heart-strings

Though I think I always want to root for the underdogs and want to be skeptical of the overlords but I remember never having even the slightest bit of immunity when it came to those long-distance telephone commercials rolled out around the holidays by Ma Bell before the break-up and then by competitors. This new holiday advertisement by Apple is in that vein and tears down all one's defenses and cynicism. Click through to watch Misunderstood and have a hanky ready.

papa noël

Collectors' Weekly presents a brilliant and comprehensive feature on the origins and evolution of Santa Claus, including some ideas for the future, with many varied forms of spokesmanship and endorsements that don't quite fit the image, even for a mascot refined for marketing purposes. Nonetheless, the history is quite sweet and endearing, mingling several traditions, cultures, portrayals and exploitations, which in the end yield an undeniable, inalienable sense of wonder and belief, whose quirks and miracles that deserve discovery for oneself.

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.

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.