Bernanke’s speech back in 2002 can help shed some light on the question of how asset prices have been taken under consideration in the past by the Fed. It also helps explain how these prices will affect monetary policy in the future.
Bernanke’s speech back in 2002 can help shed some light on the question of how asset prices have been taken under consideration in the past by the Fed. It also helps explain how these prices will affect monetary policy in the future.
How often have you opened your wallet or purse, taken out any banknotes and then instead of spending them or paying them into your account, actually studied them? I too have not spent hours of my day examining the pieces of paper/cotton/melting polymer which allow me to pursue my acquisitive tendencies. But a couple of […]
High profile battles over gay rights is something more commonly found in the West rather than in Africa. But the proposed changes to Uganda’s anti-gay laws being considered by Parliament has brought that country to the forefront of the global battle for LGBT rights. Homosexuality is already criminalized in Uganda but the Anti-Homosexuality Bill currently […]
Last Sunday, Swiss voters opted to legally ban the construction of any new minarets in the country. Since then, the topic has been debated online and in the media, with plenty of analysis by people on both sides of the ban on what the minaret ban is really about, or what minarets are really about. […]
At almost the same time that the World Health Organization (WHO) released a report lamenting the many barriers that women face to accessing health care, the United States Congress threw up another such barrier in the form of the Stupak amendment blocking access to abortion. Fittingly, the WHO report noted that “The obstacles that stand […]
Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food’s, Prof. Olivier De Schutter’s, second presentation to the UN General Assembly. The interactive dialogue that followed Prof. De Schutter’s presentation is an excellent example of how the Special Procedures system of the UN Human Rights Council allows for greater […]
While it is no secret that racism lives on in the United States, it was nonetheless shocking news that a justice of the peace in Louisiana had refused to marry an interracial couple because he doesn’t “believe in mixing the races that way.” Keith Bardwell, the justice of the peace in question, has […]
In a strange legal loophole, American companies—including those that receive government contracts such as Halliburton—can require their employees to sign contracts waiving their right to bring a civil trial against fellow employees that rape or otherwise sexually assault them. This egregious loophole was first spotlighted when Jamie Leigh Jones, a former contractor for one-time […]
The current Yaz birth control controversy illustrates the continued tension between what pharmaceutical companies and the doctors that they pay claim is safe for consumption, and contrary scientific evidence. Natasha Singer of the New York Times is reporting that Yaz, a birth control pill manufactured and marketed by Bayer, is under fire as an […]
As the United Nations headquarters in New York prepares to host what is being hailed as the largest General Assembly gathering to date, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is disseminating a report designed to call attention to the plight of the world’s working poor. Mr. Ban prepared a report entitled “Voices of the Vulnerable,” and today […]
Today, after a much-anticipated wait, U.S. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus laid out a health care reform plan. One of the key features of this plan is that it would prohibit private insurance companies from denying insurance to people because of preexisting conditions that they may have, and from discriminating against them because of […]
Governments and religions around the world remain intensely interested in what women, but not so much what men, are wearing in public. On September 6, 2009 I wrote about the proposed parliamentary ban on the public wearing of the niqab in France. On September 8, media outlets lit up with discussions of the recent trial […]
France’s center-right and left political parties are coalescing around a controversial issue: the idea of a national, parliamentary ban on the niqab. Proponents of the ban cite the threat of Islamism to France’s position as a secular state, and argue further that the niqab is both a symbol of and an act of the oppression of […]
Guatemala can be considered a vanguard country in ensuring the right to food, in that it has developed legal and institutional protections designed to protect and promote this right. Several national laws exist to promote and ensure the right to food, such as the law (SINESAN) to operationalize the national food security and nutrition plan […]
It appears that for now, while some improvements are being made, women are still fighting for the hearts and minds of the Afghan people.