Inflation In History

Governments fund themselves through three ways. They can either - tax, borrow or inflate. The last option is preferred, as it is the method least likely to anger the public. However, inflation is associated with large-scale wars and great social and economic upheavals.

Greetings. Today, I would like to talk about why governments often choose to inflate their currency despite the risks of hyperinflation. There are three ways that governments can fund themselves. They are - to tax, to borrow, or to inflate the amount of currency. Taxation is very unpopular with the public because its effects are so direct.

Borrowing is not a true remedy as it merely delays payment. To some degree, governments can continue borrowing, but it is like a person using one credit card to pay off another card. This can only last so long. At some point, the government must either levy new taxes, begin inflating, or default.

Inflation is an insidious way that governments can raise funds. It is effectively a tax on those holding money. Instead of paying money to the government as with the case of a conventional tax, the government prints new money to spend. The value of this new money is siphoned off the value of the currency already in existence. This transfers wealth from the citizens to the government or at least to those controlling the issuance of currency.

This sordid tale has been retold many times. In medieval Europe, monarchs would clip coins. Clipping is a process whereby very thin shavings of metal are taken off the edges of many coins to produce a new one. Laws are then imposed, forcing people to accept the underweight coins at their face value.

In ancient Rome, from the time of Nero and after, the precious metal content of the denarius steadily declined, from being a nearly pure silver coin to one containing only two percent.

Genghis Khan created what was to be the largest continuous empire in the world. The paper money that only he, and his highest ranking officials could create, concentrated his power, but through successive periods of over-issuance, the economy suffered and the eventually the empire fragmented. Paper money was abandoned in the East until it was reintroduced by the Europeans, some 350 years later.

The printing of money allows for the sustainment of large-scale wars. These simply would not be possible under commodity-based money, as only a finite amount of money could be created.

Hyperinflation predated the rise of Mao in China and the National Socialist movement in Germany. Greatly devalued currencies are associated with both the pre- and post-break-ups of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia.

Time and time again, the masses suffer the theft of their wealth through a debasement of the money. This process transfers wealth from the existing holders of money to those who have the power to create it.

Prices begin to increase as the early recipients of this new money purchase greater amounts of goods. Those who are unable to participate in this money game, only face higher living costs on relatively stagnant levels of income. Civil unrest resulting from decreased standards of living is blamed on the wickedness and dishonesty of the people. Authorities enact laws to suppress this behaviour, such as price and wage controls. The first well known example of this is the Code of Hammurabi during the time of ancient Babylon. In every case all throughout history, these edicts are passed under the guise of fairness, but they are in fact merely measures to conceal and perpetuate the parasitic burden of the privileged elite class upon the rest of society.

There is a monetary pattern that closely parallels the rise of republics and fall of empires. Initially, money is a tangible commodity. That commodity is then concentrated by those who issue paper receipts merely representative of the underlying commodity. The reason for doing this is to lend out more in paper receipts than what can be legitimately backed. In modern parlance, this is referred to as fractional reserve banking. It permits banks to lend out a multiple compared to what they hold in the vault. This greatly leverages the amount of interest revenue that can be obtained. Occasionally, this leads to public panics when people rush en masse to cash in their paper receipts for something tangible once they realize the scheme for the fraud it actually is.

We live amidst the most modern version of this story. Through a long and steady process, we now regard the paper as not being a receipt for money, but as the actual money itself. Banks lend out enormous amounts of credit based on paper reserves. Central banks stand ready to create whatever new amount of money is required to prevent the spread of panics.

This can only end with the complete debasement of the currency as it is printed into oblivion. In the twentieth century, many currencies have experienced this fate.


Hyperinflation is not a bizarre event without cause. It is the ultimate end state of policy involving the continual printing of currency.

Source: http://dollardaze.org

Quantitative Easing is Nothing New

The term 'quantitative easing' is just the newest term to describe the on-going central bank policy of increasing money supply.

Greetings. There has been an increasing amount of news covering the activities of The US Federal Reserve and other central banks. The newest expression being bantered about is "quantitative easing".

Simply put, quantitative easing is a phrase, more a euphemism really, to describe the process of increasing the monetary supply - printing money so to speak. It is a continuation of actions that central banks have been engaged with ever since their creation.

I would like to show a chart of monetary expansion since 1971 to the present. We will begin with what people most typically think of when they think of money - that being banknotes and coins in public circulation. Economists call this M0.

Here is a chart showing a timeline from 1971 to the end of 2010. Along the vertical axis is a dollar figure.

The first currency shown is the US dollar. By the end of 2010 there was 920 billion in US dollars. It is estimated that perhaps up to two-thirds of this circulates outside the borders of the United States.

Our next currency is the Japanese yen. Over 86 trillion yen circulates among the public. This represents an amount equivalent to more than US$1 trillion.

The euro is represented in blue. There is just fewer than 840 billion euros in circulation - equivalent to US$1.1 trillion. These three currencies represent nearly 60 percent of the value of all physical paper currency within the public domain.

The fourth most significant paper currency is the Chinese renminbi, also known as the Chinese yuan.

The remaining 131 currencies shown in this chart are represented in grey. Together, these 135 currencies amount to US$5.2 trillion.

At the end of August 1971, when the US dollar was taken off the last vestiges of the gold standard, the total amount of currency was equivalent to US$171 billion. This means, that over the last 40 years, the nominal valuation of all paper money has increased by more than thirty times.

But, there are also other types of money. Namely, demand deposits and savings accounts. Economists classify different types of money using the following convention.

 

This table shows the different types of money commonly defined by economists. The bottom represents the most liquid forms of money, which are used primarily as a means of exchange. The broadest measure of money defined here, is M3. This includes forms of money used as a store of value.

Let's now return to our first chart. We will re-label all of these circulating currencies as M0 and represent them in blue.

Now we will add the global estimates for all demand deposits in order to compute M1. As you can see, the amount of money held in demand deposits exceeds that of currency in circulation by nearly four times.

To this amount of money - equivalent to US$25 trillion - we will now add savings accounts and small time deposits. This is M2. The amount of money in M2 is even greater than that in M1.

Finally, we add in those monies captured under M3.This brings our estimate for the total amount of money to over US$75 trillion.

 

 I hope these charts illustrate the magnitude of monetary expansion that has occurred over the last forty years. Every increase to the existing money supply dilutes the value of the currency already in existence. In other words, those people holding paper money lose purchasing power to create value for the new money. It is, in effect, a transfer of wealth to recipients of newly created money. Quite simply, it is theft.

Common usage of the word "inflation" is the phenomenon of rising prices. I hope that these charts have shown that this price inflation is not a natural process of the free market but, the result of deliberate policy, namely the central bank policy of ever increasing the money supply.

May you find these words helpful in preparing yourself. Thank-you for watching.

Source: http://dollardaze.org

How The Banking Industry Works

Julia Sanders interviews Thomas Lloyd, an investment banker of ABC Wealth Management, resulting in a satiric exposition of the banking industry.

 

JULIA: Welcome to tonight's show. I'm Julia Sanders. We have with us Mr. Thomas Lloyd. It's great to have you here with us tonight.

LLOYD: Thank you Julia. I'm very glad to be here today.

JULIA: OK. So, as an investment banker with ABC Wealth Management, you must be very familiar with the nature of financial markets.

LLOYD: Yes, very much so.

JULIA: How do you think things are going at the moment?

LLOYD: Well, there's a great deal of international concern, but things will sort themselves out. This is what markets do through a process we call volatility.

JULIA: Can you explain to me how the banking industry works?

LLOYD: Sure, assume I'm a bank. I make money by lending it out.

JULIA: Yes. People deposit their money with you at a lower interest rate than what you lend it back out again at.

LLOYD: Well, yes. But that by itself isn't really all that profitable.

JULIA: What do you mean?

LLOYD: It is true, that I lend out money collected from the depositors, but it's more than that. I lend out many times more money than is what actually in the bank vault.

JULIA: How can you do that? Is that not fraud?

LLOYD: No no no. That's called fractional reserve banking, and it's perfectly legal.

JULIA: But Mr. Lloyd, how do you lend out more money than you have?

LLOYD: By creating it. Let's assume that you are asking for a loan to purchase a house. When you sign the mortgage agreement, that money is created right there and then and is backed by your obligation for repayment. And, if I'm successful, you will also pay the insurance costs in case of a default.

JULIA: So, Mr. Lloyd. What you are telling me is that the money I get from you, doesn't exist until I sign the mortgage agreement?

LLOYD: Exactly! Wonderful isn't it? See, this is what grows an economy. And as you repay your mortgage, I can use that money to lend out even greater amounts.

JULIA: And who do you lend this additional money to?

LLOYD: People who need credit of course! You see, as I just explained, money creates more money. So we grow and broaden the economy, expanding it all the time. We need to lend, so people can continue to buy.

JULIA: But shouldn't people just buy the things they can afford?

LLOYD: No Julia, you don't need to afford the things you buy. You only need to afford the interest on the money you borrow in order to buy the things.

JULIA: Do people really need to be buying all these things?

LLOYD: Well, they certainly believe they do, and who are we to suggest they don't. People regard these things as being very necessary, deeply important and extremely attractive. You see it is really all about building a stronger economy. We truly have your best interests at heart. Without an economy you wouldn't have a job and could not afford the things you need.

JULIA: You mean I wouldn't be able to afford the interest on the things I buy.

LLOYD: Don't be so cynical Julia. To build a better world we must invest back into the economy.

JULIA: So what was this trouble in the housing market all about?

LLOYD: Well, that was a bit of a mistake. See, we lent out money to people who couldn't pay it back.

JULIA: Why was money lent to people who couldn't pay it back?

LLOYD: Quite simply because the people who could pay it back, already have money and don't require a loan?

JULIA: So money is lent to those who cannot pay it back?

LLOYD: Naturally, but that isn't a problem because it is based on property. And we all know, property over time only goes up in price.

JULIA: Unless it goes down.

LLOYD: Well yes, unless, as you correctly point out, it goes down. But fortunately that is rare.

JULIA: If the property does go down, then the lenders would lose money wouldn't they?

LLOYD: Only if they still held the loans.

JULIA: Where did the loans go?

LLOYD: Let's say they sold them on.

JULIA: Sold them to who? How do you sell loans that aren`t worth anything?

LLOYD: Quite easily, if they are marketed well and beautifully presented. Use good quality paper, emboss the name on each sheet. Fund managers just love this sort of thing.

JULIA: But aren't they just rubbish.

LLOYD: Well, no Julia. They look good and are given very technical sounding names - like Collateralized Debt Obligation, or Mortgage Backed Securities, or Structured Investment Vehicle.

JULIA: But that doesn't change anything.

LLOYD: It most certainly does! Julia, if I presented you with some paper and told you they were a bunch of dodgy loans that will likely never be paid back, would you buy them?

JULIA: Of course not!

LLOYD: Exactly!

JULIA: Exactly what Mr. Lloyd? Wouldn't anyone buying this stuff lose money?

LLOYD: Like who?

JULIA: Like these fund managers for instance.

LLOYD: No, they make money Julia.

JULIA: Wait a minute! I'm sorry. What do I not understand?

LLOYD: That is their job Julia. They are paid to buy things. They won't make any money if they don't buy stuff.

JULIA: But they are buying rubbish!

LLOYD: They are fund managers. The money continues rolling in so long as they keep buying.

JULIA: And this money comes from where exactly?

LLOYD: Well from private investors, pension funds, and trust funds of course.

JULIA: Why would people place their money into something that is based on loans that will never be paid back?

LLOYD: Julia, people who don't know what they want will buy anything, especially if it sounds good. Take for instance, "High-Grade Structured Credit Strategies Enhanced Leverage Master Fund", that sounds good doesn't it?

JULIA: Well, yes I suppose it does.

LLOYD: And a person, looking to invest their money would likely find such a fund to be very enticing. Especially when sitting in a nice comfortable chair, being presented with a glossy brochure by a well dressed sales representative.

JULIA: Well, something doesn't seem right.

LLOYD: It's very attractive. Look at the words. It is high-grade. It's a master fund - that must be good right? It's structured. It's enhanced. Who wouldn't want to own something sounding so distinguished?

JULIA: Why are you talking about this fund?

LLOYD: Because, it was the name of one of the two notorious hedge funds that brought down Bear Stearns in 2008. Before the firm collapsed, it had been receiving praise as being one of the most admired companies in the United States.

JULIA: That's terrible!

LLOYD: Most terrible Julia! Many people lost their retirement savings as a result. But fortunately, such occurrences are rare.

JULIA: Mr. Lloyd, you have not instilled much confidence within me regarding the banking system.

LLOYD: I assure you Julia, that the banking sector is perfectly safe.

JULIA: Except when things go wrong.

LLOYD: When things turn south, we are all caught in the financial maelstrom. But try to focus on the long-term Julia.

JULIA: We will now take a break to hear a message from our sponsors.

Inspired by the comedic genius of John Clarke & Bryan Dawe from A Current Affair and John Bird & John Fortune from The Last Laugh.

Source: http://dollardaze.org

Discussion: How using a computer can affect one's eyes.

W: Hi, Tom. How’s your chemistry paper going?

M: It’s coming along. But I’ve been staring at this computer screen for hours and my eyes hurt.

W: Yeah, doing that can make your eyes feel really dry and tired. You should take a break.

M: I can’t. I have to get this paper written. It’s due tomorrow.

W: You know, I read about computers and eye problems recently. The article says that they are usually caused by not blinking your eyes enough.

M: Blinking? I thought I just needed new glasses.

W: No. When you blink, the movement of closing and opening your eyes, even thought it happens really fast, helps moisten your eyes. It’s the lack of moisture that causes the problem.

M: Oh, that makes sense. But what does it have to do with the computer?

W: People who use computers tend to stare at the monitor and blink less often than they normally would. That leads to dry irritated eyes.

M: Well, that certainly helped mine feel now. They really hurt.

W: The article I read about office workers found that the workers averaged 22 blinks a minute when relax, but just 7 a minute while looking at text on a computer screen.

M: Wow, that’s quite a difference.

W: They also kept their eyes open wider, which means that moisture evaporated more quickly.

M: I wonder if using some kind of eye drops would make them feel better.

W: That might help. But the best prescription is to take a break and rest your eyes.

M: Ok. Let’s go get some coffee. I can finish this later tonight.

Top Tips for learning English

A question from Hisham in Egypt:

Please, I want to improve my English. How can I do it?

George Pickering answers:

Well Hisham, it's hard to give specific advice without knowing more about you so I'm going to give you some general advice which will maybe be of interest to other listeners and readers.

Point 1
Be clear about why you want to learn English. Do you want it for your job, to help you get a job, to talk to English speakers, to help you study?

Point 2
Be clear about how good you want your English to be. How good do you want to be at speaking English, listening, reading, writing?

Point 3
Have a clear image of yourself when you have achieved the proficiency that you want. What will you see, what will you hear, how will you feel?

Point 4
If possible, enrol on a language course. If you can't, put yourself in situations where you can use English which leads on to ......

Point 5
Look for opportunities to learn and use English. Speak English whenever you can. Listen to the radio and CDs in English, read and write in English. If you look for opportunities, you will find them.

Point 6
Write down new words and phrases in a notebook. Keep the notebook with you so you can look at it when you have a spare moment.

Point 7
Practise, practise, practise. There's an expression in English. If you don't want to lose it, use it. This is very true when it comes to learning foreign languages.

Point 8
Find a learning buddy or colleague. Find someone you can learn English with. Speak with each other. Send each other messages in English.

Point 9
Learn little and often. Make it a habit to learn English ten minutes each day. This is much better than learning for longer once a week.

And the final point: At the beginning of a learning period, ask yourself, "What do I want to learn today?" At the end of a period, ask yoursef, "What have I learnt today?"

There's a story about a teacher who told his students, ?You know you're making progress in English when you speak in English, think in English, and dream in English.

One day a student came into the class very excited and said, "Teacher, Teacher, last night I dreamt in English." The teacher said, "That's wonderful. What did you dream about?" And the student said, "I don't know, it was in English."

Hisham, may you achieve your dream of learning English.
(From BBC)

Business Management Lecture: Functional structure or project structure?

Professor: OK. Uh, let’s talk about organization and structure in a company. How are companies typically structured?

Female student: Functionally.

Professor: And…?

Female student: By projects.

Professor: Right. By function… and by projects. Twenty years ago companies were organized in function groups, where people with a certain expertise worked together as a unit-the, uh, architects in one unit, the finance people is another unit. Well, nowadays a lot of companies are organized around projects - like a construction company could be building an office building in one city and an apartment house somewhere else, and each project has its own architects and engineers.

Now, the good thing about project organization is that it’s easier to change to adapt to the needs of the project-it’s a small group, a dedicated team, not the whole company.

Now, with that in mind, here’s a question for you: Why do we continue to organize ourselves by function, even now, when in fact we admit that projects are the lifeblood of a lot of organizations? Why do some companies maintain a functional organization instead of organizing around projects? Yes?

Female student: Because, um, if you don’t have that functional structure within your organization, chances are you’d have a harder time meeting the goals of the projects.

Professor: Why?
Female student: Why?

Professor: Listen, let’s say we got four new cars we want to design. Why do we need a functional organization? Why not just organize the company around the four projects - these people make car number one, these other people make care number two…

Female student: Yeah, but who’s gonna be responsible for what? You know, the way you tell who’s…

Professor: Well… well, we’ll appoint a manger: new car number one manager, car number two manager-they’re completely responsible.  Why should we have a single engineering department that has all four cars passing through it?

Female student: When you design a car, you need the expertise of all the engineers in the company. Each engineer needs to be in touch with the entire engineering department.

Professor: Yeah, but I keep… I keep asking why? I wanna know why. Yes.

Male student: Well, to eliminate redundancy is probably one of the biggest factors in an organization. So that uh.. so that there’s there’s… standards of.. for uniformity and efficiency in the organization.

Professor: OK. And.. and that’s probably the primary reason for functional organization right there is that we want some engineering consistency. We want the same kind of technology used in all four cars. If we disperse those four engineers into four parts of the organization  and they work by themselves, there’s a lot less chance that the technology’s gonna be the same from car to car. So instead we maintain the functional organization-that means the engineers work together in one part of the building. And their offices are next to each other because we want them to talk to each other. When an engineer works on a project, they bring the expertise of their whole functional group with them.

But there’s a downside of that though, isn’t there? I mean, organizing a company into functional groups is not all positive. Where’s the allegiance of those engineers? It’s to their coordinator, right? It’s to that chief engineer. But we really want our one engineer, the engineer that’s working on car number one, we want that person’s loyalty to be to that project as well as to the head of the engineering groups. We… we really want both, don’t we? We want to maintain the functional organization, so we can maintain uniformity and technology transfer, and expertise. We want the cutting edge expertise in every group. But at the same time we also want the engineer to be totally dedicated to the needs of the project. Ideally, we have a… a hybrid, a combination of both functional and project organization.
But there’s a problem with this kind of hybrid structure. When you have both functional and project organization, well, what does that violate in terms of basic management principles?

Female student: Unity of command.

Professor: Unity of command. That’s exactly right. So this… this is a vicious violation of unity of command, isn’t it? It says that this engineer working on a project seems to have two bosses. We… we got the engineering boss, and we got the project manager boss. But the project manager is responsible for the project, and is not the official manager of the engineer who works on the project. And we try to maintain peace in the organizations and sometimes it’s disrupted and we have conflicts, don’t we? The project manager for car one wants a car part to fit in a particular way, but a specific situation, a specialized case. Well, the, uh, engineering director says no, we gotta have standardization. We gotta have all the cars done this way. We can’t make a special mold for that particular part for that particular car. We’re not gonna do that. So we got a conflict.

Nghĩa trong bài:office building: tòa nhà văn phòng.
apartment house: Chung cư.
projects are the lifeblood of a lot of organizations: Dự án là mạch máu của rất nhều doanh nghiệp.
Chances are you’d have a harder time meeting the goals of the projects: Khả năng là bạn sẽ gặp khó khăn trong việc đáp ứng mục tiêu dự án.
uniformity: sự đồng nhất
vicious violation:  sự vi phạm tồi tệ của nguyên tắc.
mold: khuôn

SUMMARY:
Functional organization:
1. Helps to achieve uniformity in projects.
2. Encourages people with similar expertise to work closely together.
Project organization: helps the company to adapt quickly and meet changing needs.
Unity of command: No one should have more than one boss.

Improve your pronunciation and fluency

A question from one of our regular listeners, Shazad Enam.

Shazad wants to know how to improve pronunciation and fluency. Is there any way of doing that easily?

Martin Parrott answers:
Easily, I don’t know. I don’t think there are easy ways to learn languages – I don’t think people who promise sudden ‘quick fix’ methods are to be believed. We learn slowly, and we learn by working hard.

As far as pronunciation is concerned, the most important thing is listening! I think, often we try and pronounce things correctly before we can really hear what the differences are. How do we check out whether we’re doing that?

Record ourselves

I think we need to record ourselves and we need to record what it is we’re repeating and listening to. So, the most useful thing perhaps is to listen to the radio with a tape recorder, to record a little bit of the radio, and then to say it ourselves, and to compare how we’ve said it, with the way it was said on the radio, in the language we’re learning.

It’s a slow process. We need to spend a lot of time rehearsing. I remember when I was learning, for instance, for hours and hours as I was walking or cycling, or whatever – I was trying to produce those sounds, difficult sounds that I was learning.

The more we do that, the more we pick up when we hear them. And of course the other thing about pronunciation is, as we improve our pronunciation, that also improves our comprehension. As we learn to make these distinction between similar sounds, we start hearing them – and that makes understanding easier.

Spelling is a problem

One of the biggest problems in English is that the spelling gets in the way because there are so many ways of spelling the same sound. Also because letters may be written and not pronounced and because letters may be written and pronounced in a very unexpected way. When we learn to read, that can interfere with our pronunciation, and can cause problems in itself.

Is there a difference between pronunciation and fluency?

They’re quite different. Pronunciation is getting the sounds right, and of course it’s also getting the intonation and the rhythm right – it’s not just individual sounds, it’s pushing them all together.

Fluency perhaps overlaps there a little bit. Fluency is saying things easily. Being fluent is more a question of being confident in the vocabulary, and how to put the words together in the grammar – being confident in that - …and just being confident in your ability to express yourself and having a go.

It’s those psychological factors much more than whether you can get your tongue around the individual sounds. In fact people whose pronunciation is poor, but who speak fluently and put it together and get it out reasonably quickly, are usually easier to understand than people who’re taking a lot of trouble over their pronunciation and therefore are slowing themselves down, and speaking one word at a time.

One piece of advice

When you’re speaking, don’t think about the individual sounds and getting those right. Think about groups of words, and think about meaningful groups of words, and getting those out as quickly and as smoothly as you can. 

(From BBC)

Can Paper Bring Prosperity?

A short description of money and historical examples where forms of which were not a good store of value ended in economic disaster.

JULIA: Welcome to tonight's show. I'm Julia Sanders. We have with us Mr. Thomas Hughes. It's great to have you here with us tonight.

THOMAS: Thank you Julia. Pleasure to be here.

JULIA: OK. So, today we are going to discuss money.

THOMAS: Yes, it is a very interesting subject. Originally, there were only commodities and people exchanged them according to their wants and needs with one another. At its most basic level, money is a medium of exchange. Something that is desirable to use as money, is also a good store of value and can serve as a unit of account.

JULIA: So what has been used as money?

THOMAS: All over the world, different commodities emerged to play a role, as an acceptable medium of exchange. Cowry shells, wampum, and tobacco, have been used. The word salary actually derives its meaning from the Latin word 'salarium' which means salt.

JULIA: Interesting piece of trivia.

THOMAS: Yes, salt was used in pre-coinage Mediterranean societies. On a small group of South Pacific islands, large stones were used as money.

JULIA: They used rocks as money?

THOMAS: Yes, on the Yap Islands a type of limestone was used. These stones were very rare and were quarried on Palau, some 250 miles to the southwest. New stones were acquired at great peril, perhaps even loss of life. They were valued most highly by the islanders. Here is a picture.

The stone money of the Yap Islands.

JULIA: And what happened?

THOMAS: An enterprising Irish-American was shipwrecked there in 1874. He learned of the unique economy of the island. Sensing a profitable business opportunity he returned a year later, aboard a vessel carrying limestone. He exchanged these stones for goods produced by the islanders.

JULIA: That sounds funny.

THOMAS: Well, perhaps a humorous tale to us today. But to the people of the Yap islands, their economy was destroyed. The stones became so numerous that they lost all their value. The people discovered that they had much less in terms of goods than they previously enjoyed, as they had traded these things away for the stones. They were in effect poorer, although they had much more money than they ever had before. Perhaps there is a lesson in this. Today we trade pieces of paper, a material abundant like the limestone rocks of the Yap islands.

JULIA: So are you suggesting that we may find ourselves amongst piles of paper, and no goods?

THOMAS: That is a possibility, and one not completely unknown to the history books. This highlights why it is desirable for money to also be a store of value. As the people of the Yap islands found out, rocks are a terrible store of value. And to be honest, paper isn't much better.

JULIA: I remember reading about hyperinflation in Germany. A wheelbarrow of money required to buy a loaf of bread. People filling up their wood stoves with paper money.

A German woman feeding a stove with currency notes, which burn longer than the amount of firewood they can buy.

THOMAS: Weimer Germany in the early 1920's, is perhaps the most well-known example of hyperinflation. China was the first country to use paper money. That occurred in the early 9th century. When Marco Polo returned to Europe in 1295, he detailed how the Chinese emperor created paper money through a very official process. His claims of paper being used as money were met with ridicule and disbelief by his fellow Europeans. Unknown to Marco Polo, China was being ravaged by hyperinflation after he left. So what Marco Polo saw, as being the immense wealth of China, was merely an inflationary boom caused by money creation. China stopped using paper money in the middle of the 15th century and did not return until the arrival of the Europeans in the 19th century. As it turned out, China once again experienced hyperinflation with paper money in the late 1940's.

JULIA: Any others?

Changing gold into paper money.
Taken from the Arlequin Actionist (1720)

THOMAS: Many. The United States experienced two hyperinflationary episodes - the continental money during the War of Independence, and the Confederation paper during the U.S. Civil War. France experienced terrible hyperinflation during the French Revolution. France also experienced economic turmoil in the early 1720's, when John Law proposed printing paper notes as a means to alleviate France's debt. Law proposed stimulating industry by replacing gold with paper credit, and then planned to increase the supply of credit through low-interest rate loans. To reduce the national debt he proposed replacing it with shares in economic ventures - this policy directly contributed to the disastrous Mississippi Company bubble. That scheme fell apart in 1722, when the public en masse attempted to redeem their paper notes into gold. There was simply not enough gold to honour all redemptions.

In the end, shares of the Mississippi Company were deemed worthless. This wiped out the wealth of many.

JULIA: This sounds a bit like today. The U.S. Federal Reserve has taken bad debt unto its balance sheet, and are they not printing money to purchase U.S. Treasuries so interest rates stay low?

THOMAS: As Mark Twain once said, "history doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes."

JULIA: Interesting. Thank-you for your explanation. We will now take a short commercial break.

Source: http://dollardaze.org

Difference between "Solve" and "Resolve"

A question from Lilia in Rio de Janeiro:
Since I'm improving my English, I'm trying to write my reports in English. I need to know the difference between the verbs 'solve' and 'resolve'. Thank you.

Sian Harris answers:
Hello Lilia, thanks for getting in touch.

The simplest answer I can give you here is to say that in many contexts they are roughly synonymous - in other words similar in meaning and therefore sometimes used interchangeably, where the basic meaning is to find a solution or answer to a problem.

For example, we could say either "we have solved the problems in management" or "we have resolved the problems in management". To resolve a problem, argument or difficulty means to deal with it successfully. As in the example, "The cabinet met to resolve the dispute."

However, be aware that 'resolve' can be used with the infinitive with a slightly different meaning. If you resolve to do something you make a firm decision to do it.

"They resolved to take action."

'Resolve' also sometimes appears as a noun meaning a determination to do something. "We must be firm in our resolve to oppose them."

So Lilia, you'll find more examples in your dictionary, but in them meantime, I hope I've clarified the key differences there.

(From BBC)

South Korea: Web junkies hooked on computer games

Internet addiction in South Korea's got so bad the goverment's bannded teens from going online after midnight. Web junkies have been going without good, drink and sleep for days because they're hooked on computer games. The authorities have been hedging their bets putting money into a variety of solutions. One scheme monitors people's brainwaves, while another tries to get youngsters involved in more traditional forms of entertainment.

Nghĩa trong bài:
addiction: nghiện, tình trạng nghiện, cơn nghiện. Động từ: to be addicted (to something)
junkies: 'con nghiện', đây là một từ thường được dùng để chỉ người nghiện ma túy, nhưng ở đây là nghiện chơi games trực tuyến
hooked on: nghiện, dính vào (không bỏ được),
hedging their bets: 'đặt cược nhiều cửa', đây là một cách diễn tả việc giảm rủi ro bằng cách đặt cược nhiều cửa khác nhau
brainwaves: sóng điện trong não, điện não

(From BBC)

Bucking the trend: Young Japanese are heading back to the fields

The neon lights of Tokyo...
For decades, rapidly growing Asian economies have encouraged young workers to leave the fields and flock to the cities. But now many young Japanese are bucking the trend, abandoning the office and heading back to the fields. Economic stagnation means millions can't find a permanent job. New recruits are being welcomed by Japanese farmers, whose average age is more than 65.

Nghĩa trong bài:
flock to: đổ về, dồn về
bucking the trend: đi ngược lại xu hướng đó
heading back: quay trở lại
stagnation: tình trạng trì trệ
permanent job: công việc ổn định.

(From BBC)

Personality Development Skills

Thrive: to grow or develop vigorously; flourish:
These people [the perfectionist] thrive on details, accuracy and take just about everything seriously = Những người này phát triển bản thân thông qua chi tiết, độ chính xác và xem xét mọi thứ rất nghiêm túc.

Multi-faceted [fas-itid]: nhiều khía cạnh (He is a person of multi-faceted personality = Anh ấy là 1 con người đa nhân cách.)
It is often multi-faceted and individuals display different personalities at different places and in different phases of his life

Thoughtful [thawt-fuhl]: contemplative; meditative; reflective
They are deep, thoughtful and usually very sensitive.

Face value: Apparent value (giá trị bề ngoài)
They know how and why things are the way they are rather than talking anything at face value.

Direct and to the point: Rất thẳng thắn vào hay đi thẳng vào vấn đề.

Streak: Tính, nết, tính nết.
They have an entrepreneurial streak: Họ có nét tính cách của một doanh nhân.

Ficke: Hay thay đổi, không kiên định.
They can be ficke minded and emotionally weak.

Well-rounded: Toàn diện
We are going to be presenting tips that you can relate to and incorporate in your everyday life to emerge as a well-rounded personality.

Santa điều khiển giao thông ở Manila

TOEFL Listening: How does the bacteria become resistant to antibiotics?

Listen to part of a conversation between two students. The woman is helping the man review for a biology examination.

Male Student

OK, so . . . what do you think we should go over next?

Female Student

How about if we go over this stuff about how bacteria become resistant to antibiotics.

Male Student

OK.

Female Student

Um, but first of all, though, how many pages do we have left? I told my roommate I’d meet her at the library at seven o’clock.

Male Student

Ummm . . . There’s only a few pages left. We should be finished in a few minutes.

Female Student

OK. So, ummm . . .

Male Student

About how bacteria become resistant to antibiotics.

Female Student

Oh yeah, OK. So you know that some bacteria cells are able to resist the drugs we use against them, and that’s because they have these special genes that, like, protect them from the drugs.

Male Student

Right. If I remember correctly, I think the genes like . . . weaken the antibiotics, or like …stop the antibiotics from getting into the bacteria cell, something like that . . .

Female Student

Exactly. So when bacteria have these genes, it’s very difficult for the antibiotics to kill the bacteria.

Male Student

Right.

Female Student

So, do you remember what those genes are called?

Male Student

Umm . . .

Female Student

Resistance genes.

Male Student

Resistance genes. Right. Resistance genes. OK.

Female Student

And that makes sense, right? Because they help the bacteria resist the antibiotics.

Male Student

Yeah, that makes sense. OK.

Female Student

OK. But the question is: how do bacteria get the resistance genes?

Male Student

How do they get the resistance genes? They just inherit them from the parent cell, right?

Female Student

OK, yeah, that’s true. They can inherit them from the parent cell, but that’s not what I’m talking about.

Male Student

OK.

Female Student

I’m talking about how they get resistance genes from other cells in their environment, you know, from the other cells around them.

Male Student

Oh, I see what you mean. Umm, is that that stuff about “hopping genes,” or something like that?

Female Student

Right. Although actually they’re called “jumping genes,” not “hopping genes.”

Male Student

Oh, OK. Jumping genes.

Female Student

Yeah, but they have another name, too, that I can’t think of. Umm . . . lemme see if I can find it here in the book . . .

Male Student

I think it’s probably on . . .

Female Student

Oh, OK. Here it is. Transposons. That’s what they’re called.

Male Student

Lemme see. OK. Trans . . . po . . . sons . . . trans . . . posons. So “transposon” is another name for a jumping gene?

Female Student

Right. And these transposons are, you know, like, little bits of DNA that are able to move from one cell to another. That’s why they’re called “jumping genes.” They kind of, you know, “jump” from one cell to another.

Male Student

OK.

Female Student

And these transposons are how resistance genes are able to get from one bacteria cell to another bacteria cell. What happens is that a resistance gene from one cell attaches itself to a transposon and then, when the transposon jumps to another cell . . .

Male Student

The other cell gets the resistance gene and . . .

Female Student

Right.

Male Student

That’s how it becomes resistant to antibiotics.

Female Student

Right.

Male Student

Wow. That’s really cool. So that’s how it happens.

Female Student

That’s how it happens.

Nghĩa trong bài:
Antibiotics: Kháng sinh.
Transposon = Jumping genes: Gen nhảy (cũng có thể gọi là hopping genes nhưng jumping genes được gọi phổ biến hơn).

Online lecture: The Effects of Organizational Structure

SUMMARY:
Structure

• Collection of interacting parts
• Interactions are governed by rules
• Can be simple or complex
• If complex, can be adaptive or not

Performance

• Performance  = Effectiveness + Efficiency
• Effectivenes
  
  • Expectation is the input
  • Satisfaction is the output
• Efficiency
  
  • Effort is the input
  • Useful Work is the output

• Performance is Contextual
  
  • Examples: Volunteering for additional work, following organizational rules and procedures even when personally inconvenient, assisting and cooperating with coworkers

Context

• The circumstances (facts or conditions) that
  
  • Form the setting.
  • Allow for understanding and assessment.
• The Functional Operating Environment (FOE)
• Performance is assessed in Context
  
  • Userful work
  • Desired Result, Expectation, Satisfaction
• Context can Change.

Change Dynamics (5D’s)

1. Degree
   How much is changing?
2. Drive
   How fast is it changing?
3. Difficulty
   How complex is it?
4. Doubtfulness
   How unclear is the meaning?
5. Divergence
   How different is it from prior experience?

Structure and Dynamics

• Complex structure
  
  • Inhibits flexibility
  • Improves performance

• Simple structure
  
  • Improves flexibility
  • Reduces performance

Which is Best?

The Diamond-Water Paradox - Nghịch lý giá trị của kim cương và nước.

JULIA: Welcome to tonight's show. I'm Julia Sanders. We have with us Mr. John Tabbot. It's great to have you here with us tonight.

TABBOT: Thank you for inviting me here today.

JULIA: OK. So, today we are going to discuss why diamonds are more valuable than water.

TABBOT: Yes, it is a very strange notion isn't it? After all, water not diamonds is essential for life. Classical economists puzzled over this question and named it the "value paradox".

JULIA: OK, so why are diamonds more valuable?

TABBOT: Well, scarcity of goods is what causes humans to attribute value. If, we were surrounded by an unending abundance of both water and diamonds, we probably would not value either very much.

JULIA: That makes sense.

TABBOT: Scarcity is an important factor in how we value an economic good.

JULIA: What defines an economic good?

TABBOT: Economic goods have three attributes - first of all, there must be a human need or want. Secondly, there must be an opinion that the thing in question will satisfy that need or want. The last point is that there must be command or control over the ability to satisfy this want or need.

JULIA: So something, like good weather would not be an economic good?

TABBOT: Exactly, I may know that a nice sunny day would improve my mood. But, we do not have control over the weather. Therefore, it is not an economic good.

JULIA: So now you have defined what economic goods are and say that scarcity is how we value them?

TABBOT: Yes. We value an economic good only if there is an insufficient quantity to satisfy all human desires for that thing. Scarcity implies that we will rank our wants and this process results in economic activity.

JULIA: So something like, the air we breathe would not be economically valuable?

TABBOT: Under normal circumstances yes. In the case of a SCUBA diver it is very much an economic good with value.

JULIA: Right!

TABBOT: Consumers will use whatever resources they have at their disposal to satisfy their most important wants. Our value system is determined by our ranking of wants.

JULIA: Can you provide an example?

TABBOT: Yes. Assume you are a farmer with three horses and two cattle. Each of the horses is interchangeable with one another.

JULIA: So all horses are identical?

TABBOT: Yes, we have in a sense turned them into a commodity. And not only the horses, but each cow is interchangeable as well. Now let us assume that you rank the importance of the animals as follows - tilling the fields is the most important and you need a horse for that. Secondly, you need a horse to pull your wagon to town.

JULIA: This must be a historical example.

TABBOT: Seems to be, yes. So the two top needs are fulfilled both by horses. Now we proceed down our ranking of wants and see that we require one cow to produce milk. Then another cow is required for cheese and butter.

JULIA: So it goes horse, horse, cow, then cow?

TABBOT: Correct. The third horse, and final animal, is required for recreational riding. This is regarded as being the least important of the five wants. Okay. So now comes my question - which is the most valuable animal in this example?

JULIA: The horse.

TABBOT: Wrong.

JULIA: But the horse fulfills the most valuable want.

TABBOT: Yes, it does. But you see, you have fallen into the same trap as the classical economists.

JULIA: Please explain?

TABBOT: I will prove to you that the cow is the more valuable animal through the following scenario. Imagine that these animals are all inside a barn that is on fire and you can save only one of them. Which one would it be?

JULIA: It would be the horse of course.

TABBOT: Yes, if only one animal could be saved it would be the horse. If you could save two animals?

JULIA: I would save the second horse.

TABBOT: Yes. And now, if you had sufficient time what would be the third animal?

JULIA: The cow used for milk.

TABBOT: And the fourth animal?

JULIA: The second cow.

TABBOT: So, the remaining animal would be a horse? That is my point. As this example shows, the cow is more valuable than the horse. But, only if you have the third horse.

JULIA: So, if you only have two horses and two cows, than the horse is more valuable?

TABBOT: Yes. But since you have three horses, the value of a horse is less to you than a cow. This is what economists refer to as "marginal utility". We can say that the marginal utility of the cow is greater than that of the horse.

JULIA: But only because the farmer has more horses than cows.

TABBOT: Yes. But we must keep in mind our ranking of wants. If we had deemed the recreational riding as being more important than making cheese and butter, then the horse would be the more valuable animal, even though they outnumber the cows. So raw numbers alone do not determine which is more valuable.

JULIA: Okay. I understand that.

TABBOT: Now we have a framework to understand why diamonds are valued more than water even though water is ultimately the more important of the two.

JULIA: Which explains why a person in the desert dying of thirst would trade his diamonds for water?

TABBOT: Yes, and how under normal circumstances diamonds are much more valuable.

JULIA: Thank-you for your explanation. We will now take a short commercial break.

Learn Advanced English Lesson #5

Central Bank - Lesson 1: Price Stability

Understanding The Financial Crisis--For Kids and Grownups

Sixty Six - Idioms & Proverbs