…Calmly observing the changing world

If troubles in Iceland reveal our civilization fraying a bit around the edges, the Greek uprisings do the same with a slightly more ominous overtone. While the Icelanders have kept their cool even while protesting their government, the Greeks are given to a little more passion. Today, Athens is no longer a pillar of our [...]

Last Tuesday, the Federal Reserve made the history-making but expected decision to lower interest rates (for banks borrowing money “short term”) to a range of “0% to 0.25%”. Theoretically, this will stimulate the economy, but no one actually seems to believe that allowing banks to borrow endless amounts of money for free will help very [...]

Often, people will flippantly claim that the federal government will just print up some money when they need it. No one really seems to know exactly how this works, but everyone is pretty sure that it is true. More importantly, everyone seems to reluctantly accept that this is somehow legal, and marginally acceptable. But what [...]