"On this day in 1969, the Woodstock Music Festival opens on a patch of farmland in White Lake, a hamlet in the upstate New York town of Bethel."
"Promoters John Roberts, Joel Rosenman, Artie Kornfield and Michael Lang originally envisioned the festival as a way to raise funds to build a recording studio and rock-and-roll retreat near the town of Woodstock, New York. The longtime artists’ colony was already a home base for Bob Dylan and other musicians. Despite their relative inexperience, the young promoters managed to sign a roster of top acts, including the Jefferson Airplane, the Who, the Grateful Dead, Sly and the Family Stone, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Creedence Clearwater Revival and many more. Plans for the festival were on the verge of foundering, however, after both Woodstock and the nearby town of Wallkill denied permission to hold the event. Dairy farmer Max Yasgur came to the rescue at the last minute, giving the promoters access to his 600 acres of land in Bethel, some 50 miles from Woodstock."
"Early estimates of attendance increased from 50,000 to around 200,000, but by the time the gates opened on Friday, August 15, more than 400,000 people were clamoring to get in. Those without tickets simply walked through gaps in the fences, and the organizers were eventually forced to make the event free of charge. Folk singer and guitarist Richie Havens kicked off the event with a long set, and Joan Baez and Arlo Guthrie also performed on Friday night."
"Is one of Detroit's Big Three for sale to the Chinese?"
"Fiat Chrysler Automobiles has reportedly rejected an acquisition bid by a Chinese automaker — but a variety of analysts and observers within the auto industry believe it could be just a matter of time before FCA is given an offer it would be willing to accept."
"FCA was formed by the merger of Italy’s Fiat and Chrysler shortly after the Detroit carmaker emerged from its 2010 bankruptcy with the help of a massive federal bailout. Over the last several years, however, FCA Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne has made it clear he is looking for another partner and might alternately consider the sale of all or part of his company."
"By 1970, the United States only held $14.5 billion in gold against foreign dollar holdings of $45.7 billion. At the same time, President Nixon's economic policies had created stagflation. This double-digit inflation reduced the eurodollar's value. More and more banks started redeeming their holdings for gold. The United States could no longer meets this growing obligation."
"The gold standard ended on August 15, 1971. That's when Nixon changed the dollar/gold relationship to $38 per ounce. He no longer allowed the Fed to redeem dollars with gold. That made the gold standard meaningless. The U.S. government repriced gold to $42 per ounce in 1973, and then decoupled the value of the dollar from gold altogether in 1976. The price of gold quickly shot up to $120 per ounce in the free market."
"Once the gold standard was dropped, countries began printing more of their own currency. Inflation usually resulted, but for the most part abandoning the gold standard created more economic growth."
"But gold has never lost its appeal as an asset of real value. Whenever a recession or inflation looms, investors return to gold as a safe haven. It reached its record high of $1,895 an ounce on September 5, 2011. "
A rechargeable lithium ion battery designed to be used once and thrown away.
"On Aug. 27, those attending the fair and showing their fishing or hunting licenses will get free admission, according to Troy Waffner, acting director for the fair."
Ain't nothing like pissing sunscreen and feeding it to our youth ...
"The concern over coral reefs isn’t the only cause for concern when it comes to chemical sunscreens. Some of the same chemicals that have been shown to harm reefs might also harm human health—because like reefs, we absorb them into our bodies. One study in the International Journal of Andrology detected oxybenzone in 96 percent of the American urine samples it tested, and chemical UV-filters were detected in 85 percent of Swiss breast milk samples."
"Oxybenzone has been found to mimic estrogen in cellular studies, while butylparaben, which is present in a host of cosmetics in addition to sunscreen, has been linked to endocrine disruption, which can cause everything from development delays to poor reproductive health. None of these studies are definitive, and the authors themselves call for more research."
"The Chinese government has begun to offer more rationale for its July 18 World Trade Organization filing that announced plans to begin restricting the imports of numerous scrap categories — mainly mixed paper and plastics — by the end of the year. A government statement posted on July 27 indicated that this was part of a larger effort to increase domestic recycling to 350 million tons (a 42% increase over 2015 levels) by 2020. To reach that goal, imports that can be substituted with domestic resources will be phased out starting in 2019."
"While the CEOs of publicly traded waste and recycling companies have sought to downplay the potential effects in recent weeks, concern remains high among many players in the scrap industry. The Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI) has made it clear new markets will need to be explored, as reported by Recycling International, and some Chinese recyclers have already begun discussing plans to move their operations off the mainland, as reported by Plastics News."