Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

As we discussed yesterday, if a nation's central bank lowers its interest rates, the usual expectation is that it will weaken its currency. Part of the reason why: it will set up a carry trade, in which profiteers will borrow money at its low rates, then exchange that currency for another currency, that issued by a higher-interest rate country, so these profiteers (I use the term without animus -- it simply means "those seeking a profit") can lend out for a higher rate than the one at which they are borrowing, pocketing the difference. This activity, given supply/demand principles predictably weakens the currency the profiteers are leaving and strengthens that into which they're moving. This brings us back to the mystery with which we began. Australia and New Zealand have both recently lowered interest rates. In each case, though, that has corresponded to a strengthening of the currency. Back in late May, you would have needed 1.39 Aussie dollars to buy a US do...

I'm not sure I understand this, or agree with Bloomberg's analysis, but I'll put it in here anyway. An Aug. 15th Bloomberg story, by Vincent Cignarella (portrayed above), starts with this: The central banks of Australia and New Zealand each recently lowered their benchmark interest rate. According to conventional wisdom, this should have weakened their respective currencies, giving their business a stimulative shot in the arm when functioning as exporters. But that didn't happen. Rather, the lowered interest rates resulted in ... stronger currencies. What's going on? If you don't understand why that result is counter-intuitive, you might want to take a step back, Consider a common FX trader's trick known as the "carry trade." The idea is: borrow money in the currency of a country where interest rates are low, then trade it for the currency of another country where interest rates are high, and lend the money out there. You're buying cred...

I've been reading a book with the above title, including the punctuation mark as above. The book was written by a committee, the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection (MISTRA). Michael Ndletyana and David Maimela are credited as editors. MISTRA, I add (reading from the copy on the back cover) was "founded by a group of South Africans ... who saw the need to create a platform for engagement around strategic issues facing South Africa."  It is, in short, a think tank, launched in March 2011. MISTRA's definition of resource nationalism is a political drive to increase the extent and types of state intervention in the extractive sectors of the economy. Extraction means what it sounds like it means -- what happens when something is taken out of the ground. That something may be oil, coal, diamonds, etc. The  political drive in question is not necessarily limited to what happens in the capital city of the nation state where the resources to be extracted are...

I tweeted my reactions throughout the recent Rio Olympics. Today, in stead of getting at all creative in making a new blog post, I'll simply compile those tweets. What fun! We'll go from last to first, again because that's the lazy thing to do in compiling. (Sorry, there will be nothing here about the infamous 4 AM gas-station trashing. Well ... one brief mention.) I'm not going to provide the links that originally went with the tweets, so in a couple of cases I've added a sentence of explanation. Also, I've left typos in place. Let's pretend that's authenticity, not indolence. Chris Faille ‏ @ ccfaille   (Aug. 21)                                  # Rio2016 , this is my last # olympics related tweet for two years. Next time I have anything to say on the subj, it'll involve # snow and # ice .   Chris Faille ...

A recent essay by th e philosopher Galen Strawson has looked at the mind-body problem from a distinctive angle. The title of the essay seems more straightforward than it is. "Consciousness isn't a mystery. It's Matter." One first gets the impression that Strawson is taking a straightforward materialist/eliminativist view: consciousness simply is matter in one of its operations. But that is to presume that the "it" in the second sentence is an unambiguous reference to the word "consciousness" in the first sentence. Another reading suggests itself, though. The "it" could refer to the word "mystery." The second sentence would then mean, "It's matter that is the real mystery." Both meanings fall within the scope of Strawson's intention. It is what Strawson calls a Very Large Mistake to think that we know enough about matter, through the science of physics, to know that consciousness can't be a materi...