Pledge: Pledge of Allegiance by Mike Peterson

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thought of the Day:  Gary gave us an inspiring thought of the day entailing our ability to overcome apathy, selfishness, and greed to save the planet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Newscast:  Tony V, as in “V is for Victory”, or “V” is the 22^nd letter in the Valphabet in the Victionary…gave us the Newscast all about different words in the Victionary.  Apparently the original “Dictionary”, the more common usage of the term, began in 1220.  The 1^st English version was in 1798.  Did you know that English is the official language of 67 countries, but is not the official language in the US?  Shakespeare invented “blushing”, “undress”, “torture”—three words that sometimes but not always go together.  The oldest English word still in use: “town”.  “Happy” is used 3x more than “sad”. 

The first word in the dictionary, “a”, has thirty entries. The last word of the dictionary, “Zyzzva” is the genus of South African weevils found on or near palm trees.  This word displaced the formerly last word in the dictionary, “zythum”, an ancient Egyptian malt beer.  Personally, I think beer should win over insects.  Word.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunshine Report:  Carol reported that Bernie Mellott is having back surgery on Tuesday 3/5. 

Rotarians with Guests:  Jake Nguyen introduced Tanya Sheckley from UpAcademy.

Visiting Rotarians:  Lynn Armenio said that “Aranju Hungary” was visiting from out of state.

Hillsdale High School, per Omar of Poplar Creek, is asking for contributions.  Booklets of coupons are available to support sports.

Paul Harris Award—Rosemary Azem presented one to Nancy Stanton, her 1^st.

Dick Bennett announced that this Thurs 3/7 will be meeting on creating Community Service Recommendations on how to spend the $32k to non-profits.

Fellowship:  Mama Mia will be shown May 17 at Hillbarn Theater, 8pm, $35 each.  Book it now!

Birthday Table: Happy Birthday

Chuck Cattano was recognized for his daughter Cate’s receiving her Black Belt at the age of 15.  Of note, the judges skipped the Junior Black Belt and awarded her the Adult 1^st Degree Black Belt.

 

Chris Eckert was recognized for drinking 4 shots of bourbon before becoming Raquel Christine Chris Eckert, who then became Richard Christopher Simmonds Eckert. Both very scary.

 

Bob Binn was recognized for being recognized elsewhere in society, which is a LOT better than being famous for being famous.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hillsdale Effect:  March 1 Taco Dinner which happened last Friday. You can never eat too many tacos.

 

 

Walt McCullough introduced today’s speaker, Jonathan Tieman of Tieman Investment Advisors LLC, whose topic is “Money and Banking during the Gold Rush”.

Gold was discovered January 25^th, 1848.  That, and the Treaty of Hidalgo three weeks later, led to California’s lightning quick statehood only 2.5 years later.  James K. Polk, the President at the time, one of the most consequential one-termers in history, had two last defining acts of his Presidency in 1848, where he 1) established mail service between the East & West Coasts, and (2) he advertised “gold” in CA which created a population wave culminating in said statehood for CA in September 1850.

High prices of commodities and other goods led to mercantilism and a source of “supply”, which created very high interest rates, and the banks followed.  A few colorful characters of the time were Isaiah Churchill Woods, a banker, who at the age of 27 loaded up a ship full of cargo, went to Tahiti etc., and finally to San Francisco, where he sold it ALL and then became a mercantilist with his profits.

The Adams Express was organized by a man named Haskell, really a triumvirate of Woods, Adams, Haskell.  First dealing in mail and odd sized packages, they ended up handling gold, which led to gold storage, then banking business.  Interest rates at the time were 3,4,5% per month! Collateralized loans in New York were around 5 or 6%.  Banks could not effectively issue “money”, only really Letters of Credit (documentation), thus CA was really running on a hard currency economy. (Boy have times changed!)

The bankers took deposits, gold dust, and then would sent physical money to various outposts in the west to exchange for the physical gold dust purchases from speculators.  Freight charges were 7% of the value of the shipment (retail); the more efficient way was to use a “bill of exchange”, which were bank-to-bank (wholesale) at 3% of the value of the shipment due to volume. 

In the early part of the gold rush, there were three ways to go back and forth to the coasts (pre RailRoads): 1) over land, (2) ships around the horn, (3) steamships.  A steamship route took 5 weeks from New York to the east coast of Colon (Panama), 2 days of canoe, 1 day on mule to Panama City, then another steamship to SF.  Every steamship had a responsible messenger who oversaw people, goods, and other details en route.  There was some question as to how long a messenger “lasted” at this job.  For some additional amazing facts about this, check out David McCullough’s seminal book on the Panama Canal called “The Path Between the Seas”.  Literally thousands of people perished from malaria over decades from building the Panama Canal.

Thank you for a very interesting discussion.

 

 

 

Thanks to the Photo Editor of the week Peter Webb!