BBC News – Has quantitative easing worked in the US?
The value of a nation's currency reflects its assets and prospects divided by the volume of currency in circulation.
Counterfeit currency erodes the value of 'real currency' because it comes into existence without generating corresponding value - an inflationary event diminishing the value of money already in circulation.
Quantitative easing is 'legitimate counterfeiting' because it is done by governments.
Quantitative easing is legitimate for another reason. It transfers the costs of dysfunctional economies and governments to beneficiaries.
BBC News – Barack Obama’s best years could still be ahead of him
This may be true but it brings to mind something that has always puzzled me. How can the citizens of democracies transfer responsibility for what is going on to leaders when the only interesting function of democracy involves redefining leadership so that it becomes one of individuals representing whatever voters anointed them?
In Obama's case, it is arguable that the fractious, some say dysfunctional, American political scene fairly reflects what is going on in citizens' minds.
If this is so, Obama's difficulties represent a healthy democracy, albeit a democratic population with a toxic, Hell-bent collection of ideas.
If President Obama had been able to bend this unruly lot to his vision he would have been abrogating the very idea of democracy.
Political parties who change leaders after election losses are guilty of the same shallow understanding.
BBC News - Barack Obama's best years could still be ahead of him.
BBC News – Google is developing cancer and heart attack detector
BBC News - Google is developing cancer and heart attack detector.
BBC News – Two genes linked with violent crime
Here we have it! The exact moment wherein wishful thinking and science negotiate our fatal (but not fatalism by God!) confusion.
"To some extent we're all products of genetics and the environment but I don't think that robs us of free will or understanding right and wrong."
Tomgram: Rory Fanning, Why Do We Keep Thanking the Troops? | TomDispatch
Tomgram: Rory Fanning, Why Do We Keep Thanking the Troops? | TomDispatch.