Harvard economist Kenneth Rogoff argues in the daily paper FAZ that cash currency should be banned altogether. Central banks could impose negative interest rates more easily that way, he explained. Tax evaders and criminals would also find life more difficult. From this perspective, banknotes and coins appear superfluous, he said at a presentation at the IFO institute in Munich. Measures to spur the economy could be implemented more easily that way.
Found this rough summary of the original German & quoted it above. Haven't used my college German much since 1969, so scanned it with Google Translate. I doubt it's worth the effort to go through the article in detail.
#3
An all electronic economy would last just until the first really good hack...
This kind of bright idea comes up periodically. But if it were cash-free, that is to say, entirely on the record, how could those special personal donations to special politicians be done?
#2
The Koran did not spring forth fully formed, but is more likely the result of a centuries-long process, built up layer upon layer.
Through the painstaking work of these scholars, at the bottom of these layers is glimpsed what seems to be Christian liturgical literature written in Syrio-Aramaic (Syriac). In other words, a Christian book has been shown to form the foundation of the Koran.
The foundation, edited (and modified) over centuries. And then the - waddayacallit - hadiths piled more human interpretation on top of that. I am going to keep reading it...
Posted by: Bobby ||
12/06/2014 7:35 Comments ||
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#3
Islam is a lie at its core? Why am I not surprised.
#5
What is interesting is to see how the original Syrian Aramaic got mistranslated into Arabic simply by getting the vowel tics wrong:
the traditional Koranic passage, “By the runners (assumed to be horses) snorting / And lighting a spark (with their hooves) / And raiding in the morning (a possible addition) / And they stirred up dust in it / And they went with it into the middle of a gathering,”
is revealed instead to be:
“(And) those (maidens) going out early in the morning / And kindling a flame / By which they chose to do a good deed / Which they extended to the multitudes.”
the traditional Sura 108 says:
“Verily, we have given you abundance / so pray to thy Lord and sacrifice. / Verily, it is he who hateth thee who is the docked one (referring to the devil’s tail).”
is revealed to be a verse reminiscent of St. Peter’s First Epistle:
“We have given you the virtue of constancy / so pray to your Lord and persevere in prayer / Your adversary (the devil) is (then) the loser.”
This was found simply by changing the diacritical marks. In this way the passage makes better syntactical as well as meaningful sense.
As it stands now, as much as one fifth of the Koran makes no sense at all and Muslim Koranic exegetes disagree on the meaning of many passages.
It is entirely possible that most or all of the hateful statements in the Koran will disappear once they are retranslated correctly into Arabic.
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
12/06/2014 13:48 Comments ||
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#6
I challenge you to find a Christian book where every third word is "kill".
Before solutions to police corruption can be posited, it must first be defined, categorized, and fully understood. I’m only going to touch on this in the broadest of terms, as this could literally fill a book. I’m sure the commenters will have much to add, as well. Let me begin by pointing out that I know no bad cops. I’ve known a few that were very good indeed, and I would trust a cop, were I in trouble and in need of help. But as a woman, I would also be very very cautious being pulled over late at night on a dark road. That’s where we are, as a population. On the other hand, comparing our nation to, say, one a bit further south, our cops are paragons. So take this for what it is.
Corruption can exist at both an individual level, and at the organizational level. At the individual level, the corruption may range from the seemingly innocuous of accepting free coffee from local businesses, to the level of murder, drug dealing, and utter betrayal of the power entrusted to them. At the organizational level, the corruption may be tacitly legal, or knowingly illegal. With almost 19,000 separate police departments in the US, there is a lot of latitude for good cops, bad cops, and cops stuck in bad places.
I am afraid Hughes doesn't understand the game here. TNR is a liberal publication. So that it can keep its bonifides in order, it must LOSE money not earn those obscene profits.
From TFA:
And in this case, Hughes just made TNR one of the least cool places on the Left side of the media. The walkout not only leaves TNR without much of a staff to produce content, it does real brand damage that one or two departures would be unable to accomplish. Hughes, however, hasn’t caught up with that reality, as departing senior editor Julia Ioffe reports:
Around half of the people who produce and manage content for TNR have walked out, and they’re not just well positioned, but “incredibly well positioned”? This sounds a bit like a Baghdad Bob moment, unless Hughes really wants to go full digital immediately. At least he won’t have to worry about expanding TNR’s office space again for a while.
Most of the commentary on this collapse has come from the interested parties on the Left, for good reason, as it impacts them much more than it does conservatives on line. However, TNR under Peretz at least was a good read for those who wanted to get a sense of where the reasonable minds across the aisle were wandering. They still produce good content, or at least they did until yesterday; the writers I follow at TNR were those departing today. If Hughes wants to make TNR a monolithically ideological site, I suspect that value will never re-emerge, and any new writers they hire will be much less interesting — even on the Left. Ah well. There's always Sabrina Rubin Erdely who is, as I understand it, available for hire right now...
The liberal policies meant to redistribute income tend to cause that stagnation by choking off private-sector growth, over regulating businesses, and encouraging people to flee the state. That, in turn keeps wages down, hurting middle- and lower-class families far more than the rich.
That's happening at the national level, which, under President Obama's policies, has seen stagnant wages and rising inequality. Now if only our president would learn this valuable lesson, we could see greater prosperity up and down the income ladder.
#3
The secondary affect is that only the poor and rich can afford children, and the rich choose not to have them and the poor choose to have more. The middle class will continue to shrink.
Also look at the future of retail stores: Walmart and dollar store will thrive as will Coach, Tiffanys and Louis Vuitton.
#4
I don't give a *$!# about inequality if the basement is so high as to allow people the luxury of not working yet meet the basics of food/shelter/health and so high as to attract several tens of millions of illegals.
In order to make this video instructional, it has been modified. Michelle Obama doesn’t know how she and Barack ever managed to get into college. Right, sure, that’s believable.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
The liberal policies meant to redistribute income tend to cause that stagnation by choking off private-sector growth, over regulating businesses, and encouraging people to flee the state. That, in turn keeps wages down, hurting middle- and lower-class families far more than the rich.
