Some people claim that the main reason why gold became money was that women liked it. Others claim that it is the faith that makes us use a certain good as money. By that logic, even water could become money just by virtue of us having faith in it. In this article, we will attempt to find a reason why water will never be money, and conversely, what actually can become money.
We will begin by examining how and why we assign goods their value, then we will look at the historical context and demonstrate why gold became money and how banks helped it there, and lastly, we will describe a potential evolution through crypto-technologies.
“Use Value” and “Exchange Value” of Goods
People assign to goods so-called use value and exchange value by putting them into their preferential scale as Menger teach us. We can obtain goods on an individual basis – I can build something for myself, pick something from a tree, grow something, find something…
In this context, I care about use value, whichis assigned based on the utility the good provides, how it makes life easier, nourishes us, etc. But the human being is also a social animal and can obtain goods through exchange too.
When it comes to exchange, it is important to imply that in order to exchange something, I have to first have something that I can use as a subject of the exchange. Say’s law therefore applies – satisfying my needs necessitates satisfying the needs of others.
In the context of exchange, we assign goods an exchange value. We want them in order to exchange them with other people for goods that they have – goods that we may want in the context of their use value. This means that I will exchange an apple for a pear if I have an apple, but I would like to eat a pear.
In this case, the apple has an exchange value to me, but no use value. And conversely, the person I am exchanging it with assigns a use value to the apple and exchange value to the pear.
However, if I exchange my apple for a pear, which I want only to subsequently exchange it for a spade, the pear has an exchange value for both me and my exchange partner. Even though both sides have maybe assigned the exchange value to the pear for different reasons – me because I wanted a new spade, and my partner because he felt like eating an apple. And when a good gain a universally assigned exchange value, it becomes a medium of exchange.
Historical Context – Barter vs. Debt
A medium of exchange makes barter exchange easier. It solves a problem of a so-called “double coincidence of wants” first formulated by Jevons in 1893. In a barter exchange, the subjects face a problem where it is not certain that one party of the exchange will want what the other is offering. So, in order for the exchange to take place, they use a third good.
However, as the anthropologist Graeber in his book Debt: The First 5000 Years points out, people in a community could have also solved the “double coincidence of wants” problem in a different way – with time. That means that even though I do not want the pear you are offering for my apple today, I will exchange the apple with you under the condition that you will, after some time, eliminate the debt arising from this exchange with a different good, which I will want, and which does not necessarily have to be a pear.
In other words, people can solve the problem formulated by Jevons through credit relationships (IOUs).
This statement is logical. Why would the members of a prehistoric group not use this type of “exchange”? Especially if we realize that the subjects know each other, live with each other and the group is “governed” by certain rules. These rules can also include recognizing of mutual debts and enforcement of their repayment on the basis of punishment or some prehistoric religious morality. These rules could emerge as evolutionary tools of pre-historic groups.
Both barter and IOU have the characteristics of an exchange. The difference between them is the time and method of eliminating debts. In a barter exchange, the “debt” is eliminated instantly – one good is exchanged for another. With an IOU, a commitment is created, and the debt is eliminated later in time. At the same time, the way the debt is eliminated depends only on the entity’s future activity. That means that by definition, what we exchange during barter must exist when we exchange it.
With debt, however, we can use productive activity in time, i.e. I will create (in very broad terms) something tomorrow, or in a year, and use that to eliminate the debt.
Graeber also backs up his logical argumentation for a proto-existence of IOUs with historical artifacts, at least in societal organizations known to us after the year 5000 to 3500 B.C. Everything before that time is an estimation.
These estimations, however, again suggest the existence of debt (IOU). Discoveries of so-called tally sticks (accounting records of payables and receivables used almost to this day – 20th century – in Swiss regions, and until the 19th century in Great Britain) are among the main historical artifacts that support this argumentation. Likely the oldest of these are the Wolf Radius (25-28 thousand years B.C.), the Lebombo bone (35 thousand years B.C.), or the Ishango bone (18-20 thousand years B.C.), which are speculated to be among the first depictions of mathematical and societal relationships, or potentially among the first records of “something” at all.
It is logical that barter and IOU, be it within a group or outside a group, precedes the existence of a universally used medium of exchange, because a medium of exchange is a more sophisticated way of eliminating debt (IOU) and a replacement of barter.
Money – Medium of Exchange and a Societal Unit of Accounting
During an exchange that utilizes a generally accepted medium of exchange as a replacement for barter, an exchange is realized, and the business relationship ends as soon as the exchange takes place. Debt is different. Because it is realized over time, it is a dynamic phenomenon. This means that we use the medium of exchange not only during calculation when the debt is created, but also during elimination in a different moment in time.
It is also the case that over time, we can exchange a debt for a different debt with the same timeframe (clearing a debt by a different debt), but also with differently overlapping timeframes (clearing a debt over time – so called rolling over of debt). It is apparent that a medium of exchange will face different requirements in the context of barter than in the context of debt.
A universal medium of exchange has to be useful in both cases – barter and IOU. However, what is the basis of that? It is something that has always motivated people – a narrower spread. Both sides of an exchange are reducing the spread they are facing by utilizing a third good as a medium of exchange.
Utilizing wheat, salt, furs, cattle, coco-nuts or other goods that have been used as a medium of exchange is connected to their objective characteristics such as divisibility, portability, durability, or ease of storage. The reason this helped people solve the ‘double coincidence of wants’ problem during an exchange is that if they for example used a good that was not divisible or portable enough, their exchange spread must inevitably become wider.
Therefore, using a good that is divisible, portable, or durable is useful for narrowing the spread in an exchange. With debt, however, things get a little bit more complicated.
Let us start by examining how wide was the actual spread people faced in the past? Compared to the contemporary ‘modern’ world, it was vast and caused people problems. Graeber, for instance, shows this with different examples – slavery as an option of eliminating debt, drastic historical practices of enforcing repayment, using family members as collateral, or transferring debt to other family members across multiple generations – both due to a shorter average lifespan and socio-moral principles of communities.
Societal institutions of morality and religion were supposed to keep creditors ‘in check’, for example in the context of interest rate height, method of calculating interest rates, enforcing payments, or even forgiving debts.
On the other hand, however, they were also supposed to ‘socially influence’ the debtors to repay their debts. This illustrates the complexity of societal phenomena connected to the problem of debt versus a barter – exchange at a particular point in time. And apart from what we described above, the credit exchange spread could have been affected by other relationships and factors.
Interest in a Time Continuum
We have come to an economic question that will need to be explained in economic terms. Why did iron or water not become money? Why was it gold? The theory I am trying to build is that it was because gold enabled people to best reflect the interest rate, which is a part of the exchange in time or debt (IOU). The interest rate is a criterium based on which people decide which goods they will produce using already existing savings.
Simply put, if the production of steel cannot provide at least a 10% return for example, the owners of capital goods (machines, land, labor) will prefer either using them in a different production or they will keep the goods as savings or consume them, as points out Hülsmann in his Theory of Interest.
In my theory of the interest rate, I claim that the interest rate is a mathematical variable which we use to value the future. Because it is a mathematical one, we can use it smoothly in different times when we do valuations, because mathematics is time-independent. The goods themselves are value-variant in time.
Therefore, we cannot derive the interest rate from a preference to a specific good (e.g. steel) and our future expectations for this good. Rather, we derive the interest rate from how e.g. steel will affect our portfolio of goods – i.e. if today I use some goods to make steel, how will steel that I will gain from someone else, let’s say after a year, affect my portfolio. Creating a portfolio of goods as a way to prepare for the future is nothing unusual. People acquire goods – e.g. I will make a bow and some arrows, build a hut, gather some wood, store some apples and wheat… and prepare for the future. By owning a portfolio of goods, I am somehow prepared for the future.
However, people came up with exchanging acquired goods for goods that someone else will give me in the future. For example, I decide that I want to have wood for the winter and I plan that someone else will give it to me (he declares that he will have wood) once the winter come if I lend him my bow and arrows today in summer. We made an exchange over time. It is related to a certain good, but it was realised in the context of my portfolio that I use to prepare for the future.
This exchange also contains an interest rate. I do not compare wood over time, but I compare Portfolio 1 – my goods without lending the bow and arrow and facing a potential shortage of wood, with Portfolio 2 – my goods without a bow and arrows today vs. my goods including the returned bow and arrows and the gained unit of wood.
I therefore compare a portfolio (a mathematical construct) in time, while applying an interest rate (a unit of wood that represents the amount of the interest rate) to the exchange (if it occurs). This unit of wood represents a number of things at the same time. First, at least the debtor a priori assigns it exchange value in time. For the wood, he will receive a bow and arrows today. This unit of wood also represents what we call the interest rate. If I subsequently burn the wood (use it in the context of its use value), the information about the interest rate will naturally disappear.
However, if I use the wood in the future to exchange it for some apples that I just ran out of while having enough wood, I assign the unit of wood exchange value as well. It does not matter whether I planned it, or whether I decided to do that only in the moment of exchanging the wood for the apples. The unit of wood then still carries the information about the interest rate. Because it was used in another exchange, we used it to connect one value time period with another.
At the same time, the unit of wood enables us to express the extent of the first exchange (bow and arrows for wood), and do the same thing later in time with the second exchange (wood for apples).
In these exchanges, the unit of wood has therefore become a unit of account. We use it to calculate two exchanges in different times. This is possible because the connection of two time-periods is realized using an interest rate (a mathematical variable), expressed by the unit of wood. That is why we can use it to compare two time-periods, i.e. record a loss or a gain expressed as the unit of wood. In our example, the wood has therefore become a medium of exchange used to reflect the interest rate.
The Question Is, Why Did We Not End Up Calculating in Wood, But in Gold?
The answer is again the width of the spread. Let us imagine a hypothetical society in which gold, silver, copper, wheat, cattle, wood, and even water are all used as a medium of exchange. It is not completely unfathomable. Why should gold logically ‘win the race” in this society?
In order to narrow a spread, it is required to know the alternatives offered by different goods used as media of exchange. The debtor/creditor relationship also comes into play. Both sides of an exchange must agree on the unit of account in the form e.g. of water. Presuming that this community has a relative abundance of water, this would mean that the debtor would have a significant advantage to the creditor, or in other words, the creditors spread would be too wide and, conversely, the debtors spread would be significantly narrower.
This is because the debtor can repay his debt very easily – he could simply go to the river and fill some buckets (remember the relative abundance of water here). An exchange must be reciprocal in the meaning that it is individually preferred by both sides of the exchange. In our example, water is too abundant to be used as a medium of exchange in time – the debtor would have access to the creditor’s savings at a too low cost.
It is therefore important that it is a relatively rare good that also expresses the risk connected to the creditor’s waiting for repayment, the uncertainty that the creditor faces, or the entrepreneurial skills of the debtor that are supposed to manifest over time.
Since gold has, from a physical standpoint, a slow and continuous flow to the market, and is relatively rare, it reflects these requirements. Also, when interest in the society changes, it is possible to add/subtract a new/old unit of gold and thus reflect the change in interest rate. These attributes are useful when dealing with an exchange in time, is that all though?
A second important factor of the above-mentioned goods is how people assign them use value. As we have shown earlier, the more a good is consumed, the more the information about the interest rate expressed in the good disappears. Simply put, gold also won because it is less useful to people in the context of its use value compared for example to cattle or salt, which were competing with gold. The subjects simply ate them more often than used them in exchange, which inhibits the option of future calculation of exchange in time which includes interest.
If we considered water again but now assumed that it is relatively rare in the community, it would again not ‘beat’ gold, because the community would need it more in the context of its use value. Once the water is rare within the society humans would simply drink it, not use it as medium of exchange.
That the issue of a unit of account is about narrowing the spread (rather than faith), is also indicated by the fact that historically, many different goods were used as units of account. People were trying to find out which good works the best for them, and as Graeber points out, it wasn’t always goods but also human labor and people as such (e.g. slavery).
The width of spreads connected to credit exchange is therefore also dependent on the societal environment, legislative framework, morality, and other factors.
The Banking System – An ‘Attack’ on Even Narrower Spreads
In some case, let’s say when the interest rate is falling – i.e. there is a higher degree of optimism about the future in the community – money must reflect the changes in interest rate. In those cases, there is a demand in the market for a much quicker supply of new units of gold that is supposed to facilitate new credit exchanges.
The need for a higher amount of gold is more pronounced especially in the case of a progressively developing communities that can, on the one hand, accumulate enough savings and, on the other hand, are optimistic about the future in the context of ensuring it through credit exchange. Massive and quick addition of new units of gold has its objective limitations, however. Which is of course ‘good’, as we have demonstrated earlier.
The debt (credit) exchange, i.e. an indirect satisfaction of subjects’ needs in time, is a dynamic phenomenon, where time enables the utilization of multiple ways of mutual recognition and clearing of the debt.
On one side we therefore have an objective limitation of the amount of gold which facilitate this exchange, and on the other side, we have interest rate as value phenomenon which advise us about demand for new economic activities in time and supply of capital resources and also the option to perform debt (credit) exchange in a dynamic way with no direct using of gold. This creates an entrepreneurial opportunity for further narrowing of the spread through banking activity that facilitates the current shortage of money stemming from a lower interest rate by enabling the clearing of various trades, which would otherwise have to be settled directly in gold.
Within the free fractional banking activity, the settlement is done in a bank’s IOU – currency that is derived from the bank’s gold reserves (we skip over examining the fiat system for now). Economic activities that are expressed in the currency will be paid for using the same currency, or a currency of a different bank created against other economic projects in space and time by necessarily productive (!) economic activity expressed in the bank’s currency, or in a different bank’s currency.
For such an activity to be possible, productive activity must, of course, be sought after. It is nothing else than an institutionalization of the competitive process of discovering the interest rate by banks (as a sector), seeking for productive economic projects and a standardization of the conditions of facilitating credit exchange.
Banks and Their Product – IOUs
Banks create currencies which are a liability (IOU – actually currency is a debt with zero maturity or it is a liability of the bank to deliver good/service at the time of its submission) offset against some receivable (asset). Initially, these payables were only offset against gold. Although, the character of IOUs implies, that it is possible to create an IOU against other assets, not just gold. Gold is then used only as a unit of account so that debts (their amount) is correctly defined and can be recognized in the context of other debts and in time.
If a currency is exchangeable for gold and, at the same time, the clients voluntarily accept lower rates of gold reserves than 100% and the system is not regulated by a government, a competitive banking clearing has no reason not to function.
It is an accounting system of liabilities that include a final eliminator of debt – gold, while the creation of credit activity (IOU) is self-regulated by the amount of reserves in the form of gold. In the case of a decrease of the reserves to a lower rate that is acceptable by the clients (the banking portfolio starts becoming too risky), it is necessary to either supply more gold to the system through new mining (which will decrease the risk of the bank’s portfolio), or increase the interest rate (which will attract gold that is currently outside of the banking system into it), and vice versa. We therefore have two basic economic situations in a community.
First – banks are discovering that the interest rate is falling, i.e. the society is optimistic. It is possible for them to see this in two ways:
A) through the decrease in reserves in the banking systems and the creation of new IOUs against new economic projects and not against gold, and/or
B) gaining of gold on to the general market outside of the banking sector or through the supply of newly mined gold into the banking system.
The way of discovering the interest rate is dependent on how clients react to the banker’s estimations. If a lowering of reserves will not cause a heightened perception of the risk of banking activity, the bank will lower the reserves. It will not lower them if it starts facing withdrawals of gold (withdrawing gold by the clients would imply a higher interest rate). In case the marginal clients are prone to withdraw gold, while the interest rate is still lowering, it means that the demand for gold is increasing.
A higher demand for gold is a signal for a mining company to supply new gold – this is because that in this situation, the economics of the marginal mine changes through the relative decrease of costs and a relative increase of demand – higher profitability of mining projects will attract new capital resources.
New gold will then be deposited in the bank by its new owners, who accept a lower interest rate and who are gaining gold for goods provided in the past, or by existing debtors, who use it to eliminate their old debts. In this situation, economic projects backed by the bank should be profitable, and debts are being repaid.
The second situation is that banks are discovering that the interest rate is rising – i.e. the society is pessimistic about its economic future. The bank will reduce the issuance of new IOUs against existing, or already low, reserves, and increase the interest on deposits and subsequently on the issuance of credit.
The higher interest is supposed to incentivize the marginal saver to deposit gold which is currently outside of the banking sector into the bank. If the bank is not successful with gaining new reserves, it has to reduce its activity. In this situation the backed economic projects should still be profitable, and debts are being repaid. The problem arises when the bank does not reduce its activity.
Over time, it will face a loss that is connected to the perception of a higher interest rate in the community, while it is providing credit with lower interest. Resources are not allocated correctly, projects backed by the bank will incur a loss and bank is going out of the system.
Banks live off of the spread between the interest they have to provide for the deposited gold / currencies to their clients and the interest for which they issue credit. During a reducing of reserves, they widen this profit spread. IOUs will be created in principle with zero cost, while they demand the market interest for issuing credit.
The spread is, however, influenced by competitive activity of other banks and the potential for client’s reacting by withdrawing their gold from the system. In case that a bank (or multiple banks) doesn’t do business properly, i.e. it is artificially widening its profit spread, e.g. at the expense of riskiness (in principle, it estimates the lower level of the interest rate too much), they will not thrive in a competitive environment and eventually will go bankrupt.
Why? Because artificial lowering of the rate creates room also for projects which should be otherwise not supported and this creates higher risk in the system and the projects against which they created currencies, could go bankrupt. Debts will not be repaid, and the system of mutual accounting of economic activity will crumble.
However, prudent behavior on the market is ensured by competition, same as in every other business sector. What will happen, though, if a bank makes a genuine and natural mistake when estimating which projects are worth of support, and it does so without any mal-intent?
From the bank’s point of view, the option to stay on the market is connected to the necessity of proving its solvency. This is possible to achieve in a number of ways.
With its own resources – i.e. the bank will increase its gold reserves at the expense of its own profits, or by selling its own assets held on its balance sheet – which will provide it with new resources in the shape of gold or a more trustworthy currency issued by a different bank. If it fails and further increases its losses, a bankruptcy will follow unless it utilizes one more option. Socialization of losses. Meaning that it will apply a value discount to the already existing emission of its IOUs – the bank’s currency, i.e. it will issue IOUs against non-existing assets. This will then cause a loss of the purchasing power of the IOU (currency inflation).
All these options – replacement of resources at the expense of profits, bankruptcy, or socialization of losses, have the same impact from an economic point of view. Some kind of a value discount. Either this discount will be applied to the value of goods (at least those that would fall under the bank’s liquidation balance, or those that were used for bad entrepreneurial projects, or those needed to replace the bank’s reserves at the expense of the bank’s profit), or it will be applied to the purchasing power of the currency that the bank issues.
And if the bank stays in the market, it is apparent that the clients accept some degree of socialization of losses.
A Fractional System as Pure Evil? Voluntary Socialization of Losses
Is this a proof that a fractional banking system is purely evil? After all, we are explicitly, and with complete seriousness, talking about a ‘voluntary’ socialization of losses. Before coming to any conclusions, let us examine the alternatives we are facing:
A) a system with a 100% backing of a bank’s currency, and
B) a system without any banks or banking activity.
What will occur in these cases? We should start by the very fact that people demand credit and widening of the production structure is a positive societal characteristic.
Therefore, the same thing as described above will happen. In the case of excessive optimism during a realization of some kind of credit, the individuals (in a situation without banks) or banks with 100% reserves face the same thing – a potential mistake of the entrepreneurial activity.
The debtor must then confirm his solvency by selling off other assets, offsetting the loss to the detriment of his own profit in a different entrepreneurial project, or if that is not possible, the creditor will apply a value discount on the utilized medium of exchange – gold, which will not be returned to him in the agreed upon amount. That is because gold facilitated the preparation of a project that wasn’t economically viable and realized a loss. An entrepreneurial error occurred.
On an individual level (without banks), we would in this case likely see wider spreads of this exchange as well. Everyone would “insure” themselves, so that the other would repay their debt with certainty. It is of no surprise that Graeber describes different kinds of what can be, from today’s point of view, only described as ‘bestial’ historical practices connected to enforcing credit exchange (slavery, family members as collateral, female slaves as a medium of exchange, etc.). In other words, the alternative causes in principle the same – some form of loss that is written-off and voluntarily received.
On an individual level, the only difference would probably be in the amount of the collateral and therefore the width of the spread of the credit exchange. Making mistakes is normal even in the entrepreneurial area of credit exchanges. From the point of view of a fractional banking system, we are dealing with only a different form of realisation of this economic activity.
The fact that credit exchange is institutionalized is the result of the following options:
A) higher spreads (more collateral, hard and in some cases extreme conditions of exchange) and therefore a lower intensity of credit exchange, which will cause a lower degree of development of entrepreneurial activity and a decrease in well-being;
B) lower spreads (less collateral, standardized and relatively softer conditions of debt), higher intensity of credit exchange, which causes (as long as the state does not interfere too much) a much higher degree of economic well-being.
The price? A potential acceptance of some socialization of losses of the fractional bank. This assertion can be compared to H.H. Hoppe´s paper: How Fiat Money is Possible?, where he claims that a fiat system is possible only because it is enforced by a government monopoly.
Unlike Hoppe, the spread argument enables us to show that people’s incentive to accept a fractional or a fiat system has also to do with comparing not only the impact of the economic spread but as well as social spread of the debt, where a voluntary acceptance of some degree of economic and social socialization of loss is a more preferred state in the context of other conditions of voluntary credit exchange. A fiat system, which is not examined in detail in this article, is an alternative which faces the same argumentation, only from a different point of view.
A fiat system is not a fractional system. It is a system without a final eliminator of debt – gold. It is therefore a system of sole liabilities (IOUs) against some economic assets, i.e. economic activities which liquidity could be very different compared to gold. Such system is, at the same time, regulated, and has a lender of last resort – a central bank, which even manipulates the interest rate. It definitely is not an ideal financial system.
But, as is proven daily, it is a possible system. From an economic point of view then, there exists no economic system, that would ensure zero (!) value discounting of assets or of the medium of exchange in a community in a time continuum. We will always err when predicting the future.
From an economic and societal point of view, we therefore face the problem of finding a system that incentivizes actors to minimize the socialization of losses as much as possible, while enabling the narrowing of the spread connected to credit exchanges. Can we expect a better future then? We will see, especially as crypto-systems are coming to the scene.
Crypto-Systems – The Evolution of Narrowing Spreads Continues
The advent of crypto-systems has caused many to think that new – ideal – money has been invented. However, what would a token of some crypto-system (e.g. BTC) do to the credit exchange spread and the interest rate? Exactly what we described in our water example.
The difference is that the credit exchange would not take place from the point of view of the debtor – in the water example, it was the creditor. The tokens of crypto-systems are rigid – either they have a pre-set rigidity, or they have a set mechanism of adding new tokens, which is just a different form of rigidity. It is impossible for any crypto-token to reflect interest rate (increase or decrease), so we would not be able to facilitate demand for exchange in time. The owners of existing tokens would always be able to speculate for a higher interest rate, due to the non-existence of a natural counter-weight to their activity – new ‘mining’, i.e. flexible addition of new units.
A healthy financial system must be flexible – sometimes it is necessary to add units of currencies quicker, sometimes slower. And whether it should be quicker or slower is a matter of discovering the necessity of realizing marginal indirect satisfaction of needs. Crypto-systems, from a monetary point of view, resemble more of a central bank commission deciding the quantity of a currency reserve. i.e. whether there will be 21 million or 22 million units, or whether new units will be added with exactly 0.3% ‘inflation’. It is only a different way of planning, rather than market-based discovery.
For a correctly functioning financial system, we need automatically counter-acting ‘counter-forces’. Gold, for example, is not a creation of a free banking system – the system only utilizes it and its utilization is dependent on the decisions of clients who perceive the amount of the interest rate, and on the mining companies, not on banks as such. It is therefore indifferent to the banking system, and therefore can act as a self-regulatory mechanism in the system – money per se.
Does that imply that crypto-systems are useless? It does not. Crypto-systems can be technological infrastructure to facilitate credit exchange – automatically, using in advance agreed rules, and with very up-to-date information. A safe form of crypto-consensus of some kind of crypto-system (such as BTC, Ether, MaidSafe etc.), is, in principle, nothing else than a modern form of a tally stick, above which credit exchange can be recorded – smart contracts realized against real-world activity.
This activity can be imagined as some form of using an application (a decentralized app – bank), which will facilitate credit (smart contract) for tokenized economic activity, while making decisions about granting credit based on some predictive mechanism (automatized or human-based, or their combination).
The fulfillment of the contract will be realized automatically based on information gained from reality (IoT connected to a so-called oracle software and a sensor), while we can also think about using IoT to enforce sanctions for not fulfilling the requirements of the contract. Tokens of the smart contracts can be ‘packed’ (by apps – decentralized banks) into various portfolios with varying degrees of risk and diversification. Subsequently, the tokens of these applications can become new free currencies (in principle these would be modified versions of Hayek’s free currencies), while it is likely (but not necessary) that they will be tied to reserves expressed in precious metals.
Utilization of reputational mechanisms, competition of predictive mechanisms, realization of automated measures of the decentralized app, for example by finding out a certain limit on the criticalness of the risk of the financial indicators of the smart contract portfolio, e.g. through an automatic change of a given portfolio from a more risky to a more conservative one, or automation of the manufacturing process and quick and up-to-date information about the economic development of the underlying assets, are only tiny speculations about how this type of activity could be ‘organized’.
In other words, the goal of the activity – exchange through the utilization of credit – will remain unchanged. What will change is the way of achieving it. By introducing this technology, we are reverting back to the state, where banking activity will be much less dependent on regulations and government power. Many more individuals and companies will be able to enter the field, and they will be able to compete with each other through better expectations about the future, and potentially utilize these applications (decentralized banks).
What could also change is the creation of rules that will be negotiated among individuals when creating credit – smart contracts enforced through technology (IoT) without the need of state power intervention, while different types of rules and requirements of credit will, of course, be able to compete with each other.
What will not disappear, however? The need for writing-off debt. This need arises from incorrectly estimated entrepreneurial activity, for which smart contracts would be created too. To presume that only meaningful economic projects will ever be created is absurd. I.e. this system will also face a value discounting of currencies (tokens), but probably on a smaller scale.
But who knows, interest rates, and estimating the future in general, are tricky. Whether we will revert back to some brutal ways of enforcing debts, only now through IoT (imagine for example that debt repayment will have automatic priority before buying food, or a sensor will lock you out of a property if you do not repay your mortgage), remains to be seen. It certainly cannot be completely ruled out.
The narrowing of spreads stemming from such organization of exchange, however, will be taken care of by competition. We do not know what consumers will end up choosing. They could very well choose self-regulation through gold, but even a higher degree of socialization of losses if gold was not used as a reserve of these apps. They could also start favoring more radical ways of enforcing debts.
The thing that is the most certain though, is that credit exchange will not disappear.
The article was originally published at: http://www.hayek.sk/why-gold-became-money-and-water-did-not-what-kind-of-evolution-can-we-expect-to-emerge-from-crypto-technologies/


3. Domain of money
Women’s economic empowerment is central to realising women’s rights and gender equality. Investing in women’s economic independence enables more inclusive economic growth and the eradication of poverty and social exclusion. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is based on the premise that women’s economic empowerment is crucial to sustainable development.
Throughout the economic crisis and subsequent recovery, many women continued to experience precarious working and living conditions across the EU, with the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic likely to have further detrimental effects on women. The ILO estimates that almost 25 million jobs could be lost worldwide as a result of COVID-19, with up to 35 million additional people facing working poverty.
Women are more likely to be in temporary, part-time and precarious jobs, and to be employed in the informal sector, all of which are particularly vulnerable to economic shock. Women are lower paid, save less and have limited access to social protection.
Recent decades have seen the world of work radically transformed by advances in digital technologies. These pose some new challenges for and risks to gender equality. Digitalisation may hold out the promise of flexibility, achievement and creativity for well-educated and highly skilled women, but it simultaneously tends to increase non-standard and precarious employment, such as short-term, part-time, low-paid and socially unprotected forms of labour, for the less privileged segments of the female workforce (see Section 9.2).
Together, these inequalities tend to lead to particularly acute economic disadvantage, particularly for vulnerable groups of women, including younger and older women, lone mothers, and women from migrant communities or other minority groups (EIGE, 2020a). They therefore require a broader approach to analysing economic policies and their impact on the overall well-being of individuals, particularly women.
This is reflected in the wider trend in EU policy towards a more social Europe. For example, gender equality is one of the key principles of the European Pillar of Social Rights and features in several of its other principles as well. The Pillar reinforces equal opportunities to access to financial resources, for instance, by reiterating the principle of equal pay for jobs of equal value. It establishes the rights to adequate minimum income benefits and to equal opportunities for women and men to acquire pension rights (European Commission, 2018e).
However, the EU has limited competence to intervene directly in Member States’ social policy initiatives, which means that the implementation of the main principles of the Pillar remains uncertain.
Since 2013, the EU has strengthened initiatives to tackle the gender pay gap. The 2014 pay transparency recommendation (Commission Recommendation 2014/124/EU) provided guidance to Member States on how to apply the principle of equal pay and achieve greater transparency in pay structure and levels. It was followed in 2017 by the EU action plan (2017–2019) on tackling the gender pay gap (COM(2017) 678 final), which called on Member States to apply effective equal pay legislation.
The EU gender equality strategy 2020–2025 goes a step further and proposes binding measures on pay transparency. In the 2021 Pension adequacy report, the Commission, together with the Council’s Social Protection Committee, will undertake an assessment of gender inequality in sharing risks and resources in pension systems. The provision of pension credits for care-related career breaks in occupational pension schemes has been proposed in the strategy as a means of strengthening gender equality in pension rights.
The Commission also proposes to address the higher proportion of women living in poverty, particularly in older age, through the structural reform support programme.
 ILO, ‘Almost 25 million jobs could be lost worldwide as a result of COVID-19, says ILO’ (https://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/newsroom/news/WCMS_738742/lang–en/index.htm).


A favourite poem of mine at this time of year is Stopping By the Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost. A few weeks ago, I invited one grade six class to create these amazing multi-media winter landscapes based on the master’s poem. They explored the vocabulary: foreground, middleground and background…learning the concepts transparency and opacity. They practised filigree mark-making and thought about the structures of both deciduous and evergreen trees and finally, embellished their work with footprints from nature. At this point, the students shared stories of various sets of footprints that they have discovered over time. I used this beautifully illustrated picture book by Susan Jeffers as my motivating literary source.
The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe. — Gustave Flaubert


In a revolutionary army, all individuals enjoy political liberty and the question, for example, of the emancipation of the people must not only be tolerated but discussed, and propaganda must encouraged. Further, in such an army, the mode of living of the officers and the soldiers must not differ too much, and this is particularly true in the case of guerilla troops. Officers should live under the same conditions as their men, for that is the only way in which they can gain from their men the admiration and confidence so vital in war. It is incorrect to hold to a theory of equality in all things. But there must be equality of existence in accepting the hardships and dangers of war, thus we may attain to the unification of the officer and soldier groups a unity both horizontal within the group itself, and vertical, that is, from lower to higher echelons. It is only when such unity is present that units can be said to be powerful combat factors.
There is also a unity of spirit that should exist between troops and local inhabitants. The Eighth Route Army put into practice a code known as ‘Three Rules and the Eight Remarks’, which we list here:
All actions are subject to command.
Do not steal from the people.
Be neither selfish nor unjust.
Replace the door when you leave the house.
Roll up the bedding on which you have slept.
Be honest in your transactions.
Return what you borrow.
Replace what you break.
Do not bathe in the presence of women.
Do not without authority search those you arrest.
The Red Army adhered to this code for ten years and the Eighth Route Army and other units have since adopted it.
Many people think it impossible for guerrillas to exist for long in the enemy’s rear. Such a belief reveals lack of comprehension of the relationship that should exist between the people and the troops. The former may be likened to water the latter to the fish who inhabit it. How may it be said that these two cannot exist together? It is only undisciplined troops who make the people their enemies and who, like the fish out of its native element cannot live.


In addition to the beautiful video footage captured by the three cameras on board the Project Hermes payload, the data gathering modules attached to the radio permitted us to collect an array of interesting information about what happened during the Project Hermes flight. The on-board radio transmitter constantly relayed live information about the payload – longitude, latitude, temperature, etc.
From this data, I have formulated a number of graphs which show some intriguing information.
Exhibit A above shows a graph of ascent speed (rate) and horizontal land speed with time, with the raw data presented by the dot markers and a 10 period moving average trend line in order to better visualise the data. As expected, the ascent rate remains relatively constant with a small increase near bursting point, most likely caused by the thinning atmosphere (less air resistance) and a small decrease in effect of the Earth’s gravitational pull. At around 11:47 UTC, the balloon bursts and the graph indicates a considerable large acceleration downwards as evidenced by the steep gradient. The highest recorded speed (measured a few minutes after the balloon burst) was approximately 70 m/s (over 150 mph). The magnitude of this acceleration decreases in a non-linear fashion as the payload falls to the ground as the air thickens closer to the surface and the parachute has a greater effect.
Exhibit B shows a graph of the “on ground” distance of the payload from the launch site with time. The distance travelled is calculated by using the difference in latitude and longitude from the launch site to find the components of displacement, then using Pythagoras theorem to find the resultant distance travelled. As we can see, the horizontal speed of the balloon peaks at around 10:51 UTC, gradually slowing down to almost zero at high altitude due to the almost non-existent winds in the thin air around the burst point, speeding up again later on when it re-enters the winds of the thicker atmosphere below.
Exhibit C shows a graph of altitude and internal temperature with time. As we can see, the altitude increases in a fairly linear fashion after the first fifteen minutes of flight, sharply dropping after the burst as expected. Moreover, the temperature inside the payload decreases as the altitude increases – yet interestingly the temperature continues to drop even when the payload is descending into warmer air in the lower atmosphere. My hypothesis for this is that the hand-warmers that were placed into the payload to keep the videography equipment at a reasonable temperature had been preventing the temperature from decreasing as they would normally have. As time passes, the heating apparatus become less effective causing a reduction in temperature to below the values recorded at peak altitude, perhaps giving a better true representation of the actual outside temperature with the hand-warmers rendered ineffective.


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The Rio Zulia field in northeastern Colombia lies within the southernmost part of the oil-rich Maracaibo basin. The field measures 3.4 by 0.9 mi (5.5 by 1.5 km) and is located on a faulted anticline whose southeastern flank is cut by an east-directed thrust fault. Cumulative production during the 20 years since Chevron discovered it in March 1962 is 125 million bbl. The oil is brown, paraffinic, and has a gravity of 41.5° API. Maximum production of 35,000 BOPD was reached in 1966; present production is about 4,000 BOPD.
Almost all the production has come from the Eocene Mirador Formation, a loosely consolidated fine to coarse-grained, non-calcareous sandstone with irregularly distributed clay and siltstone interbeds. The sandstone is part of the Eocene delta built out to the northeast over the Lake Maracaibo region. The Mirador of the Rio Zulia area belongs to the back-delta fluvial system.
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Growing plants in dry shade can be a problem.
The Spotted Dead Nettle (Lamium maculatum) thrives In the dry shade of our old French Lilac. I moved the dead nettle two or three years ago. They are starting to fill in and provide bright leaf and flower color.
Thirty cultivars provide a diverse plant list to choose from. Among Glories of Snow and Grape Hyacinths (above), 'Purple Dragon' on the left shows a lot of silvery leaf. 'Elizabeth De Haas' to the right has a silver stripe. The flowers are almost identical.
Lamium 'White Nancy' differs only in flower color.
This yellow-leaved cultivar was a pass-a-long from a friend. I don’t know its name but it could be ‘Aureum’. It has yellow leaves with a white stripe. No flowers yet.
Lamium maculatum is rabbit and deer resistant. I haven’t noticed any damage from slugs or chewing insects. They are easy to hoe out if they spread too far.
Simple to maintain and brightly marked, dead nettle is a good plant for the dry shade where not much will grow without constant watering.


Guadeloupe profile - Overview
- 15 January 2015
- From the section Latin America & Caribbean
Known to its one-time Carib indian population as "karukera", or "island of beautiful waters", the French territory of Guadeloupe is a centre of Caribbean Creole culture.
French, African and Caribbean influences infuse its music, dance, food and widely-spoken patois.
Guadeloupe's economy is kept afloat by public salaries and credits from Paris. Unemployment has been a long-running malaise, although its effects are tempered by France's generous social security system.
Agriculture revolves around sugar cane and bananas; the latter is troubled by regional competition and the phasing out of preferential European quotas.
Tourism is important. Visitors, most of them from France, are drawn to Guadeloupe's resorts, beaches, waterfalls and forests and the territory is a port of call for cruise ships.
Guadeloupe is prone to earthquakes and hurricanes. Mount Soufriere, Basse-Terre's volcano, last erupted in the 1970s.
Visited by the explorer Christopher Columbus in 1493, who named it after a Spanish monastery, the territory was home to Carib indians who resisted Spanish attempts to settle the islands.
French colonists arrived in the 17th century, wiping out the Carib population. The settlers brought slaves from Africa to work on plantations and Guadeloupe prospered thanks to the trade in sugar and tobacco.
There were several British occupations in the 18th and early 19th centuries - and a brief period of nominal Swedish rule - before the territory was restored to France. It became a French "department" in 1946, and from the 1980s, a region of France.
Although support for the status quo is strong, a campaign for secession from France flared in the 1980s when pro-independence groups bombed hotels and government buildings.
Discontent at the rising cost of living led to violent protests early in 2009, and France sent in troops when rioters killed a trade union official. The French government raised wages for the low-paid, a key demand of the protestors, who ended a general strike in March.


Debates concerning contentious social and political issues are often supported by an annoying crutch, stemming back to the 18th century: invoking the Founding Fathers. It’s especially common when it comes to the intractable partisanship that now defines Congress.
For a recent example, let’s look at a tweet from South Dakota Senator Mike Rounds, on the issue of statehood for Washington D.C., which is currently being discussed in Congress. To Rounds, a bunch of men who lived in a disjointed grouping of former colonies 300 years ago would have unanimously opposed adding a 51st state in the year 2021.
Similar references are often made to the Constitution when other high-profile debates ensue. In the wake of this month’s mass shootings in Atlanta and Boulder, Colorado, renewed calls for gun control are inevitably falling on the deaf ears of Republicans, who, like many Second-Amendment fundamentalists, tend to invoke America’s early days to bolster their support of an unchecked gun culture.
After Monday’s shooting in Colorado, the National Rifle Association tweeted out the Second Amendment, in a recurring suggestion that the organization—not its critics—are beholden to the guiding national principles set forth by a small group of white, property-holding slave owners who lived before the advent of electricity.
Beyond being a reductive statement, these invocations don’t form the basis of a decent argument. It’s far more useful to employ other strategies that don’t involve bringing up speculative arguments about what Thomas Jefferson would have thought about abortion rights, or what Ben Franklin would say about a bump stock ban.
The Founders were staunch advocates of the militia as an institution meant to preserve social order. Every member of the militia was to be armed; however, the Founders advocated strict rules as to who could join the ranks. Black people and Native Americans were barred from entry. According to the 18th century notions of gun rights, firearm ownership was a privilege meant distinctly for white men.
As the historian Noah Shusterman wrote for the Washington Post in 2018:
Laws rarely allowed free blacks to have weapons. It was even rarer for African Americans living in slavery to be allowed them. In slave states, militias inspected slave quarters and confiscated weapons they found. (There were also laws against selling firearms to Native Americans, although these were more ambiguous.)
These restrictions were no mere footnote to the gun politics of 18th-century America. White Americans were armed so that they could maintain control over nonwhites. Nonwhites were disarmed so that they would not pose a threat to white control of American society.
With this in mind, a question emerges: Are present day Second Amendment absolutists championing a world in which gun ownership is a hallmark of racial superiority? Most would argue to the contrary—but invoking the halcyon days of 18th century gun ownership means you are directly valorizing America’s racist heritage.
Chances are you’re not a constitutional scholar. This country’s founding document and the motivations of the men who drafted it is an evolving field of study for historians, judges, lawyers and archivists, who are tasked with interpreting its relevance for 21st century social mores.
That said, if you’re going to gesture at the Constitution or America’s early days to prove your point, you have to understand the history inside and out. Instead, consider grounding your argument in present-day terms. If you feel strongly about depriving Washington D.C. of statehood, try speaking about your views in a practical sense, listing out what a 51st state would do to tip the balance of power in the Senate. If you feel strongly about corporate personhood, don’t invoke clichés about freedom of speech—talk about how you think lower corporate tax rates is good for the economy and job growth (if that’s what you believe).
It’s a lot more honest to discuss present day concerns, rather than invoke homages to a bygone era.
Given that the true intentions of the Founders—aside from now platitudinal notions of about freedom and all men being created equal—were debatable, you’re only cloaking your true intentions by invoking them. Will Wilkinson, a Senior Fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute, recently pointed this out on Twitter, writing: “The founders were not a corporate mind that could intend anything....It would be better if we’d just cut out the incoherent extra step and just say what we want and the real reasons we want it.”
It’s an important point. It’s far better to be honest about your intentions, instead hiding them behind a Constitutional straw man. To do so is to suggest that your views are unequivocally American and therefore correct, which couldn’t be more wrong.


This specific ISBN edition is currently not available.View all copies of this ISBN edition:
What bones and muscles do; reproducible skeleton to put together. Includes 6 activity cards suitable for science center activities. 16 pages, plus two full-color posters printed back-to-back
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Book Description Evan-Moor Educational Publishers, 1992. Condition: New. book. Seller Inventory # M1557992363


Teach students how to write a 5 sentence summary of an informational article or text. The form includes a topic sentence creator, supporting detail area, and space to write the summary on the back page. Great for pulling out the main idea from a non-fiction piece.
Looking for a fictional summary? https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Fictional-Summary-1650025


Ah, it is annoying when you cannot find the right words!
If you have tried to explain something in a foreign language, you might have found it impossible to find the right words in the other language. Finding the right words to describe your emotions and feeling is tricky and in some cases emotions are even untranslatable. Experiences in the UK as a foreign student lead native Chinese speaker Pei-Ying Lin to explore different emotional concepts.
Unspeakableness is a project that explores human emotions and languages. Lin says that the project has helped her take a more active control over language and she does not feel that the structure of languages control her. Language can be used as a way to improvise to connect both with other people and with ourselves.
Asking people use a concept map to explain their emotions may help and untranslatable words are often described as “it is a kind of (emotion A), close to (emotion B), and somehow between (emotion C) and (emotion D).” Untranslatable emotions are often multifaceted and complex emotions.
Lin’s graphic Parrot’s Emotion Classification, contains a look at over 100 emotions. English words like “cheerfulness,” and more specific words like “bliss” are included. The foreign words are highlighted in red bubbles. You may like the word “Gezelligheid,” which is Dutch for “comfort and coziness of being at home”. Or if you are a bit hungry “hygge,” which is Danish for a similar idea but it is used for events of food and drink.
Grow your own map and widen your conceptual world.
Photo “Shouting Businesswoman” by imagerymajestic


So almost everyones grandparents probably have trouble hearing, I know my grandparents do! So I wanted to do some light research kind of asking why. Why almost every single person as they age, their hearing starts to go and usually gradually gets worse. So I came across these two articles one being from medicine net explaining that half the people 85 and older in the US have hearing loss. Whether hearing loss is small such as missing certain sounds or large being profoundly deaf, it is a serious concern. If left untreated, problems can get worse of course. I learned that age-related hearing loss or presbycusis is the loss of hearing that gradually occurs in most of us as we grow older. It is one of the most common conditions affecting older and elderly adults. Noise-induced hearing loss is caused by long-term exposure to sounds that are either too loud or last too long. This kind of noise exposure can damage the sensory hair cells in your ear that allow you to hear. Once these hair cells are damaged, they do not grow back and your ability to hear is diminished, explaining why we slowly lose our hearing. Most older people have a combination of both age-related hearing loss and noise-induced hearing loss, interesting stuff.


Rethink the amount and toxicity of trash you discard.
Reuse containers and products; repair what is broken or give it to someone who can repair it.
Recycle as much as possible, which includes buying products with recycled content
Waste prevention, or "source reduction," means consuming and throwing away less. It includes:
purchasing durable, long-lasting goods;
seeking products and packaging that are as free of toxics as possible;
redesigning products to use less raw material in production, have a longer life, or be used again after its original use.
Source reduction actually prevents the generation of waste in the first place, so it is the most preferred method of waste management and goes a long way toward protecting the environment
Reusing items -- by repairing them, donating them to charity and community groups, or selling them -- also reduces waste. Reusing products, when possible, is even better than recycling because the item does not need to be reprocessed before it can be used again.
Benefits of Recycling
Conserves resources for our children's future.
Prevents emissions of many greenhouse gases and water pollutants.
Supplies valuable raw materials to industry.
Stimulates the development of greener technologies.
Reduces the need for new landfills and incinerators.
Recycling turns materials that would otherwise become waste into valuable resources. In addition, it generates a host of environmental, financial, and social benefits. Materials like glass, metal, plastics, and paper are collected, separated and sent to facilities that can process them into new materials or products.
Glass Beverage Bottles & Food Jars
Aluminum, Tin & Steel Cans
Milk/Juice Cartons & Drink Boxes
Plastic Bottles #1-#7 (all colors and shapes- no lids
Plastic Milk Containers
Magazines, Phone Books & Newspaper
Mixed Paper ( office, stationary, computer paper, junk mail envelopes)
Clean Paper Bags
Flattened Cardboard & Cereal Boxes
Wire Coat Hangers
Empty Aerosol & Paint Cans
Styrofoam with numbers
Clean Aluminum Foil
The following materials CANNOT be placed in recycling bins
Helium or Propane Tanks
Soiled Paper Napkins, Towels, Cups, Plates, Pizza Boxes
Hard-Cover Books, Photographs
Tape, String, Rubber Bands
Paper with Wax or Plastic Coating, ( Freezer Boxes)


On the arrival of the Normans in Ireland, castle fortifications started
to be built in order to strengthen the position of the new invaders.
Following on from that the crown developed a policy of settling the new colony. Part of that was the establishment of fortified towns designed to attract foreign settlers to Ireland.
On this page we will introduce you to one such town- an Irish heritage town that we think is a well kept secret- Fethard in County Tipperary, Ireland, seen in the photo above.
The establishment of fortified market towns in those parts of Ireland that had been conquered by Normans, was a policy by the English crown meant to strengthen the crowns position in these areas.
Markets created revenue for the crown, and they also had the potential to attract new settlers from England and Wales who were seeking new opportunities. Settlement of the new colony was desired and settlers were given special legal and economic privileges.
The North Gate at Fethard
The town of Fethard bears all the marks of
a planned Norman settlement with a central large market square and an evenly
laid out pattern of streets.
The village did not grow step by step but was
built in one go after being granted to its’ founder, William de Braose in 1208.
This planned town was created specifically in order to attract settlers from
England and Wales. Many may have come from the founders’ vast estates estates
Merchants in Fethard traded in silk and
wine, salt, coal, nails and sea-fish, to name but a few market goods. The town
was fed by the excellent agricultural lands surrounding it.
However, there were other such planned
market towns in Norman Ireland meant to attract English settlers to colonize
this part of Ireland. Some failed and some survived. Fethard did well, in part
perhaps because the town authorities moved to build extremely strong
fortifications to protect its’ residents from potential attacks by Irish
The English colony was far from secure
during the 13th and 14th centuries. There were many
reports of attacks on merchants travelling to or from Fethard passing through
nearby woods, and some were killed.
In response, the towns’ wall started to be
built in 1292 when King Edward I of England made provision for the burgesses of
Fethard for the “inclosing of their vill and the greater security of Ireland”.
See the impressive wall and a tower house castle on the photo above. This provision entitled the town to start
The traces of wicker work in the ancient plaster of the
town's North Gate tell us about how these vaults
were built by the Normans in Ireland.
Alongside, the crown also provided so
called ‘murage grants’ (‘murage’ stemming from the French word ‘mur’ for wall) as
financial aid towards the building of fortifications. The grant was given in
the form of a tax break for the burgesses of Fethard, the first one of 1292
lasting seven years. It was followed by other such grants over the next two hundred
Different parts of the wall can be
attributed to different phases of the murage grants. During the 14th
and 15th centuries, the area inside the wall was enlarged, and
previously wooden fortifications were replaced with stone. Quite likely the
wall was adjoined by a ditch on the outer side to strengthen defenses even
The wall was built from roughly cut
limestone blocks. It is 6 metres in height at the highest points, and 4 metres
thick and 1,100 metres long, enclosing an area of 18 acres. Originally the town
had 5 gates, but only one gate is complete today, and there are the remnants of
The Everard townhouse at Fethard, a 15th century build- home to one of the most influential families in the town who were instrumental in striking a deal with the English crown for the 1608 charter that granted the town the right to look after its' own legal affairs.
Fethard Tourist Information
The Rock Of Cashel (16
km from Fethard)
Learn how to build a medieval castle, how to attack and defend one, enjoy the medieval castle lifestyle (Phew!) and learn castle vocabulary.
Norman Ireland is still alive in Fethard today. The town
walls and gates at Fethard are among the best preserved in the entire country.
In part, this may be due to a lack of prosperity or industrial activity in the
town since the 18th century and into the present. Furthermore, Fethard would
most likely not be here today if the town authorities had not surrendered to Cromwell and
handed over the keys to him in 1650.
Reconstruction work of the Fethard town
wall, surviving gates and medieval town houses has been ongoing. The work has
been funded by the National Development Plan and other sources with strong
voluntary contributions by the local community.
If you enjoyed our article on Norman Ireland at Fethard, please pay it back.
Kindly like our Facebook page, leave a Facebook comment underneath, or share us using the social sharing buttons at the top left. Regards, Colm and Susanna.
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Copyright 2014 by Colm Sweeney and Susanna Lambeck www.enjoy-irish-culture.com


The video below was taken on Monday, October 24. There was nothing special about the schedule or the activities. I wanted to document how the students went about their routine of getting down to work. Mr. Mitchell gave me a quick interview just before the students arrived, which I used as the main narrative for the video. I was immediately struck by the fact that there were no verbal directions given to the students when they arrived at 9:00. They went directly to the class blog, read the instructions, and got to work. They figured out what they needed to do, figured out how to share learning resources between partners, and worked until they left for gym at 10:00. During that time, they completed several assignments and emailed the results to Mr. Mitchell, who evaluated them as he received them. By 10:00am, all of the assignments--audio recordings of spelling and vocabulary words, grammar and usage worksheets, and spelling/vocabulary exercises--had been turned in and evaluated.
Several students started in on other projects--math practice using IXL.com, Accelerated Reader exercises, reading their personal books (always encouraged), and others--as they finished the assignments. All were productively engaged for the entire hour.
Here are the directions give the students, directly from the blog:
Make a plan so that both members of your group complete the following assignments by 10:00.That's it. The rest was up up to the students
- Using AudioMemos, read/record your spelling words, and vocabulary words with definitions
- Complete today's Grammar10b and Spelling10b (Adobe Ideas and Email)
- Write (paper and pencil) your Spelling Words 1 time, Vocabulary and Definitions 2 times
"Make a plan" is a powerful way to begin a lesson. These students are learning to take control of their own learning. They're not waiting to be told what to do or how to do it. Feedback is immediate and corrections can be made as soon as they are noticed. As Mr. Mitchell says, that's the real world.


“Women hold up half the sky” (Chinese Proverb)
December 6th, Canada’s National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women is nearly upon us. Every year on this day, we commemorate the 14 women who were singled out for their gender and murdered while at school in 1989 at the Ecole Polytechnique. But we also commemorate the lives of all girls and women every year whose lives are damaged or taken from them because of gender based violence.
It is said that violence against women and children is the world’s most pervasive human rights violation, one of the most systematic and widespread. Trouble is, taking action on violence is a difficult task for most of us unless we are employed in services to women and children through supports, shelters, crisis services, or perhaps the healthcare sector. What can we do to make a difference in our small corners of the universe? What kind of action can I take to make a difference in my community or my neighbourhood, in my province, in my workplace when it comes to this?
And anyway, why should I get involved and take any kind of action? It’s not really my problem.
On average, every six days a woman in Canada is killed by her intimate partner. In 2009, 67 women were murdered by a current or former spouse or boyfriend. (Homicide in Canada, 2009, Sara Beattie and Adam Cotter, Juristat, Volume 30, Number 3, Statistics Canada, page 14)
On any given day in Canada, more than 3,000 women (along with their 2,500 children) are living in an emergency shelter to escape domestic violence.( Family Violence in Canada: A Statistical Profile 2009, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, Statistics Canada, page 12.)
The cost of violence against women in Canada for health care, criminal justice, social services, and lost wages and productivity has been calculated at $4.2 billion per year. (Measuring Violence Against women: Statistical Trends 2006, Statistics Canada, p.34)
Rates of domestic violence have fallen in recent years. There is indeed marginally improving social equality and financial freedom for women to leave abusive relationships sooner rather than later, but still, rates of violence have now flat lined and are no longer declining. And victims are, for some reason, are now less likely to report an incident to the police. Further, more women are experiencing violence after leaving their abuser. (Canadian Women’s Foundation Facts)
And this is the point where someone usually brings up the comment that “aren’t you women’s groups just man-bashing?”….Men are just as likely to be victims as females. I am quite sure that this is not commonly understood. According to Canadian Police Departments, men and women in this country are equally at risk of violent victimization. Men are much more likely to be assaulted by a stranger or someone outside the family while women are much more likely to be assaulted by someone they know. Most men are not abusive to their families, however, when family violence occurs, the victims are overwhelmingly female.
As the Chair of the Provincial Women’s committee, our mandate is to speak to women’s issues, our purpose is NOT to relegate men to the back of the room but rather, to concentrate, agitate, educate and promote women’s issues to the whole membership and to have influence where we can in order to create safe spaces and safe places for everyone. And that brings me back to what we can each do as individuals or perhaps as a local in answering the “Call to Action” that December 6th asks us to consider.
1. The work of ending violence begins with each of us. Visit http://www.draw-the-line.ca and be amazed at how you can draw the line and strike out sexual violence. Share this website with others, add it to your Twitter feed or Facebook.
2. Find out if your local high school has a teen violence prevention program (Healthy Relationships project) and if it doesn’t, as the school to start one. You don’t have to be an expert on anything to ask for something. JUST ASK.
3. Tell your politicians, starting at the municipal level that you regard violence against women and children as a serious problem in Canada and ask them specifically what they are doing to end violence in your community. JUST ASK.
4. If someone is in immediate danger, whether you know them or not, call 911 or the emergency number in your community.
5. If you know someone who is being abused, keep her safe by not giving her materials or information on abuse that could be found by her abuser-no emails or voicemails. Speak to her only if you can do so safely and ask how you can help. Make sure that you reinforce the message that she does not deserve to be harmed and that you care about her safety. Don’t do anything that makes you uncomfortable or that makes you feel unsafe.
6. Financially and materially support the shelters and second stage safe housing facilities in your community. Find out if they need gently used clothing for women and children, small appliances (or perhaps big ones too), fresh food donations or money. If you are involved in community gardens there are no more worthy community recipients of fresh produce than these safe spaces.
7. Finally, encourage the men in your life to visit the following powerful websites: http://www.iamakindman.ca/IAKM/ and http://www.whiteribbon.ca/ and finally from Western Ontario http://www.iknowsomeoneuwo.ca/
We can make a difference, one person, and one gesture at a time in the neighbourhoods and communities where we live. We can support the work of those who help women and their children move out of abusive relationships and violent situations in tangible ways including answering the call for volunteers.
Our communities are needy places and our social programs are diminishing and operating on shrinking budgets. But as social justice leaders, we can be partners in our communities to make a real difference right where we live. After all, women hold up half the sky. We are able.
Dora Robinson, Chair PWC
On behalf of the OPSEU Provincial Women’s Committee


Death row was in the East Building of the Huntsville Unit from 1928 to 1952. From 1952 until 1965, the electric chair was in a building by the East Wall of the Huntsville Unit.
The men on death row were moved from the Huntsville Unit to the Ellis Unit in 1965. Death row remained at the Ellis Unit until 1999. In 1999, the TDCJ moved death row to the Polunsky Unit. The Polunsky Unit houses death row inmates separately in single-person cells, with each cell having a window. Death row inmates are also recreated individually. Inmates on death row receive a regular diet and have access to reading, writing, and legal materials. Depending upon their custody level, some death row inmates may have a radio. The women on death row are housed at the Mountain View Unit. Inmates on death row do not have regular TDCJ-ID numbers; they have special death row numbers.
see also Suge Knight parents: Meet Maxine, Marion Knight Sr.
Is Death Row still legal in the US?
In the United States, capital punishment is a legal penalty throughout the country at the federal level, in 27 states, and in American Samoa. It is also a legal penalty for some military offenses. Capital punishment has been abolished in 23 states and in the federal capital, Washington, D.C.
Capital punishment is, in practice, only applied for aggravated murder. Although it is a legal penalty in 27 states, only 20 states have the ability to execute death sentences, with the other seven, as well as the federal government, being subject to different types of moratoriums.


1. Values and Principles for a World Parliament
Promote personal maturity and sovereignty. “Parliamentary” democracy has become demagogy, because parliamentary majorities control the executive branch. We all have to make a cultural leap to see ourselves as Sovereign Citizens. Human beings must be rigorously educated from childhood to think of the world with rights and a prince’s responsibilities, rights and duties shared with all other Citizens.
Develop self-governance. That is to say, base global governance on the voluntary coordination of behavior for the benefit of all, on decision making entrusted to those who are most affected by the decisions. Modern technology makes this possible. The World Parliament should try to influence governments with the help of a well-informed public opinion.
Organize ourselves through self-regulation and continuous adjustment. Implement tools for self-criticism for all the elements of the organization of global governance and of the World Parliament. We will thus be able to design improved versions of our own societies, and to avoid that the best of our previous successes do not become future obstacles through excessive conservatism.
Institute peace, cooperation, and generosity among international actors. The obvious prerequisite to democracy is cooperation. The people who expect to bring about such democracy must obviously first be in a state of cooperation with each other before they can agree to design appropriate government institutions. War must be declared illegal.
Make progress in the means for transparency. For every citizen to remain informed on everything taking place at the World Parliament. Transparency means that a government body is open at all times to inspection during its debates. Transparency is not easy to implement because it runs up against fundamental self-protective human reflexes when facing the possible danger of being stabbed in the back.
Move toward representation by tasks. In countries that claim to be democratic today, political parties announce a complete program. On the other hand, "communities of ideas" are formed around a single aspiration, for example “food for everyone" or to "put an end to racism," giving the elected officials of these communities a program that is clear to everybody.
Uphold the principle of consistency. Consistency is indispensable to prevent contradictory laws to be voted in, canceling the Parliament’s credibility. It cannot support the criminal behavior of one state and condemn another for the same behavior...
2. The Architecture of Global Governance
Combine centralized and decentralized approaches. The World Parliament can be a combination of different departments: a head section, fairly centralized as in the U.N. structure, a recognizable icon. A section that includes NGOs and overall communication. A section for research, touching upon the level of the individual, all over the world, by putting in a complementary position all the nonprofit organizations that are already doing everywhere in the world what the World Parliament attempts to do on a global scale.
A voice of the peoples with a single seat at the U.N. This peoples’ seat will have no veto, voting, or opinion power. Completely non-threatening. The power in this seat will literally be the will of the world population. Its method will be to present reasoned and very well-thought-out solutions to world issues.
A Council of Sages. Thinkers, scientists, men from the field... democratically elected and in charge of giving their opinion and their understanding. It would preside over bodies of analysis and evaluation of the global situation and of the parliamentary system. It would formulate a set of measures.
An international Peace Force. Its first mission is to intervene peacefully "as soon as the first signs of tensions appear," before conflicts break out. It will exercise a "right of peaceful intervention" to operate at the very beginning of a conflict.
Give NGOs a democratic legitimacy. NGOs can set criteria to become Supranational Volunteer Democratic Organizations [ODVS - SVDO]. They could set up the Peoples’ Assembly immediately. In conflicts among organizations legitimacy is a key consideration.
Institution of "transnational embassies." That is to say, not representing a specific nation and at the service of all of the Earth’s inhabitants, in coordination with the World Parliament.
3. Organization of the World Parliament
A Chamber of Advisers ... This "collegial chamber" comprises students, administrative staff from colleges and universities, socioprofessional networks and researchers... or a Council of delegates, which would include representatives of activist organizations. Both would be third parties to be added to the classic binomial territorial chamber - citizens’ chamber.
"Professional politicians," in the same way that judges are professionals. They study politics at "Independent Political Academies." Trained for very dense intellectual work, having enough time to find consensuses among themselves and the necessary independence from political parties.
Representation by task or "community of ideas." Which would reflect the main concerns of the Earth’s inhabitants and would lead to representation on a clear and precise contract that is to be necessarily fulfilled. These could include banners such as: "Food for everyone," "Right to housing for all," "Equal access to justice"… These communities would kind of play the role of political parties without being antagonistic, but rather, complementary. Competent people of the field, not politicians. A Chamber of Proposals that is also a third party to add to the higher, or territorial, and lower, or citizens chambers.
Automatic dismissal of elected officials who do not vote according to their people’s will or comply with it. According to organized polls. This would consist in a simple vote on the dismissal, or not, of a person from his/her position.
Organization in "sociocratic circles" and networks of actors, from the bottom to the top. Deliberative circles at a human scale (no more than a very limited number of people) of the actors concerned (clients, infrastructure suppliers, etc.) should form networks, and when the dimension and the complexity of the community unit grows, nests of networks.
One of the practical aspects that make sociocracy work is the double link among circles. This means one or several representatives at the next level up and one or several to bring the decision making back down to a lower level. This ensures bottom-up and top-down communication. It also takes into account a bilateral delegation of the execution of the tasks. One can thus establish eight levels of small circles from the street to the planet, where everyone can move up or down on the ladder.
In the "professional politicians" version, each level of government would be fairly independent, so it would not be possible for a politician to move from the bottom up. Every legislator - cantonal, provincial, national, or continental - would be catapulted to his/her position by a combined lottery, for a single term.
A simple tool to establish gender balance: positions by pairs. Every position would have to be held by a man-woman binomial to make parity a reality and not only wishful thinking.
Multiple voting. This refers to a voting technique that allows the voter to state choices that really cover all his/her leanings. Every voter has "ten points for positive votes" and ten other for "negative" ones, which have to be distributed among the proposals that seem important to us.
A period of time to study the programs. This period would be financed with public or collective funds. A period of a few months for technical teams who are candidates to prepare them, and a period of a few weeks for citizens so they can study them before voting on them. The team having obtained the most votes in two rounds would be in charge of its implementation over a period four years, i.e., in charge of governing.
Local and regional assemblies. Their range of functions would be broad and not pre-established, or even depending on the experiences of each of these future bodies.
A systematic self-evaluation cell, which analyzes the effects (feedback) caused by all the decisions made by the Earth Assembly. There is where a mixed assembly of wise persons and researchers will be able to balance the government by the people and for the people.
An Art Committee. Art is the most fundamental step in world affairs. People in the world can have a variety of political opinions, but they can be united on the fundamental basis of art, because it is universal. One can understand its deep meaning with no need for explanation or translation.
A possible list of work teams on the World Parliament: Coordination team; team for the evaluation the preliminary work; team for the evaluation of the functioning of the World Parliament; writing team; financing team; web and media teams; several logistical teams, etc.
4. Objectives and day-to-day development of the World Parliament
Principle of consent: Meetings with an "approval round" where the president asks every person individually if he or she agrees to a particular decision or not. After the arguments are presented, the other participants present their objections. For the discussions to be efficient, there should be a maximum limit of 20-25 people per meeting.
Transparency and the Internet. All information, all projects, and all expenses must be accessible on the Internet, and this in all languages, for "absolute transparency." Every proposal could be on the Internet, or discussed in collective forums, with agreements and disagreements recorded and published on Web pages so that everyone can form an opinion.
For the funding: establishment of world taxes and regulation and management of the common goods. Regulation and establishment of taxes on international activities including monetary transactions, the exploitation and conservation of natural resources (equitable access to the land, minerals) and the world "common goods," including the ocean zones and the polar regions, space, radio wave bands. Taxes on national military expenses or transfer of military expenses to world needs, with, in addition, disarmament or transarmement processes.
The World Parliament as a consultative body to collect complaints and proposals. The World Parliament should be: a) a place where one can present and debate global issues; b) where one can work toward consensus; c) where proposals or recommendations of meaningful solutions based on research are brought to the attention of the populations, the media, and governments; d) a place to denounce elected officials of any nation who do not heed the will of their population.
Local and regional assemblies, day-to-day. A first round of discussion must consist in a gigantic brainstorming session to propose the best possibilities, components, and means of implementation for a better world. Then, it will be necessary to develop the means and forums to discuss every proposal. Several meetings and groups, with tools such as sociocracy, the technology of open forums , the chaordic theory , etc. will broaden the discussion. At the time of implementation, a core team will have been formed to back and work firmly to implement the proposal(s).
5. Strategies to build the Parliament and to achieve global democracy
Simultaneous policy. Citizens and organizations are committed to voting for parties, which in turn are committed to adopting "simultaneous policy." This means than once in power, governments sign "preliminary commitment agreements" on which, after the signature of a given number of countries in the world, everyone is committed at the moment of their simultaneous and definitive signature, in order, this way, to prevent investment-capital flight collectively. Simultaneous policy could include policies and provisions for the creation of a World Parliament if necessary. (see "Simultaneous policy" in the chapter on examples of initiatives)
Progressive voting. Technically, it seems very difficult, to start with, to have all the people of the planet vote. But to get the vote of a sample comprising a tenth of the voices of every country selected through a draw, would already be statistically significant, along with the psychological impact this being the people’s will.
An example of a World Parliament set up according to representation by task (community of ideas). Year 1: determination by poll of the "communities of ideas"; Year 2: publication of the official communities of ideas and call to local candidates; Year 3: local elections; Year 4: setting up regional and national institutions; Year 5: formation of the World Parliament and setting up of national "embassies." Advantages: 1) this ensures a true representation of the world population thanks to a single election at the most local level possible; 2) it prevents state recuperation thanks to the absence of central elections, a media campaign for local representatives subordinated to central power being difficult to conceive; 3) it highlights the essential concerns of humankind and relativizes the importance of some of the concerns of the holders of state power; 4) it gathers the populations of the world in non-state international bodies.
Examples of activities and recommendations, to be undertaken by a World Parliament. Determine "scales" (indices) of accomplishment in several fields, similar to the Human Development Index, Freedom Index, etc.; list and develop in detail everything that any nation can usefully replicate from any other nation; identify examples of enhancement of production power through the integration of a number of different sectors; support the Internet and computer cause; fight superstitions of all kinds, such as terrorism, the scientism, etc.; underscore the non-democratic nature of the United Nations; abundantly examine development and cooperation strategies; emancipate the chains of reactionary conservatism on their theoretical battlefield through education; etc.
Two strategically important fields: global democracy and basic rights, where global civil society would be able to act with greater immediate success before solving problems such as world peace, world poverty, and global inequality. NGOs have very limited means, power, and legitimacy. The U.N. often has its hands tied. A World Parliament cannot change things from one day to the next, but by working with other organizations with similar aims, it could force minor changes that could add up to become major ones.
Progressive endorsement of the World Parliament. This was Jean Monnet’s strategy for a European system, in which the European Parliament went from being mainly an advisory body to having a veto power over nearly 80% of European Union legislation. The first step would be to constitute a World Parliament and invite a few countries, in particular those with a neutrality tradition such as the Scandinavian countries, Switzerland, Costa Rica, etc., to be part of it. A first success in this direction would determine the next steps, in which other countries would endorse the Parliament progressively.
An example of multiple approaches. a) educational: encourage public authorities, educators, parents and citizens to develop children’s critical abilities and cooperative and social self-confidence; add psychology courses, develop awareness of the causes of destructive competition, make it possible for decision making to be in the hands of voters and informed administrators; b) community-based: encourage organizations to converge in order to gain greater influence at the United Nations and other supranational authorities while trying to institute a World Parliament alongside the U.N. in view of merging with it; c) administrative: support the merging of the current developments of proposals for a World Parliament outside of the U.N., including initiatives such as the temporary WCPA/GREN/CFE parliament, etc. ; d) national: encourage national governments to develop consent, and if possible consensus, on national legislation and constitutional evolution aimed at increasing democratic governance (temporary representation, subsidiarity, sustainability, accountability, responsibility, networks, etc.) ; e) multilateral: encourage citizens of the world and national political decision makers to develop these democratic changes multilaterally; this will include principles for a development policy that will require broad agreement and major cooperation among once-competing national governments.
6. Next Steps
Try a virtual simulation of the Parliament as of now. The World Parliament Experiment is a simulation on the Internet of active global democracy. Participants can submit petitions on political issues, procedures, or representatives and can vote on them. The task of representatives (NGOs, for instance) is to make these decisions effective in real life.
Consultation of the people. It would be necessary to begin consulting the people on the provisions and the organization of the Parliament. That is to say, survey the population on the kind of structure with which it is prepared to identify.
Convocation of a general meeting of civil society for world democracy. A “World Democratic Political Forum” or World Forum for a World Parliament addressing the participation of political parties and political figures of world relevance, could lead to reconciliation between world civil society (as gathered in particular at the Porto Alegre forum) and the economic elite (as symbolized by the Davos forum). On the other hand, a "World Social Assembly” could assemble civil society exclusively, as the guarantor of a world citizens’ alternative to offset the political sphere, which, day after day, seems unable to meet the global challenges. This Assembly would seek a pact later, after it has achieved a true position of power thanks to a broad citizens’ consensus.
Write basic documents for an action campaign. Each text would cover a different key field and would describe succinctly: a) a basic world problem that we are currently facing; b) how it affects humankind; c) the benefits that we would get if we could solve the problem; d) the cost of the resolution of the problem; and e) specific recommendations on what could be done to solve it. Then those who are interested at the World Parliament could truly support and work on the most important issues, even before the World Parliament is completely instituted.
Commit to working on a common charter of values and a model for a World Parliament 1) establish a clear text on the values of the World Parliament; 2) take a detailed look at the World Parliament model that we choose to propose and implement; 3) work on the Charter of Commitment on "Communities of Ideas," or delegation by task, as well as on how it can operate from the local to global and how to get it broadly endorsed; the Charter of Values must be a strong and powerful text on the principles and humanist values on which we have debated, and build on the Major Texts (Human Rights, Earth Charter, etc.)
Set up groups by region or language. Developing discussion lists in our own languages is a step toward our organizing as local and regional communities. We do, however, need to maintain this multilingual discussion list. Combining these two approaches is fundamental.


I don’t quite understand the question. A multi-wire branch circuit uses a single neutral conductor from the panel, run with the two (or three) phase conductors, to supply a number of loads. At some point at or near each load, the load’s neutral wire will have to connect to the branch circuit’s one and only neutral wire. That is not a parallel connection, since there is only one wire going all the way back to the panel.
Can you clarify your description? At what point are these neutrals being tied together? Or are you talking about tying neutral conductors to equipment grounding conductors?
Charles E. Beck, P.E., Seattle
Comments based on 2014 NEC unless otherwise noted.


The term, “white liver,” has recently found its way into Appalachian discussions. According to legend, if a woman has the dreaded white liver, her sexual appetites are so strong they kill her mate. The virtual “black widow” allegedly exhausts her husbands, and emerges a widow every time. Like the “vamps,” of silent film, they were irresistible and insatiable.
So, what is truth behind this “old Appalachian” term? Did whole regions of these lethal sirens exist? Or is it simply more misinformation?
The term “lily-livered,” has been a derogatory remark for centuries. The liver was then believed to be the very foundation of courage. It was known to be reddish-brown under normal circumstances, but if no blood went to the liver, it was “white.” The individual who suffered this was a coward of the worst kind. The term “lily” was used because the flowers are white. The term “white-livered” was a synonym. These terms were used to degrade men.
Thomas Nash described a cowardly character in The Unfortunate Traveler, as having a white liver, in 1594. Shakespeare used “lily-livered” in King Lear, from 1605, and Macbeth, in 1606. It is likely the terms were in use long before actually documented.
By the 1800s, the term continued to describe a cowardly man, but took on a different meaning as this century passed. It became used to describe a man who killed his wives. Sometimes it was due to sexual appetites, sometimes he was an outright murderer, and occasionally supernatural methods were employed.
It was oftentimes considered an actual ailment, and many of the old “snake oil” cures proclaimed they would get rid of the liver affliction in any man. Many women would not marry men if they suspected they were white-livered. Some even claimed they could tell if he had a white liver, just by the look in his eyes.
The term was still used to accuse of cowardice, even into the Twentieth Century. Many cartoons used the term, “lily-livered” when the male characters battled. The term became a favored affront in many western-themed fiction pieces, in film and in print.
So, how did this masculine term become applied to women?
Contrary to popular belief, this is no historic “Appalachian” euphemism at all. It wasn’t used against women until the 1950s. One Ozark doctor used it to describe a patient, who he believed killed her husbands with her appetites. The word eventually migrated and became an established piece of Appalachian fakelore. Urban myth has turned it into a simple variation of the seductive forest or river siren who lured men to their doom.