Karl Marx was one of the most important thinkers of the 19th century. As one of thefounders of Communism he predicted that workers world rebel against theowners of factories and take over the economy and the government themselves. In the 1900s Marx’s ideas influenced many Communistgovernments. Karl Marx was born in 1818 in Trier, Germany. He came from a Jewish family but his father converted to Lutheranism before Karl was born. In […]
Each human needs about 20 litres of water a day for the basics – washing, cooking and drinking. But there are many places around the world, where people get five litres of water and less to live on. The situation is worst in Africa, especially some communities of Eastern Africa. Why do some places have so little water and how will the availability of water […]
Older people often talk about how cheap things were when they were young. Abrand new car may have cost only $5,000 compared to $20,000 today, or petrol that cost only a few cents in the 60s costs over a dollar today. Inflation happens when money loses some of its value. We measure the rise of inflation in percent. For example, 2% inflation means […]
One of the biggest problems about buying a car is that you often have to borrow a lot of money so that you can pay for one. In most cases new cars cost tens of thousands of dollars, a price that not everyone can afford. In India car maker Tata Motors have brought out the cheapest car in the world: the Nano, […]
An international survey has found out that women are better at managing moneythan men. They work harder to become financially independent and they are not as likely to get into debt as men. The survey showed that both men and women think the same. Almost 5,000 men and women in 12 countries were asked. Although 40% of women said they used credit cards most of […]
For the first time in history more cars have been sold in China than in the United States. One of the reasons is that the economic crisis has not hit China as badly as the United States. Although sales are also down compared to the figures of last year there are still many customers in Chinese car showrooms. China has a lot to catch up on. Car analysts point out that […]
Nindoma Sherpa started going to school when she was five, but not to learn how to read and write. She lived in a small village in Nepal where everyone was hungry. When the United Nations started a food programme in her village children whoattended could get meals for free. At the beginning she just went there to […]
The banana war is the longest running trade dispute in the world. The conflict centres on bananas that are imported to the European Union. In the 1950s and 60s European colonies in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific region (known as ACP countries) became independent. In the 1970s the European Union started to let the Caribbean countries export bananas to European […]
When we think of oil, the part of the world that comes to our mind first may be the Middle East. But petroleum development takes place all over the world. Nigeria , for example, is the largest oil producer in Africa and the eleventh largest producer in the world. Russia is the world’s second largest exporter of […]
What does it mean that the U.S. dollar is “falling”? Falling from where? No, dollar bills aren’t dropping out of the sky — although that would be pretty cool. It means that any money you have is falling in value compared with the money used by other countries. A bit of math might help explain this. Let’s […]