Habemus papam. Now what.

[airiefairie.livejournal.com]

As an old joke goes, whoever enters the conclave as a Pope, exits as a cardinal. The latest proof was the election of the 266th Pope. When the white smoke came out, none of the presumed front-runners for successor of Benedict XVI came out clad in white robe. Instead, they chose an obscure cardinal from Argentina, whom some call "humble" and "ascetic", and "a guy with a great heart", while others are sure to remind of his controversial past back in his native country.

So Bergoglio is now the third Pope since the beginning of the new millenium. Those guys seem to be alternating at a pretty fast rate ever since John Paul II died. The guy who chose Francis as his name, has been known in his country as someone who stays close to the people and knows the pains and troubles of the poor very intimately. That is why the signal this choice is meant to be sending is probably mostly directed at the poorest neighbourhoods around the world, the ghettos and the refugee camps. A gesture of hope, so to speak.

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Rottin' Money

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

When last I bored you with money talk, I noted that the Federal Reserve has but one weapon in its money management arsenal, to inject money into bank vaults. They can do that through short-term lending, by buying crap assets from banks, or (even more recently and ongoing) by Quantitative Easing, buying bank-held Treasury bonds in exchange for cash. So far, the Fed has bought trillions of dollars worth.

Ah, but getting money into vaults is only half of the money-creation equation. The other half? ( You guessed it! )