Jone Maynard Keynes

    Jone Maynard Keynes stands with Adam Smith and Karl Marx as one of the world`s most influential economists. The son of a noted British  economist, Keynes amassed    a fortune through speculation in stocks and commodities. He served the British government as a financial adviser and treasury official through most of his adult life and was a key participant in the negotiations following both World Wars I and II.

     Although Adam Smith had written The Wealth of Nations about the time of the American Revolution, by the 1930s little had changed in the thinking of mainstream economists. Most would have agreed with Smith, that the best thing government could do to help the economy would be to keep its hands off. They reasoned that as long as the economy was  free to operate without interference, the forces of supply and demand would come into balance. Then, with total supply and demand in eguilibrium, everyone looking for work could find a job at the prevailing wage, and every firm could sell its products at the market price.

       But the 1930s was the  period of the Great Depression. Despite the assurannces of the classical economists, the fact was that unemployment and business failure had reached record proportions in the United States and the rest of the industrialized world. It was at this time (1936) that Keynes` General Theory transforment, Interest, and Money was published. The General theory transformed economic thinking in the 20^th century, much the way that The Wealth of Nations had in the 18^th. 

   The “someone” keynes had in mind was government. He reasoned that if for example, government spent money on public works, the income received by formerly idle workers would lead to increased demand, a resurgence of business activity and the restoration of full employment.

 David Ricardo  / Classical Champion of Free Trade/ 


      David Ricardo is one of history`s most influential economists. Born in England, Ricardo made a fortune on the London Stock Exchange. This wealth gave him the time to write and to serve in Parliament`s House of Commons. His most famous work, Principles of Political Economy and Taxation(1817), marked him as the greatest spokesman for classical economics since Adam   Smith.
       Ricardo is  especially famous in international economics for demonstrating the advantages of free trade. Free trade is  a policy in which tariffs and other barriers to trade between nations are removed. To prove his point, Ricardo developed a concept we now call the principle of comparative advantage. Comparative advantage enabled him to demonstrate that one nation might profitably inport goods from another even though the importing country could produce that item for less than the exporter.
      Ricardo`s explanation of comparative advantage went as follows.Portugal and England, both of whom produce wine and cloth, are considering the advantages of exchanging those products with one another.
    We can see, Ricardo continued, that even though Portugal can produce both wine and cloth more efficiently than England, it pays them to specialize in the production of wine and import English cloth.
    England will also benefit. By specializing in cloth, it will be able to obtain wine in exchange for 100 worker years of labor rather then 120.
   As a member of Parliament, Ricardo pressed the government to abandon its traditinal policy of protection.

Birmingham

    After London the second city in Britain is Birmingham. It has a populations of just over one million. It is a big industrial center producing jeweler  metal and, most important of all, cars. British Layland , the biggest car producers in the UK, employ thousands of people in the Birmingham area.
     Birmingham grew quickly after the industrial revolution in the eighteenth century because it was in the center of Britain with good communications and large supplise of coal and water. In the twentieth century it expanded even more and now it is a major European city. In the modern city center there is a huge shopping center called Bull Ring. Birmingham is also an important conference center and is only a short distance from Stratford-on-Avon, Shakespeares birthplace. The city`s name is often abbreviated to Brum and its inhabitants are called Brummies.
     Birmingham is a city of large immigrant population.Birmingham is a multiracial city and it also has a high student populations as there are two universities in the area.

Relay

   A  relay is a switching device for opening and closing one or more electrical circuits on receipt of an electrical signal.
    A simpel kind of relay consists of two parts, a switch in a highvoltage circuit which is operated by a spring loaded armature and a low voltage electro-magnetic  circuit.
    The electro-magnet comprises  a soft iron core shaped like a horseshoe. Each arm of the core has a coil wound around it. The coils are connected to each other and to a battery through an on/off switch.
   When the switch is closed, the electro-magnet is energized, and the armature is attached  towards it. This closes the contacts and enables the current to flow through the high voltage circuit. When the switch is opened, a spring pulls the armature away  from the magnet, and the contacts open again.

Stonehenge

   About 4600 years ago-or maybe more- the Stone age inhabitants of Britain started building an enormous stone structure. This structure is now called Stonehenge and is near Salisbury, in the South of England, about 2 hours west of london by car.
    The largest of the stonehenge stones weighs 50 tons, and the smallest weighs 5 tons. The people who presumably constructed Stonehenge werw very primitive indeed. They used no metal and their  tools were made only of stones, bone and wood. They lived in simple huts and they had not yet invented the wheel.
     They started to build Stonehenge in about 2600 BC. And probably finished it 600 years later. Thousands of the men and women were involved in the work. These primitive people usually spent all day, from sunrise to sunset, hunting, fishing and growing crops to stay alive.
    Why, then, did thay take time off to build this enormous structure, and how did they do it?
   The builders of Stonehenge couldn`t read or write, so they have left us no records of the work. Therefore we don’t know exactly how Stonehenge was built.

Mercedes-benz CL

   The large Mersedes-Benz Coupes have always had a special appeal, despite the fact that they are actually missing a bit: the upper B-pillar. This, however, is one of the strong points of the CL-Class Coupe. Its roof extends in an elegant arch from the windscreen to the rear, creating a breathtaking profile.
   The CL 600 is a model which offers plenty to enthuse about. This 12-cylinder Cl-Class takes luxury and advanced technology to their limits. And the 18-inch light-alloy wheels, with their V12 design, arent the only things that sparkle- theres also the V 12 biturbo engine, which delivers dream torque and output figures.
    The Cl 600 comes with an extensive range of standard equipment, including a nappa leather interior and wood trim. Even the roof liner is trimmed with Alcantara. Comfort features include multicontour backrests for the driver and front passenger, a garage door opener located in the interior mirror, and an electric sunblind for the rear window. The latest communication technology, including the electronic copilot, comand APS, the Bose surround system and a mobile phone, can also be found on board.
   If you want to relax, take a seat in the CL 600. The integral seats for the driver and front passenger have a multicontour backrest as standard. At the touch of a button, your back will be given a gentle massage.

The Wankel engine  

   The Wankel engine is a form of heat engine which has a rotary piston. In other words, instead of going up and down the Wankal piston rotates in the cylinder. Both cylinder and piston are quite different in the shape from those of conventional engines. The Wankel piston is triangular with curved sides and the cylinder is roughly oval in shape. The piston has an inner bore which is linked through a gear to the outputshaft.
     The piston thus forms three hook-shaped spaces between itself and the cylinder wall, wich very in size as the piston rotates. Fuel enters the cylinder through the inlet port when one of these spaces is increasing in size. The fuel trapped in this sectionn is then compressed by the turning piston and ingited by the sparking plug. The expanding gases subject the piston to a twisting moment which makes the piston revolve further until the exhaust gases escape through the exhaust port.
     The Wankel engine has many advantages over other conventional engines. Fewer moving parts are necessary because it produces a rotary movement without using a connecting rod and a crankshaft. Because of thus rotary movement it has no vibration. In addition it has no valves, it is smaller and lighter than conventional engines of the same power, and it runs economically on diesel and several other fuels. 

  Henry Ford

    Henry Ford was the first person to build cars which were cheap, strong and fast. He was able to sell millions of models because he ,, mass-produced,, them; that is, he made a great many cars exaetly the same type.
      Ford`s father hoped that his son would become a farmer, but the young man did not like the idea and went to Detroit where he worked as a mechanic. By the age of 29, in 1892, he had built his first car.
    However the first ,,mass-produced,, car in the world, the famous “Model T”, did not appear until 1908- five years later Ford had started his great Motor Company. This car proved to be so popular that it remained unchanged for twenty years. Since Ford`s time, mass production methods have become common in industry and have reduced the price of many articles which would otherwise be very expensive.