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Article: Louisiana Purchase was once-in-a-lifetime bargain.
- Article from:
- Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service
- Article date:
- May 7, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Byline: Rick Montgomery
KANSAS CITY, Mo. _ Historians have described the Louisiana Purchase _ a deal struck in Paris 200 years ago this week _ as one of the best real-estate buys of all time.
Most cliometricians would agree.
Cliometricians? They are calculator crunchers engaged in the onion-peeling art of providing historical context to raw dollars and cents.
By one of their estimates, the $15 million the federal government paid to double the size of the American republic in 1803, when adjusted for inflation, is similar to the price one man recently agreed to pay for the Anaheim Angels baseball club.
But first, some ...