Economist, Nov 16, 2013 (I)

choi

(1) Colonial museums | A Different Story; The multi-ethnic and globalised flavour of white America’s earliest settlements.
http://www.economist.com/news/un ... ettlements-differen

Note:
(a) Yorktown, Virginia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yorktown,_Virginia
(Today, Yorktown is part of an important national resource known as the Historic Triangle of Yorktown, Jamestown and Williamsburg, and is the eastern terminus of the Colonial Parkway; Yorktown, named for the ancient city of York in Yorkshire, Northern England, was founded in 1691 as a port for shipping tobacco to Europe)

Click "Colonial Parkway" to see the map.
(b) Williamsburg, Virginia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Williamsburg,_Virginia
(capital of the Colony of Virginia from 1699 to 1780 [before that was Jamestown]; renamed in honor of King William III of England [1650-1702; reign 1689-1702, during which William ruled jointly with  his wife Mary II, until her death in 1694])

(c) "When Queen Elizabeth paid a visit, costumed 'settlers' played a version of lawn bowls and placed villagers in the stocks for gossiping."
(i) bowls
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowls
(or lawn bowls)
(ii) stocks
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stocks
(There are two holes for both hands or feet to be locked in place)

(d) "Then there were the '20 and odd' Africans who arrived in 1619, opening the grim annals of slavery in English-speaking America. * * * A serendipitous trawl of Spanish and Portuguese archives traced the story of Jamestown’s first Africans. Captured duri'ng fighting in Angola, they were being carried by a Portuguese ship to Mexico when an English privateer captured them, diverting them to Virginia. Even the names of the ships are now known."
(i) African Americans at Jamestown. Historic Jamestowne; Part of Colonial National Historical Park. National Park Service, undated
http://www.nps.gov/jame/historyc ... ns-at-jamestown.htm
("The first documented "20 and Odd" Blacks that arrived in Jamestown, Virginia in August of 1619 are not known to have been immediately enslaved. As an institution, slavery did not exist in Virginia in 1619. Slavery as we know it today, evolved gradually, beginning with customs rather than laws")
(ii) Lisa Rein, Mystery of Va.'s First Slaves Is Unlocked 400 Years Later. Washington Post, Sept 3, 2006
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp ... R2006090201097.html
("And they [Angolan captives] most likely had been baptized as Christians, because the kingdom of Ndongo converted to Christianity in 1490. Many were literate. This background may be one reason some of Virginia's first Africans won their freedom after years as indentured servants, the historians said")

The impending book mentioned in the Washington Post report:
Linda M. Heywood and John K. Thornton, Central Africans, Atlantic Creoles, and the Foundation of the Americas, 1585-1660, Cambridge University Press, 2007.

(e) "Archaeologists found the original Jamestown in the 1990s, uncovering not a village but a 'fortified trading post' built by 'buccaneer merchant-adventurers' similar to those seen in India and West Africa, says Tom Davidson, a curator of the foundation that oversees the settlement."

Jamestown Rediscovery. Preservation Virginia, undated.
http://apva.org/rediscovery/page.php?page_id=1

Please click Jamestown Rediscovery Archaeological Project
("In 1994, the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities (now Preservation Virginia[, a private nonprofit orga) began administering an archaeological research project on the 22 1/2 acres they owned on Jamestown Island")

(f) "In recent years historians have traced trade routes and commercial inter-connections that together amounted to a global economy as early as the 16th century: the so-called 'world-systems theory.' * * * The Jamestown Settlement museum has been completely rebuilt over recent years, reflecting new discoveries. Tourists gazing at its replica ships now learn that the Atlantic of 1607 was actually rather busy with such vessels, trading and fighting along America’s coasts. * * * Colonies such as Virginia are now seen as nodes in a global trading network, chafing at restrictions placed on them by mercantilist British policies. To take just one industry, colonial America was one of the world’s largest producers of pig iron, but milling and steelmaking were reserved for British firms. The law was poorly enforced, but stoked American anger."
(i) pig iron
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_iron
("The Chinese were making pig iron by the later Zhou Dynasty (1122–256 BC). In Europe, the process was not invented until the Late Middle Ages (1350–1500)")
(ii)  For origin of the name, view graphic or photo only in the following:

Operation of a Blast Furnace. High Technology High School, Monmouth County, New Jersey, undated.
http://www.mcvsd.org/mccs/geo-hths/blast.htm

Pig Iron--Reprise. View From the Nothern Wall, July 9, 2001
http://northernwall.blogspot.com/2011/07/pig-iron-reprise.html

choi

(2) Prostitution in Germany | A Giant Teutonic Brothel. Has the liberalisation of the oldest profession gone too far?
http://www.economist.com/news/eu ... nt-teutonic-brothel
(comparing opposite German and Swedish models, each favored by their country folks)

Note:
(a) "The best guess is that Germany has about 400,000 prostitutes catering to 1m men a day. Mocking the spirit of the 2001 law, exactly 44 of them, including four men, have registered for welfare benefits."

Judging from the context, "44 of them" refers to 44 prostitutes.

(b) "In some places * * *  In others [other places], such as Saarbrücken, near the border with a stricter country like France, entrepreneurs are investing in mega-brothels that cater to cross-border demand.

Saarbrücken
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saarbr%C3%BCcken
(capital of the state of Saarland in Germany; section 1 Toponym)
(i) The Wiki page states, "However the name actually predates the oldest bridge in the historic center of Saarbrücken, the Alte Brücke, by at least 500 years."
(ii) The "alte" is a form of "alt."
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/alte#German
(iii) German English dictionary:
alt (adjective): "old"
brücke (noun feminine; plural: brücken): "bridge"

(c)
(i) For University of Göteborg, see University of Gothenburg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Gothenburg
(Swedish: Göteborgs universitet; a university in Sweden's second largest city, Gothenburg; public; founded in 1891)
(ii) Gothenburg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothenburg
(S"wedish: Göteborg; section 1 Name)

choi

(3) American industry and fracking | From Sunset to New Dawn. Capitalists, not just greens, are now questioning how significant the benefits of shale gas and oil will be for America. The new sceptics are missing the big picture.

Quote:

(pioneering, as opposed to giant latecomers) fracking "Firms that made better, timelier choices are still doing well. Until Twitter went public earlier this month, the year’s hottest American IPO was of shares in Antero Resources, whose wells in the Appalachians are expected to increase their output by 76% in 2014 and 47% the year after.

"As for the effects of fracking on the broader American economy, [bullish camp:] [i] a report by the McKinsey Global Institute which argues that unconventional oil and gas are set to provide a strong lift to American business. The report reckons that between now and 2020, shale gas and oil will add $380 billion-690 billion, or two to four percentage points, to America’s annual GDP, creating 1.7m permanent jobs in the process consider the spending-power of those new workers!]. [ii] 'America’s New Energy Future,' a recent report by IHS, another research outfit, talks of a manufacturing Renaissance and predicts a $533 billion boost to GDP by 2025, creating around 3.9m jobs. At first, say both McKinsey and IHS, a lot of the action will be in the energy business itself: not just in drilling and pipelines but in roads and ports, and all the other activities needed to produce and distribute the fuels. Electricity production is being transformed too, with gas-fired power stations being built to replace dirtier coal-fired ones.

[facts with no definite figures at this time:] "[i] In the next few years the benefits of fracking will become more visible in other industries, especially those, such as chemicals firms, that consume a lot of energy [aluminium, iron and steel industries, cement or tyres] or use raw materials derived from hydrocarbons [petrochemicals, plants producing methanol or ammonia]. European industry pays around three times as much for its gas as its American counterpart, and Japanese firms pay more than four times as much. A report this week by the International Energy Agency, a think-tank backed by energy-consuming rich countries, predicts that by 2015 America’s energy-intensive firms will have a cost advantage of 5-25% over rivals in other developed countries. [ii] Compressed or liquefied gas can also be used to power motor vehicles. American firms with big commercial fleets, such as FedEx and AT&T, are looking to cut costs by switching to gas power. GM, Ford and Chrysler have launched pickup trucks that can switch between petrol and gas. [iii] The growing supply of cheap shale gas has led to a wave of investment in converting terminals that were built to handle imports of gas into ones that can export it.

[pessimistic camp:] "Goldman [Sach] again puts a cautious spin on the numbers: shale energy’s overall effects will add just 'a few tenths of a percentage point' to the annual growth rate, says Jan Hatzius, its chief economist. But although this sounds modest, if sustained for a decade or more, it would add up to something big. Not quite a revolution, perhaps, but a significant turnaround in America’s prospects.

My comment:
(a) This is a lengthy article, discussing a topic we are familiar with. So there is no need to read the rest.
(b) The NcKinsey report "reckons that between now and 2020, shale gas and oil will add $380 billion-690 billion, or two to four percentage points, to America’s annual GDP."  That is 2-4% increase in GDP over the years (2013-2020), rather than each year in that period. US GDP is $16.6 trillion at the end of 2Q13. A 2 to 4 % hike in GDP will generate $330 ($16.6t times 2%) to 660 billion.

choi

(4) ICE buys NYSE-Euronext | The End of the Street. An improbable takeover highlights the uncertain future of share-trading.
http://www.economist.com/news/fi ... e-share-trading-end

Quote:

"On November 13th the firm that now owns the exchange [New York Stock Exchange], NYSE Euronext, became part of the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), a 13-year-old outfit based in Atlanta, Georgia, which has capitalised on the transition from face-to-face to electronic trading of energy futures. Making money running a stock exchange is getting harder, thanks chiefly to increased competition. The NYSE once had a monopoly on the trading of shares in firms that listed on it, but regulators did away with that in 2000. Even so, a decade ago it still had a roughly 80% share in the public trading of American equities, according to Bernstein Research; now it accounts for less than 25%.

"Adding to the indignity of the NYSE’s lost independence is the broadly held belief that ICE bought it not for the NYSE itself but for another exchange it owns, LIFFE, which has a large share of the market in European derivative contracts. It also profits from a licence to issue derivatives tied to MSCI share indices, and may soon offer products tied to LIBOR, a benchmark interest rate that is to be administered by another division of ICE.

Note:
(a)
(i) Rule 390: "A former New York Stock Exchange rule that stipulated that, unless exempted by the exchange, members must receive permission before trading an exchange-listed security off the exchange floor. Rule 390 was scrapped in 2000 by the New York Stock Exchange under pressure from the Securities and Exchange Commission. Compare Rule 5 [of American Stock Exchange]. See also Rule 19c-3 [of Securities and Exchange Commission]"
David L Scott, Wall Street Words; An A to Z guide to investment terms for today's investor. Houghton Mifflin, 2003.
http://financial-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Rule+390
(ii) NYSE Rulemaking:Order Approving Proposed Rule ChangeTo Rescind Exchange Rule 390. SEC, May 5, 2000 (Release No. 34-42758; File No. SR-NYSE-99-48).
http://www.sec.gov/rules/sro/ny9948o.htm

(b) "ICE bought it [NYSE] not for the NYSE itself but for another exchange it owns, LIFFE * * * It also profits from a licence to issue derivatives tied to MSCI share indices"
(i) LIFFE stands for
London International Financial Futures and Options Exchangehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lon ... nd_Options_Exchange
(a futures exchange based in London; 1982-2002 when acquired by Euronext)
(ii) The "it" in "it also profits" refers to "NYSE Liffe US."  See
News release: NYSE Liffe US and MSCI Extend Index Licensing Agreement. NYSE Euronext, Mar 18, 2013.
http://www.nyse.com/press/1363605372200.html

(c) MSCI
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSCI
(MSCI Inc; founded 1969; used to be Morgan Stanley Capital International)

(d) "Derivatives in general and energy futures in particular have fuelled ICE’s rapid growth. They tend to be proprietary to the exchange on which they are traded. That provides some protection from competition, although if transaction costs on one exchange become too high, customers can simply switch to similar contracts traded on another. For the moment, at any rate, ICE’s return on equity, at 15%, is double that of NYSE Euronext."

IntercontinentalExchange
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IntercontinentalExchange
(section 1 History)

(e) "What happens now to NYSE Euronext’s equity business in America and Europe, and to the iconic, heavily guarded NYSE headquarters on the corner of Wall and Broad Streets in Manhattan, is open to speculation. The building, whose once crowded trading floors reflected the alternating energy and lethargy of America’s economy, has been reduced to a symbol of capitalism for cable-news networks and for tourists. The NYSE’s nostalgic preservation of a room packed with screaming traders may have contributed to its decline; trading is now almost entirely computerised. But it had begun the long process of automation in the 1980s and in 2006 went public through the acquisition of a small electronic exchange with the intention of sprucing up its technology. It merged with Euronext in 2007 to expand its range of products and its geographical reach."
(i) The "equity" in the first sentence is stock. What the sentence says is the NYSE might be closed for good.
(ii) NYSE's nostalgic preservation of a room packed with screaming traders"   

That room is the "trading floor." The previous sentence says the NYSE building had "once crowded trading floors."

New York Stock Exchange
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Stock_Exchange
("In 1922, a building for offices, designed by Trowbridge & Livingston, was added at 11 Wall Street, as well as a new trading floor called the Garage. Additional trading floor space was added in 1969 the Blue Room, and in 1988 the EBR or Extended Blue Room, with the latest technology for information display and communication. Yet another trading floor was opened at 30 Broad Street called the Bond Room in 2000. As the NYSE introduced its hybrid market, a greater proportion of trading came to be executed electronically, and due to the resulting reduction in demand for trading floor space, the NYSE decided to close the 30 Broad Street trading room in early 2006. As the adoption of electronic trading continued to reduce the number of traders and employees on the floor, in late 2007, the NYSE closed the rooms created by the 1969 and 1988 expansions")
(iii) Euronext
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euronext
(an electronic stock exchange based in Amsterdam; formed in 2000)

NYSE's 2006 bid for Euronext was completed in 2007.