The History of Asbestos
Asbestos is well known for causing health issues, however it wasn’t always that way – we document the history of asbestos and see its uses and the problems caused by it.
Asbestos is well known for its hazardous properties and the material has gotten much press because of this. However, asbestos is not a recent material in human history and has been a part of our western culture for millennia.
Asbestos was first used in Finland over 4,500 years ago as a strengthening product for use in earthen ware bowls and other such products. However, the real trend for use of asbestos began in the 1850s, where mining of the material in America was very popular and it was used as a building material.
This led to asbestos use on a wide scale and it was used in many building products in the construction industry from then onwards, reaching peak use in the mid of the 20th century. Strangely, asbestos related illness was documented as far back as 1906, yet it was continuously used in different buildings and products for up to a century afterwards.
Asbestos was only banned in the USA in 2004, though mining stopped in 1983. It has been banned in the EU for longer and will be soon in Japan. However, it is still used in construction in developing nations and its use is widespread in China and India.
Asbestos was not commonly used in the USA as a building material by the 1970s, however it was used in brakes for automobiles and other similar uses due to its hardwearing binding properties. When cars break the friction causes burning and dust to come from the breaks and so asbestos dust enters the air creating more problems.
Asbestos generally becomes an issue when the fibres are inhaled over a period of time, this can result in a number of illnesses. Unfortunately in the UK there are still a large number of buildings that still are full of asbestos based materials.
Asbestos gets into the lungs and tangles around a person’s chromosomes, causing an array of illnesses. One of the most common is pleural thickening, which is one of the most common forms of illness caused by asbestos. Research has found that 80 per cent of asbestos poison is related to the workplace.
There are a number of respiratory problems caused by asbestos. These illnesses will cause over 100,000 people in the USA alone to lose their life. Recently, there have been a number of successful asbestos claims brought in a number of different countries.
There are grievance procedures in place in most first world countries to do this. In the states there is a statute limitation in the time period after you have become sick to when you put your claim in and so this is best done quickly.
The history of asbestos is long, as is the history of damage done by the material, fortunately the amount of asbestos used in first world countries has decreased hugely and so will the illnesses related to it in time.
History of banking
The origins of banking are lost in the mists of time. You might think that it would have been some time after the invention of coins, but amazingly the dawn of credit and banking dates back even before this crucial innovation.
Ancient Mesopotamia was the place where banking truly started. In a pre-currency world barter is all important, and banking institutions were really store houses for grain and the other commodities that were used to trade. Everything was meticulously noted down in the form of clay tablets, transferring the physical wealth into information.
When coinage came along there were many competing standards. All the city states of Greece for instance had their own coins, and this meant that money changing was big business. The story of Jesus overturning the money changers tables in the temple in the book of Matthew describes how money changers would set up shop in temples.
Money changing and secure storage are not the only functions of banking of course, and even in the ancient world, banking was more than just this. Credit plays an integral part of our financial system and in times gone by moneylending was just as vital.
Modern banks in England began to emerge in the 17th century. There were initially strict limits on the amount of gold any one bank could hold, in order to control liability. This all changed in 1820 however, when after a number of high profile failures the rules were relaxed so that risk could be spread over more parties, and the banking institutions that we know today came into being.
The banking and financial sector proved to be as important for the great leaps forward taken by Britain during the industrial revolution as the invention of the steam engine. An innovative an forward looking investment banking sector drove growth forward.
The Victorian era was also the golden era for banks being involved in philanthropy. Projects to improve the lot of society were funded by those that made the greatest profits. It was seen very much as the done thing, and the individuals who were involved in some of the private banking organisations that are around today vied with each other to see how much they could do.
The 20th century saw all kinds of innovation in retail and commercial banking. Automatic cash machines greatly increased the ease of withdrawing cash – could you imagine a world without the ‘hole-in-the-wall’? Internet banking, credit cards and mobile apps have all come along. Fortunes were made, but this was also the time when international finance lost its way.
The packaging of derivatives of bad debt led to a situation where the greedy act of short term thinking (namely in lending money to those that could not afford to pay it back) was allowed to contaminate the entire financial system. Huge bailouts were needed to stop banks from going under, but hopefully some vital lessons have been learnt.
Today there are new regulations being brought forward that require banks to keep sufficient funds in deposits relative to what they lend, and to be more cautious about who they will lend to. With the UK financial sector providing a third of the tax take it is clearly very important, and hopefully this marks the start of a new golden age.