organizer isn’t sad, because they paid a fee to ensure they didn’t have to pay out the prize. ”

“ Airlines make little money on ticket sales. Most of their profits come from selling miles/points to marketing partners like credit cards, hotels, and car rental agencies. ”

“ The U.S. president is allowed to issue commemorative coins into circulation, effectively creating small amounts of money. So, why not large amounts of money? ”

“ A long-retired baseball player gets a nice paycheck every year because the owner of his former club thought Bernie Madoff’s financial gains were real. ”

“ A guy hardly anyone knew about set a record for the largest financial loss in the shortest amount of time. And he did serious damage to a couple of banks along the way. ”

“ Last year, Citibank accidentally sent half a billion dollars to a client’s lenders. But since the client owed the money anyway, the recipients kept it. Lawsuits ensued. ”

“ Graying COBOL programmers still get pressed into service to modify programs that might otherwise run for decades without changes. Also, in many cases, the Y2K problem was never fixed, just deferred. ”

“ Movies will make fake money as props. To work in the world of high-def, sometimes they make it too accurate, and they get in trouble with the Secret Service. ”

“ A history of the credit card industry and the two biggest players, which were both named something else when they started. ”

“ A graphical look at how the stock markets reacted during the expansion and contraction phases of various pandemics. ”

“ Starbucks has created a closed economy of gift cards and app purchases that it controls. It essentially has a secondary income stream of loaning money to its own customers as a specialty private bank. ”