How Fake Money Saved Brazil

The four economists wanted to create a new currency that was stable, dependable and trustworthy.  The only catch: This currency would not be real.  No coins, no bills.  It was fake.

"We called it a Unit of Real Value — URV," Bacha says. "It was virtual; it didn't exist in fact."

People would still have and use the existing currency, the cruzeiro.  But everything would be listed in URVs, the fake currency.   Their wages would be listed in URVs.  Taxes were in URVs.  All prices were listed in URVs. And URVs were kept stable — what changed was how many cruzeiros each URV was worth.

Say, for example, that milk costs 1 URV. On a given day, 1 URV might be worth 10 cruzeiros. A month later, milk would still cost 1 URV. But that 1 URV might be worth 20 cruzeiros.

The idea was that people would start thinking in URVs — and stop expecting prices to always go up.

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And, basically, inflation did end, and the country's economy turned around. In the years that followed, Brazil became a major exporter, and 20 million people rose out of poverty.

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Owner of Banksy stencil house is told to remove protective screen – by council that used one to preserve artist's work on its own offices

"While I understand the issues about graffiti, it is quite clear this is something different and we would be in a lot of trouble if we got rid of it.”

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Flushed out: The Buddhist monks caught playing poker

Half a dozen leaders of South Korea's largest Buddhist order have been forced to resign amid a scandal in which monks were caught on video drinking, smoking and playing poker for high stakes at a memorial event for a dead Zen master.

The head of the Jogye order, which has around 10 million followers, or about a fifth of the nation's population, made a public apology yesterday promising "self-repentance".

The scandal erupted just days before Koreans observe a national holiday to celebrate the birth of Buddha, the holiest day of the religion's calendar.

But rather than preparing for the holiday, South Korea has been glued to television screens as channels show secretly taken footage of the senior monks' high-jinks at a luxury resort in the south-west of the country.

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Austerity Measures Violate Human Rights

From The Cedar Lounge Revolution:

What’s remarkable on reading this is how the economic actions of the the Troika have cut against the Articles of the Lisbon Treaty… that being Articles 3.1 and 3.3. These being the ones which refer to the promotion of peace and well being of its peoples, social progress and combating social exclusion. and promoting social justice and protection. These aren’t small things. These are right up there in the stated goals of the European Union. This is, if one likes, the raison d’être of the Union. 

From Greek austerity measures could violate human rights, UN expert says:

“The rights to food, water, adequate housing and work under fair and equitable conditions should not be compromised by the implementation of austerity measures,” he said, urging the Government to “strike a careful balance between austerity and the realization of human rights, taking into account the primacy of States’ human rights obligations.”

Musical Innerlube: Spiral Tribe - Forward the Revolution

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