Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Boosting an economy?

"It (Japan) wants to make more money available to encourage banks to increase lending to business and individuals." Uh, duh. This is a classic stimulus move. We hope that increasing the money supply works for Japan's markets...How to decrease deflation with the increased strength of the yen against the weak dollar. Who knows, the authors of this article seem somewhat skeptical against the effectiveness of this announcement, as they consider the effect of government pressure rather than "a real move to support the economy"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8387754.stm

A Step in the Right Direction

Someone once told me, as long as you're moving forward in the right direction-it counts.

And that's what South Africa seems to be doing, by increasing anti-retrovirals for their HIV-infected population, despite the expensive costs. As an outside opinion-I'm proud of them for moving in the right direction, for taking a risk, for overhauling ineffective policy, and actually demonstrating a concern for their population.

Read more about it at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8388178.stm