Monday 16 December 2013

charter or seigniorage

Next week marks the centennial of the creation of the US Federal Reserve System, mandated by the legislature in response to a series of market panics that came in the aftermath of the Great War and given the triple duties of promoting full-employment, stability in prices and affordable loans. It seems to me that these goals—cushions are the very antithesis of what in reality and any victory, I think, comes in spite of the Fed's better intentions. After failing to avert the Great Depression that followed about a decade, precipitating the next world war, after its founding, the institution—which is not a governmental entity but like any other private bank, just enjoying something akin to a royal charter, like the Dutch East-India Company, it was awarded with broader powers and roles, including dictating monetary policy through an elastic supply, being the bank of the US government—where tax revenues are deposited, being an emergency lender of last resort, banking regulation and supervision and a cheque clearing-house.

That first enumerated power (which other central banks do not have unilaterally) is of course most controversial and possibly most counter-productive to its original charge, as there has been a creeping inflation of around 2000% over the past hundred years (with significant stagnation elsewhere) and though the increase has on balance been gradual and inuring, there has been more frequent periods of price spikes. In order to oversee the quantity and quality of money, the Fed acts as the US Treasury's financial agent by distributing physical cash according to its assessed need: mints produce paper money, which the Fed purchases at labour cost (about 6¢ apiece, whether for a one dollar bill or for a hundred dollar bill) and sells to banks at face-value. Coins, on the other hand, which are regarded as dirty and reviled things, the Fed must buy at retail. I suppose that's part of the logic behind the suggestion that the US president could have solved the budget crisis by striking a pair of trillion dollar coins, but there's also a lot less of metal in circulation and an assault against paying in cash. Now on the eve of this anniversary, the Federal Reserve's prerogative to spin gold out of straw, though far from being called into question, may throw a recovering American economy into turmoil with a decision to ease the printing and stop backing-up debt as routine.

Sunday 15 December 2013

curds and whey

Here is an incomplete Periodic Table of cheeses. I only made it as far as the transitional cheeses and realised that I probably should have undertaken my method of classification in a more scientific manner to be useful. I started with base ingredients, hoping to end with hardness but I exhausted recognised varieties. Perhaps someone better organised can finish this project with this blank template of the classic layout of the periodic table or create their own system for items that demonstrate characteristics and predictability that can be fit into this format or quiz one selves on the elements that actually belong in this chart. Perhaps even someone could incorporate other basic properties, like wine-pairings.

a cup, a cup, a cup, a cup, a cup

Next time you are enjoying a cup of fine steamy hot coffee, you may want to conider the culture  and conceptions that quickly expanded around this New World import and these five historical counter-revolutions from Mental Floss blogger Emmy Blotnick that attempted to ban coffee consumption. Frederick the Great's rallying against the bean and brew may have just been a strongly-worded suggestion, as his majesty was raised on beer for breakfast.

Saturday 14 December 2013

chuchotage or gesticulation

Often, when available, I switch on the closed-captions while, watching movies in German because sometimes the being able to read the words as well make it easier to understand above accents and fast speech—and the text-version of the dialogue is sometimes simplified and leaves out slang and Englisch terminology. Also, when watching the nightly news, viewers respect the tolling bells that proceed the nationally syndicated programme like BBC watchers not daring to interrupt the pips that usher in the top of the hour, though all broadcasts are moderated by the same anchors, I like to watch the public stations that feature a sign-language interpreter—just to see how animated they are, when to my perspective they're just miming the news but trust that they are conveying volumes.

I was disappointed to learn how the interpreter commissioned for the occasion of the state funeral for Nelson Mandela was signing absolute gibberish, and not just because it was a solemn event but also was an insult to the hearing-impaired and the skill of those that know how to communicate in this medium—as it is not a form of communication dependent on its spoken equivalent and requires translation and there is no universal sign language, whether by other non-verbal forms or formal digital-speaking itself. It's a pathetic display and I'm glad it was revealed, because such an honour is not on the same level as lip-syncing or being a part of a choir and mouthing the word watermelon (because from the audience's point of view, that enunciation could be just about anything) because you don't know the piece. There's a pretty funny super-cut of the lampoons, however, to be found at the link.

valance or tinley bar

Food Beast presents this brilliant and systematic presentation of classic cocktails arranged in Periodic Table form by designer Mayra Artes.

Click on the image to enlarge but be sure to visit the gourmand blog, as well. The columns are arranged by family of liquors and in descending order of alcohol content—thus chemical reactivity. I like how the Gin Group is located where one would find the Noble Gasses and the listing of the Rare-Earth elements. Here's a toast to the science of taxology. I think a perfect project for an expert cheesemonger (l'artisan fromager) would be to adapt families of cheeses to this format.

forked-tongue or double-helix

Researchers at the University of Washington have announced that the genetic coding, deciphered on an elementary level first in the 1960s, of DNA contains a second cryptic language that governs the activation and deactivation of genes in addition to the instructions for expressing proteins.

The hidden directions indicate that by its vocabulary DNA may be responsible for what's understood as aging and disease, more so than time and decay. Perhaps such a dual function should not come as something unexpected, though unplumbed, necessarily, but it does, I believe, really demonstrate the folly of genetically modified foodstuffs in learning that there is something proactive as well as reactive to body chemistry. We are certainly not programmed for sabotage or self-destruction, I think, our bodies are rather, fortunately smarter than ourselves. Do you think such a palimpsest of language is prone to misinterpretation, since the coding of chemistry and biology might not be as straightforward or verbose as our systems of constructed communications and sub-routines?

Friday 13 December 2013

zugzwang

The Society for the German Language announced from Wiesbaden its selection for word of the year, a portmanteu GroKo for GroรŸe Koalition (Grand Coalition) for its characterisation of the political environment of post-election Germany—a surprising departure from the status quo and for the making of unlikely partnerships though the vote and the aftermath is fairly young and does not seem too influential in the grand scheme of things.

It beat out other candidates like Big-Data and Big Brother, referencing the spying and surveillance scandals, a descriptor for the Bishop of Bling for his extravagance and the new papacy's reforms, the idea of charging foreigners a toll for using the Autobahn (Auslรคndermaut), or Generation Sandsack for the increased and frequent flooding plaguing the country. The choice may prove prescient, however, as past title-holders have included candidates such as the novel term Bundeskanzlerin—federal chancellor-ess, to honour the first time the office was so inflected, in 2005 and enduring to the present, or Besserwessi, capturing the attitude of a newly-reunited nation with perceived and implied notions that westward-leading values and orientation were inherently better than those of reintegrated neighbours. To some extent the brunt of this thinking has shifted further east—mostly, but is still quite persistent in its application. What do you think? Could GroKo come to signify something like a marriage-of-convenience, a house-of-cards, or a pyrrhic victory in the future?