Sex Is Good. Please Have More: Turkey

choi

Economist, Jan 26, 2013.

(1) Turkish society | Of Sex and Islam; Even for imams, discussing sex is no longer taboo
("TURKEY’S prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, believes that one of the keys to prosperity is a young population. He would love to ban abortion and he nags families to have at least three children. His campaign received an unexpected boost from a respected Islamic theologian, who said on a popular television show that sex was a form of worship. 'Sex is a part of worship and, indeed, is the same as namaz (Muslim prayers),' Ali Riza Demircan told Haberturk TV.")

(2) Banyan | On the Edge; Australia still does not seem entirely sure where it is.
http://www.economist.com/news/as ... -sure-where-it-edge

Quote:

"IN FEW countries do history and geography tug in such different directions. It is half a century since Japan overtook Britain as Australia’s largest trading partner, itself to be overtaken by another Asian giant, China, in 2007. More than 40 years have passed since 'White Australia' immigration policies were dropped and Australia began to look a little more like Asia.

"Their [Australians'] head of state is still the British queen and their security is founded on a treaty with America. * * * A poll last year by the Lowy Institute, a think-tank in Sydney, found that 95% of Australians thought China already was, or would become, 'Asia’s leading power;' 52% felt uncomfortable about it.

"By the early 2020s Asia will overtake the combined economic output of Europe and North America.

"2013 is expected to be Australia’s 22nd consecutive year of economic growth. It weathered the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98 * * * And, uniquely among developed economies, it survived the global financial crisis without a recession. Australia has a new self-confidence in its own economic model. A book published last year by an Australian journalist, George Megalogenis ('The Australian Moment'), argues that, thanks to the economic reforms undertaken over the past three decades, Australia is 'more versatile today than any other first-world nation,' and that 'it’s our turn to tell them how the world works.'

"mainly it is because of the continued expansion of the Chinese economy. China now takes about 29% of Australia’s exports, mostly energy and minerals. * * * But in Australia as elsewhere in Asia, the mismatch between growing economic dependence on China and security reliance on America looks uncomfortable.

Note:
(a) The Economist titled a column about Asian affiars "Banyan" after the tree prevalent in Asia.

banyan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banyan
("Banyan" often refers specifically to the Indian banyan or Ficus benghalensis, the national tree of India, though the term has been generalized * * * to refer to the subgenus Urostigma")
(i) The Urostigma in Taiwan is 榕樹, which is everywhere there.
(ii) A web dictionary in Taiwan lists "banyan" as either 榕樹 or 菩提樹（學名：Ficus religiosa).
banyan.
http://tw.dictionary.search.yaho ... banyan&ei=utf-8

(b) White Australia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Australia_policy
(Immigration Restriction Act in 1901, one of the first Acts of the national parliament following federation; progressively dismantled between 1949 and 1973)

* Australia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia
("On Jan 1, 1901, federation of the colonies was achieved after a decade of planning, consultation and voting. The Commonwealth of Australia was established") 


(3) The Fed’s profits | The Other Side of QE; What happens when the Fed starts losing money.
http://www.economist.com/news/fi ... money-other-side-qe

My comment: I sometimes wonder what happens to US Federal Reserve when it conducts the three rounds of quantitative easing. Basically Federal Reserve has been printing US currency since the 2008 financial crisis. It turns out that Federal Reserve has been making huge profit since then. (But the Economist hints that the profit may come to an end in 2017, citing a scholarly research.)
(a) Just read the first three paragraphs of the Economist report. The rest discusses the scholarly report, which is too deep for me.

Economist says, "The Fed makes its money much as most banks do: from the spread between the return on its assets and the interest paid on its liabilities. The Fed’s liabilities are principally made up of currency in circulation, which pays no interest, and reserves, the cash that commercial banks keep on deposit at the Fed."
(i) A bank (other than Federal Reserve) makes money "from the spread between the return on its assets and the interest paid on its liabilities."

That is, a bank loans money and earns interest. On the other hand, the bank pays (lower) interest to depositors.
(ii) "The Fed’s liabilities are principally made up of currency in circulation, which pays no interest, and reserves, the cash that commercial banks keep on deposit at the Fed."

* Federal Reserve Note
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve_Note

Quote:

"Federal Reserve Notes * * * are issued to the [twelve regional] Federal Reserve Banks at the discretion of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. The notes are then put into circulation by the Federal Reserve Banks, at which point they become liabilities of the Federal Reserve Banks and obligations of the United States.

"They [Federal Reserve Notes; since 1971] have replaced United States Notes [1962-1971], which were once issued by the Treasury Department.

* reserve requirement
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserve_requirement
(section 2.1 United_States: The only deposit categories currently subject to reserve requirements are net transactions accounts, mainly checking accounts; "An institution that is a member of the Federal Reserve System must hold its reserve deposits at a Federal Reserve Bank")

(b) The scholarly paper:

Carpenter SB et al, The Federal Reserve’s Balance Sheet and Earnings; A primer and projections. Finance and Economics Discussion Series, Divisions of Research & Statistics and Monetary Affairs, Federal Reserve Board, January 2013.
http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/feds/2013/201301/201301pap.pdf

(i) Just read the first two pages of section 1 Introduction, as well as view Figures 1 and 2.
(ii) Figure 1 mentions "ML LLCs" on the asset side. (The lower-case "s" signifies the plural form (of ML LLC).)

Maiden Lane Transactions
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maiden_Lane_Transactions
(refers to three limited liability companies [LLCs] created by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in 2008 as a financial vehicle to facilitate transactions involving three entities: the former Bear Stearns company as the first entity, the lending division of the former American International Group (AIG) as the second, and the former AIG's credit default swap division as the third)
(ii) mortgage-backed security
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortgage-backed_security
(section 2.3 Subprime mortgage crisis)

The noun "securitization" means bundling a variety of mortgages from various banks into one and selling it (the bundle) in Wall Street in New York City.