Cigerate money in POW camp Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Cigerate money in POW camp - Essay Example Cigarettes qualified as money because it acted as a standard of deferred payment. Some buyers took commodities on credit with a promise of paying an agreed number of cigarettes in the future. Just like modern currency, cigarette money acted as a store of value so that buyers could keep their extra purchasing power for use when the Red Cross issue arrived. Traders accumulated cigarette money to help them purchase more stock when commodities arrived (Radford 5). The fact that cigarettes served both as money and as a smoke was a factor that led to the debasement of cigarette money. Buyers in the P.O.W camp savoured high quality cigarettes for smoking and only used those that were of low quality for trading. The method used in making different cigarette brands was another factor in the debasement of cigarette money. For example, machine-made cigarettes that were supplied by Red Cross could afford more than hand-rolled cigarettes. Lack of homogeneity in the worth of certain cigarettes led to the debasement of cigarette money. For example, some hand-rolled cigarettes were doubted for low quality and extreme thinness and some sellers would reject them. The cunningness of buyers in P.O.W camp to try to maximize on the few available cigarettes led them dismantling big machine-made cigarettes in order to make many smaller ones. Price fluctuations affected the stability of cigarette money and it would fall in value when prices went up (Radford 5). Like in modern economic times, a fall in the value of cigarette money was one of the factors that caused inflation in P.O.W camp. The decrease of the value of cigarette money led to inflation because some traders felt that they needed to charge more in order to realize meaningful profits. The anticipation and arrival of commodities in the P.O.W camp was another contributing factor for inflation. This manifested in price hikes when the day of the arrival of commodities

Telecommunication companies in uk (fixed line) Essay

Telecommunication companies in uk (fixed line) - Essay Example Reports have highlighted that the market volumes around the world are expected to rise to 1,180 million (Datamonitor, 2009). It has also been estimated that the voice only transmission segment generates as much as 61% of the overall market value and this amounts to almost $330.9 billion (Datamonitor, 2009). The non voice transmissions segment however generated revenue of about $204.6 billion in 2008 which totals to almost 38.2% of the market aggregate (Datamonitor, 2009). The history of telephone in Britain dates back to 1877, when telephone first arrived there. Sir William Thomson (later Lord Kelvin) demonstrated the primal telephone invented by Graham Bell to the British Association for the Advancement of Science assembly, which is situated at Glasgow in September 1876, giving its description as "the greatest by far of all the marvels of the electric telegraph" (Gow & Smith, 2006). However, the very first pair of handy telephones happened to be seen in Great Britain only in July 1877. William Preece who was the Chief Electrician of the Post Office brought this pair to UK. Later, after a few months passed, the British Association put the ‘perfected’ type of telephone by Graham Bell on display in a meeting at Plymouth. Finally, later in the year 1878, the British company took up the Bell patent and the Telephone Co. Ltd. was formed. This happens to be the oldest company in Telecommunication history of Europe, which later became well know n as BT (British Telecom). Here in, the first telephone line was set up. This was erected starting from Londons Hays Wharf at the south of the Thames stretching up to Hays Wharf Office on the northern side of the river (Connected Earth, 2007). This company later was amalgamated, taken over and eventually the control was transferred to state, under the control of the Post Office. This later became a privatized company, British Telecommunications private limited company; that serves 170 countries as on date (When