i was taught that one of the major factors in bringing down the spanish empire was the hyper inflation created in spain by its monopoly of cheap, new world gold.
--- Howard Posner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Martyn Hodgson wrote: > > > The grounds for Eph's view seems to be that only > the very wealthy (ie the > > 16thC Spanish) could afford firsts which had been > through rigorous quality > > checks (with high wastage) to ensure uniformity - > we know that this was > > Is the underlying assumption that because there was > a lot of gold coming > into Spain from the New World, all Spaniards were > wealthy? > > HP > > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html > "and thus i made...a small vihuela from the shell of a creepy crawly..." - Don Gonzalo de Guerrero (1512), "Historias de la Conquista del Mayab" by Fra Joseph of San Buenaventura. go to: http://www.charango.cl/paginas/quieninvento.htm ___________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Messenger - want a free and easy way to contact your friends online? http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com