Word: ago
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Australians got the first substantial electric power from their giant Snowy River hydroelectric project, an endeavor so vast that its $1 billion price tag is equal to 20% of the entire national product of ten years ago. Another signal of change: an upsurge in immigration has brought 1,500,000 hard-working "New Australians," mostly from Europe, to back the "Old Australians" in a forced-draft development of their U.S.-sized continent...
...fast that Britain's Institute of Directors lists 25,000 members; a decade ago there were only 400. Also spreading is the U.S. style of low-markup, high-volume operation. Germany's Mail-Order Magnate Joseph Neckerman has grown into a sort of Teutonic Sears, Roebuck in fewer than ten years. He sells a list of 5,500 items through 22 mail-order stores, 48 special-appliance stores, and by undercutting the competition as much as 25%, tots up sales of $125 million annually. Says Neckerman, expounding a U.S. philosophy: "The consumer is king...
...some air." Even the bankers are loosening up: medium-term credits for business are on the rise, consumer credit is climbing fast. Britain removed its credit restrictions in late 1958 and watched consumer debt jump 50% in 1959; France had no credit to speak of ten years ago, now counts more than $400 million. Another symbol of the changing approach to banking: Belgium's Bank of Brussels installed a drive-in window for depositors...
...industrialization called forth new skills, the French workingman's average pay jumped 60% (to $80 monthly) in a decade; Danes and Norwegians average 84? an hour, v. 42? ten years ago, while Swedes get a minimum $1.16 an hour, v. 50? an hour in 1948. The British secretary who once considered herself lucky to draw $1,100 annually can command better than $2,800 in 1959. The sums may not be princely by U.S. standards, but they are enough to open up a new way of life...
...called proletariat that was the bulwark of socialism and Communism is giving way to an immensely enlarged middle class, intent on acquiring all the trappings of affluence. One excellent measure is autos. U.S. Businessman Arthur Watson, boss of IBM World Trade Corp., found the change astounding. Eleven years ago the manager of IBM's big plant at Essonnes, France asked Watson for permission to build a shed to house the workers' bicycles; two years later he said he needed to enlarge the shed to accommodate all the motorcycles. "Next time I was there," says Watson, "our manager explained...