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Money matters: The Fed – Part 2
Graham Macdonald
MBMG International Ltd.
The Federal Reserve Act that created the Fed in 1913
called for a highly decentralized system that empowered the twelve
regional banks to conduct somewhat autonomous monetary policy actions
based on regional economic considerations. Although the board of
directors in Washington was to act in a supervisory capacity, it had
limited authority to centrally manage monetary policy. Initially, the
board consisted of five internal directors, one of whom served as
governor. In addition, the Secretary of the Treasury acted as chairman
of the board and was an ex officio director along with the comptroller
of the currency.
In the early days after the Federal Reserve Act, changes in the discount
rate were the principal means of expanding credit growth in the regions.
In those days, prior to the establishment of the Board of Governors in
the format that exists today, each of the 12 regional reserve banks set
its own separate discount rate. There often was therefore no single
prevailing Federal Reserve interest rate. As financial markets became
more integrated, however, borrowers took advantage of the uneven
discount rates by borrowing from the region offering the lowest rate.
The ability of private banks to arbitrage between regional reserve bank
rates constantly frustrated any attempt by Washington to centrally
manage credit growth. This arbitrage eventually forced a standardized
policy on the discount rate and brought into question the need for a
decentralized Federal Reserve System.
Also, during the twenties, Fed open-market operations were expanded into
a general strategy for monetary policy under the leadership of Benjamin
Strong, head of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Strong organized
an informal policy committee that was the forerunner of today’s FOMC.
The role of the Fed matured even further at the end of that decade.
Herbert Hoover became the Republican Presidential nominee in 1928. He
said then: “We in America today are nearer to the final triumph over
poverty than ever before in the history of any land.” Within months the
stock market crashed, and newly elected President Hoover along with
secretary Andrew Mellon had to preside over the economy’s descent into
the Great Depression, which in turn shifted the Fed toward more central
management of monetary affairs.
Marriner Eccles, a Utah banker, helped President Franklin Roosevelt to
fashion the Banking Act of 1935, which concentrated the authority over
monetary policy in Washington with the independent seven-member board of
governors. Eccles was appointed the first chairman of this new board,
and a separate building was erected for its use on Constitution Avenue.
The banking act restructured Benjamin Strong’s informal open-market
committee as the permanent Federal Open Market Committee.
A trend of increasing board responsibility for the regulation and
supervision of the banking system followed the shift in authority over
monetary policy. Therefore, in addition to its primary function of
managing U.S. monetary policy, today the board is also charged with the
regulatory oversight of all bank holding companies, all state chartered
banks that are members of the Federal Reserve System, and international
activities of all U.S. banks. In addition, the board administers U.S.
consumer banking laws and regulates margin requirements in the stock
market.
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The above data and research was compiled from sources believed to be
reliable. However, neither MBMG International Ltd nor its officers can accept
any liability for any errors or omissions in the above article nor bear any
responsibility for any losses achieved as a result of any actions taken or not
taken as a consequence of reading the above article. For more information please
contact Graham Macdonald on [email protected]
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Snap Shots: A few tricks – some learned the hard way
by Harry Flashman
The trick here is not to get wet.
Photography, and by that I mean professional photography, is a skill you
can literally learn on the job. A well known Thai photographer, Tom
Chuawiwat, even said it was the only skill where people paid you while
you learned, and he was not far off the mark with that concept.
For example, I had a call from a visiting journalist who had been
commissioned to do a piece in Thailand. Said journalist had a problem –
she was a writer, not a photographer, and needed photographs to
illustrate her article. She had an art director back in her own country
who had also given her a problem – he wanted 6 cm x 4 cm or 6 cm x 6 cm
slides for reproduction in the magazine. It was obvious from this that
he was not a photographer either!
Quite frankly, unless you are going to be blowing the shots up to be as
big as the side of a house, 6 cm x 6 cm slides are total overkill. (This
is the size of the slide you get with Hasselblad cameras – one of the
best in the world.) I used ‘Blads’, as they are known in the pro
shooters’ lingo, and loved them – but for a piece of photojournalism, a
camera producing slides of this size is not necessary.
However, there are still art directors around who think they have to get
slides this big. What to do? Easy! All that you do is ‘dupe’ (make a
duplicate) the 35 mm (ordinary sized) slide and enlarge it up to 6 cm x
4 cm or 6 cm x 6 cm. This can be done by any professional photo lab, and
is the ideal way to get art directors off one’s back. They will sit back
after getting the larger slides and say, “See how much better these are
than 35 mm.” The pro shooter just smiles, collects his money and exits
stage left!
What the non-photographer art director does not know is that the
resolving power in today’s 35 mm camera lenses is better than the
resolution from the human eye by a factor of at least 2:1. To go up to 6
cm x 6 cm is simple.
Photography is, of course, one of the least truthful pastimes you can
take up. For the pro photographer much time is used in working out how
to either show the product in a favorable way, or to disguise some
defect or other. You have no idea, but there is a veritable army of
people out there who love to go through advertising brochures and look
for minute imperfections and write to the manufacturer saying such
things as “Do all of your watches have scratches on them?” And who gets
the blame? Not the manufacturer who sent over the product, but the poor
old photographer, that’s who. This can really be an enormous problem
when you may be photographing a pre-production item and this is the only
one in captivity.
Ever tried photographing champagne? There’s never enough bubbles to keep
art directors happy, so you drop some sugar into the glass. Only a few
crystals are enough to give the almost still glass of champers that
“just opened” fizz look to it.
Even in simple portraiture, the concept is to show the sitter in the
best possible way. For example, if the person has “bat ears” the
portrait should be taken with the head turned so that one ear disappears
from view. Not “lying” but presenting mother nature in a different ways.
Another piece of photo-fraud was inserting the architect’s model of a
hotel, as not yet built, into an aerial shot of a beach resort city.
This required working out the height of the helicopter relative to the
height to photograph the scale model, and then combining the two slides.
It took two 12 hour days in the studio alone, to photograph the
architect’s model and another day in the lab to combine the images.
With today’s digital scanners, this becomes even easier. Believe half of
what you hear and one quarter of what you see! Photography is the art of
deception!
Modern Medicine: The worm’s tale (tail), 15,000 kids and dead in six weeks
by Dr. Iain Corness, Consultant
Worms are part of life and living, for all of us. Hands up
those who have never been given a good “worming” by your Mum. Those of you
not with your hand in the air are either telling lies, or have forgotten!
There are some people with strong maternal urges, but none greater than poor
old Enterobius vermicularis, otherwise known as the pin worm. This little
fellow comes out of its egg and lives for six weeks only, and at the end of
its time, releases 10,000 – 15,000 eggs and dies, its life’s work over.
So why should this little worm be of interest to us? Quite simply – you’ve
either got it, or you’ve had it. That’s the statistics. Virtually all
children will have been infected by the time they reach high school, and at
any one time, 50 percent of all children in the 5-10 year age groups will be
harbouring the little worms. Another good reason to stay away from small
children!
So how do you know if your children are currently harbouring a host of pin
worms? There are various tests that can be done, from microscopic stool
examinations to the simple sticky tape test around the anus which picks up
eggs and the occasional wriggling worm itself. However, just as we routinely
“worm” the family cat and dog, you can routinely “worm” the children. Single
shot mebendazole works well, but you have to repeat the “worming” two to
three weeks later to pick up the newly hatched eggs, since the eggs
themselves are not affected by the drug.
There are also many other worms that like us. They all have wonderfully
exotic sounding names, for some very much non-exotic creatures. There is
Ascaris lumbricoides, the human roundworm and Ancylostoma duodenale, the
hookworms. There is also Ancylostoma braziliense, a cat and dog worm whose
larvae can penetrate human skin and grow slowly under the top layer
producing cutaneous larva migrans, a creeping skin rash. This one is often
seen in beach volleyball players known colloquially as “sandworms”. And just
when you thought beach volleyball was a safe sport!
Then there’s my favourite – Strongyloides stercoralis, the human threadworm!
“Step this way and see the amazing Strongyloides bring a grown man to his
knees!” Yes, a super-infection of Strongyloides can be fatal as the worms
invade all the tissues of the body producing meningitis, pneumonia and
septicaemia.
It doesn’t stop there either, as there is Taenia saginata and Taenia solium,
the tapeworms, to be considered too, and their baby brother Hymenolepsis
nana, the dwarf tapeworm.
There’s many a peril underfoot, as that is the way that many of these worms
get into our bodies – through walking on larval forms with bare feet. And
you thought that crossing the street was dangerous!
The other classical way is to ingest the egg forms which can be on
vegetables that have been fertilized with infected faeces. Hence the
warnings about eating salads at the side of the road. Cooked is OK, but
beware the unwashed vegetables.
So if you have been having some intestinal pain, some diarrhoea and itching
around the anus, it just might be a worm infestation. How do you check – see
your doctor, there are tests that can be done directly and sometimes via the
blood, but you won’t diagnose this one by yourself, unless you meet the worm
face to face.
And oh yes, worms are very common in tropical climates, and it is hot enough
for them tight now!
 Heart to Heart with Hillary
Dear Hilary (sic),
As always, it is a pleasure and a good laugh reading your column. However, I
have a little problem with my tilac. We are probably going to be married in
October-November, when I come to stay for good. I’m 53, she 28, me? handsome
man (10000 bar girls can?t be wrong :-)) ). Of course I treat her with great
respect, as I would have done in Europe. We live in a nice house, have
motorbike and car. When we go to the market, and she sees some nice clothes,
of course we buy it. We both like her looking good and decent/respectable.
She is a good regular girl (not bargirl), no sick buffalos, rice fields or
anything. Have lived all her life just outside Pattaya, family only needing
2000 B a month. We are very happy together, and have been so for the last 8
months. Problem: We sometimes go to a couple of Danish bars. Many of the
people there seem to try everything to split us up. They tell me all the
time, that she is only trying to rip me off (I know differently). Their
so-called girlfriends tell my tilac that I like them and not her. No truth
in that at all, but it still bugs my tilac, that they do. Is this all a
matter of jealousy, because falangs get pissed off because their girlfriends
complain that they don’t get anything compared to mine because they are “kee
neeow”? Are they trying to split us up, because they think they have a
chance getting at me, or is this just “Thai way” that we have to put up with
for the rest of our lives?
Topdogdk
Dear Topdogdk,
There’s a simple way around this problem, which is as obvious as the nose on
your face, you being a “big nose” (the ‘real’ Thai words for a farang). Stop
going to Danish bars, my Petal! In fact, I would suggest that by this stage
in your relationship you should avoid the girlie bars altogether. You don’t
need the agro and neither does your tilac. There are many other bars which
welcome couples, where you will not have these kinds of problems. You are
right when you say that it is motivated by jealousy, both from the bar girls
and the farangs that prop the bars up there. They are trying so hard to show
that they can still “play the field” (very difficult task in a beer bar),
yet in fact they are really jealous that someone is happy settled down. That
last statement will probably bring howls of outrage from those who frequent
the bars, Danish or otherwise, but it is the true state of affairs. But by
the way, my name is Hillary, with two l’s, but I will forgive you since
English is not your native tongue.
Hello Hillary,
I’m not sure whether you’ll print a second letter from the same whining
Canuck, but you keep printing that blather from that silly Mistersingha so I
suppose I’ll give it a try.
Have to take you to task again - with all due respect to our brave
Australian cousins, it was (Canadian) Capt. Roy Brown who shot down the Red
Baron from the air! The Baron was attacking an Aussie artillery base, but
never got a chance - the wily Canadian smacked him down before the
Antipodeans had a chance to ask where the bloody hell are you. Read all
about it here: http://www.billy bishop.org/redbaron.html.
As for Canadian choc and cham, it’s true we snowbacks don’t have any
champagne, any more than the Poms do, as the stuff only comes from France.
But we do have some very nice metode (sic) champenoise, such as Funk Blanc
de Blancs and Colio Estate 2002.
If I’m in a good mood, I might swing by with a package of Purdy’s delicious
chocolates from Vancouver. But no sparkling wine yet - especially after that
“British Sopwith Camel” wheeze!
Time-wastingly,
A Canuck in Paradise
Dear Canuck in Paradise,
That’s what I admire about Canadians, like the Mounties, you never give up,
no matter how wrong you might be. The subject of the Red Baron’s demise has
been thrashed to death over the past 80 odd years since that fateful day.
Many authors and historians have joined the throng debating this, not just
you and me in an “Agony Aunt” column! (What will I be asked to adjudicate on
next, I wonder?)
In the word of the authors of “The Red Barons Last Flight”, Franks and
Bennett, they found the evidence and probabilities, based on logic, indicate
that the honors belong to Sergeant Cedric Bassett Popkin. The research work
of numerous aviation historians over the last 80 years effectively put paid
to the validity of a claim from the air (that’s your Canadian pilot’s claim
shot down). Richthofen was brought down from ground fire with the highest
probability being from the Vickers machine gun of Cedric Popkin or the rifle
of an unknown soldier on the southern slope of Morlancourt Ridge. So there
you are, my Canadian Petal. You may climb back on Snoopy’s kennel and
pretend you are Captain Roy Brown as much as you like, but you’ll never
bring down the Red Baron! Finally, don’t take it hard, Hillary thought she
was wrong once, but she was mistaken! Have a happy day, and don’t leave the
Purdy’s out in the hot Thai sun.
Psychological Perspectives: A final perspective
by Michael Catalanello,
Ph.D.
As a rule, we humans seem naturally drawn
to learning about what makes us tick. Issues of human behavior,
thoughts, and emotions form the subject matter of psychology. Topics
such as intelligence, creativity, human sexuality, relationships,
abnormal behavior, personality traits, interpersonal attraction,
success, and happiness grab our attention; pique our curiosity to learn
about ourselves and others.
Popular theories pertaining to human behavior permeate our culture. We
are taught that if you build your self-esteem you will be happy and
successful; men are from Mars, women are from Venus; and you are the
product of your childhood experiences. Pseudo-psychological notions like
these often capture the public’s imagination and become accepted
uncritically by our societies. Unfortunately, such theories often have
little or no empirical support.
It’s not that authoritative information isn’t available. At this moment,
thousands of psychological research projects are underway around the
world. Each month perhaps thousands of reports and monographs are
published in hundreds of peer-reviewed psychological journals, revealing
the latest information from the greatest researchers and theorists in
the field. The problem is that this information is often written in a
very technical language that is inaccessible to all but the specialist.
It remains largely out of public awareness.
It has been my goal over the past ninety-one weeks to highlight some of
the more interesting ideas from the field of psychology, particularly
those of topical and local interest to the Pattaya community, and
present them in an entertaining and accessible way to you, the Pattaya
Mail reader. I hope that to some degree I have succeeded.
This column will be the last in this series. I will soon be leaving
Asian University where I have taught for the past 7 years, to take on a
challenging new position as an EAP (Employee Assistance Program)
counselor for an American company that employs over 60,000 people in 43
countries around the world. I will be providing mental health services
to company employees on location in war torn Iraq.
I might not have taken such a seemingly hazardous position were it not
for Bill C., a friend of mine and former coworker from my days as a
struggling graduate student in the 1980s. Bill has been in Iraq doing
EAP work since January. He has patiently answered my many questions
about security, living conditions, job satisfaction, etc. His support
and reassurance has made it much easier for me to take this plunge.
For those readers who have enjoyed this column and would like to learn
more about psychology, I recommend the website of the American
Psychological Association, www.apa.org for helpful information and links
to other psychology-related resources on the web.
For those interested in keeping up with my personal experiences and
perspectives on events in Iraq (that’s you, Mom), you can visit my
weblog, Iraq Chronicles, at http://iraq-chronicles.blogspot.com/ where I
hope to keep a periodic narrative of my future activities, as my time
allows.
For my part, no matter where I roam, I will always be a part of the
Pattaya community. My family and I will continue to maintain our home
here, and I hope to visit as often as I can. While I’m away, I plan to
keep track of local events by reading the Pattaya Mail online edition,
of course!
My warmest thanks go out to my proofreaders: James C., George, and
especially, Marisa for routinely extending her work-week into Friday
night in order to provide comments on my last minute writings. Best
wishes to Dan, Peter, and the Pattaya Mail staff, my readers, my
students, and to my friends at Asian University.
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Dr. Catalanello is a licensed psychologist in his home State of Louisiana, USA, and a member of the Faculty of Liberal Arts at Asian University,
Chonburi. You may address questions and comments to him at [email protected], or post on his weblog at
http://asianupsych.blogspot.com
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A Female Perspective: Sitting down with ‘J’
with Sharona Watson
My friend ‘J’ is the sort of woman who I
bet many men would feel threatened by. Not only is she sumptuously,
gorgeously sexy with a body which frankly I am very jealous of, but she
speaks (at least) three languages completely fluently and is one of the most
intelligent people I have met. She has three beautiful children and an
incredibly handsome husband. ‘J’ gave up her work to come to Thailand. I
would have put a picture of her in the paper, but the page might catch fire.
That’s how hot she is. I had the chance to sit down with her over a very
nice strong of morning coffee. For someone so independent, I wondered, did
she always want to be a mother?
‘J’: No. Actually, I had hardly ever touched a child before I had my own
child. ‘M’ was my first child and the wish to have babies was really related
to the love with my husband. I had never, ever had the feeling to be a mum
before because I was very happy having a career; very happy with my life.
But when I met my husband it was just a natural development of our love to
build a family.
SW: Obviously you had to give up quite a lot to become a mother. Did you
sacrifice your independence willingly?
‘J’: I think there are several stages in life for a woman. When you decide
to have children, it does not mean you have to give up happiness, it just
means that a new sort of happiness comes into your life. You push away a
certain style of independence and freedom which is of course, compensated by
the fact of being a mother and living motherhood as an experience and as a
challenge. And just as I did my jobs before 100% so I did motherhood as
well. For me personally, the only way to do motherhood in the way I wanted
to do it was by being a full-time mother and not a half-time mother. Mixing
jobs and motherhood is possible absolutely, but only if you have a very
workable social network around you. You have to have your family around you,
a network which is really taking care of your kids when you are away at
work. Otherwise, you will always feel guilty not being with your children. I
had to find a job where I was independent enough to get home after school
and the only way I could achieve this was to open my own business, where I
was my own boss, because I still believe that society is not flexible enough
to take care of mothers when they need to take days off for sick children at
home.
SW: When you came over here, with the children and a husband, you gave up
your work and your business?
‘J’: Everything.
SW: Do you feel any resentment?
‘J’: I don’t have any resentment because I feel it’s never too late to
reconsider a new lifestyle. It is always possible to focus on a new task in
life even though sometimes it means that you really put yourself in question
and you have to overcome your laziness. I think it is very easy actually, to
be captivated, as a mother. You can hide forever behind your children if you
don’t want to be professionally successful. You don’t have to do something
else because everybody believes it’s the best thing to stay home. Here in
Thailand, we have maids and we have charities and we have artificially made
women’s societies and women’s groups. We think we are busy but it’s really
just self-inflicted business. But I believe that women in Europe have more
of a chance to combine children and a professional life.
SW: Do you think every woman should have time off from parenting and for
once not be associated with the word, “Mother”?
‘J’: Absolutely. I know that it’s not really a question of money. It’s more
a question of partnership. The father of your children accepts that besides
motherhood there are many facets to your being a woman. You have your
feminine side and you have your professional side and you have many other
sides. Unfortunately, by having children, most of the time you are reduced
to motherhood and the fact that most of the time here in Thailand most of
the men are money providers, means that really your main role is in the
household. But I think what women should do is try to be alone sometimes,
even though we are hardly able and capable of being really alone – by
yourself, without a husband, without a friend. It can be very helpful to get
away. I guess some women have already forgotten how nice it is to be alone.
SW: I haven’t!
Suddenly, too soon, it was time to go. The bill arrived and we said our
goodbyes. I could really relate to what ‘J’ said. She did what intelligent
people do; she answered many questions but provoked more. I mean, take
charities. It’s a good but difficult question; for whom are we really doing
charity work? Is it for the people who need help, or is it really for
ourselves? I think that’s the kind of question every woman (and man for that
matter) needs to ask themselves. I suppose some women just aren’t interested
in having children. For instance, some choose dogs as surrogate children,
but it’s an interesting question – do you have to be mother to truly
understand children? You see what I mean? Talking to someone like ‘J’ makes
your mind light up. And she gives you strength, because she’s so honest
about things. Honesty, just as ‘A’ and ‘J’ agreed last week, is one of those
values which I think it is essential to pass on to our children. To give
them a sense of ‘social justice’, as Andy calls it.
Next week: And what does Daddy say?
[email protected]
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