Monetary Weapons

The downward spiral in the German bund market widened the Euro’s interest rtate advantage over the US dollar, leaving the greenback on shaky ground and vulnerable to speculative attack. Bernanke would be under heavy pressure to match a second ECB rate hike to 4.50%, to defend the value of the dollar. In essence, the ECB could hijack US monetary policy, and force the Fed to guide the federal funds rate higher, in order to shake-out speculators in the crude oil and commodities markets.

Gary Dorsch, When Central Bankers Clash, Stock Markets can Crash

This an example of the nonsense that one has to endure when reading articles by people who are very knowledgeable about the economy and totally ignorant about everything else-the curse of over-specialisation and expert-ism-here, for example, the ECB (European Central Bank) and the Fed (Federal Reserve) are put head to head and measured as if they exist in a political/historical vacuum.

Weekly Lesson (15)

“[The Taliban] are, in fact, among the most principled and most pious rulers modern Afghanistan has ever had. They are perhaps also among the pious and principled rulers the present day world has. It was indeed their piety, their principled behavior coupled with their strong convictions as well as their iron determination that helped them save the tyrannized people of Afghanistan from the clutches of the most cruel tyrants of the [civil war] period.” 

-The Afghanistan Foundation’s White Paper or Dark Paper? by M. Hassan Kakar [author of Afghanistan]

Atlas Broken

Two important stories from the USA, the first is the flooding of the Mississippi; although only two dozens died because of the flooding and no major urban area has been effected, yet, the consequence of the flooding is much more widespread. This year is a year of high agricultural prices and supply shortages, the flood has destroyed a large amount of crops and delayed the shipment of supplies, causing prices to rise; the outlook for this summer’s harvest is bad.

A Ptillion Dollars

A ptillion dollars is a thousand trillion dollars or ten to the power fifteen dollars or $1,000,000,000,000,000.

This number is no longer a theoretical measure but an economic reality: Total debt in the US-public and private-has been estimated at $0.1 ptillion; the value of short-term interest-rate futures traded on exchanges is $0.548 ptillion (notional).

When the coming hyperinflation hits the word ‘ptillion’ will become a household word, so I thought I would jump the gun and put it in print: let no one claim to be the first.

A Roman PI

Steven Saylor’s Roma Sub Rosa series, 1991-ongoing, 10 novels & 2 short stories collections.

I own ten books by Steven Saylor all of them belong to his Roma Sub Rosa series featuring Gordianus the Finder: A private detective working in ancient Rome, and elsewhere in the Mediterranean, around the middle of the first century BC. Some are subtitled ‘A Mystery of Ancient Rome’ others as ‘A Novel of Ancient Rome’.

The Catholic Empire 950-1350

The history of the world knows many past empires, some are still visible others quite forgotten, but only one has been to a successful degree concealed from history and a veil drawn on its existence and the role it played in the history of mankind; a role that still echoes in our present life.

Once we view the medieval age in Europe as the age of a specific empire then we can understand the reason behind many events and see them as parts of a whole pattern, rather than just a series of random events. As a modest contribution I list here some of the most important dates in the history of the Catholic Empire: 

910: The Empire Sows its Seed

• 910: Great Benedictine monastery of Cluny rejuvenates western monasticism. Monasteries spread throughout the isolated regions of Western Europe.

History of the Roman Catholic Church, Wikipedia

These monasteries were to play the role of the incubator for the ideas and men who would later build the Catholic Empire.