Travels etc.

I’d like to start with some hypothetical examples. Example 1 . You might have seen somebody saying: “Machiavelli: The end justifies the means” or “As Machiavelli said: The end justifies the means”. Example 2 . “Be the change you wish to see in the world. – Mahatma Gandhi” Example 3 . “The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt. – Bertrand Russell”. Or “Don’t argue with idiots because they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience. — Greg King” Example 4 . “Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated. – Confucius” or “Everything comes to you at the right time. Just be patient.” I am sure some of us are faced with the examples above or similar quotes quite often. Let’s look at them in detail and see how the quotes are usually used and how it can be improved. Usually there are several reasons to use a quote that appear separately or in combination with each other: a) Support...

Have recently watched "Four Horsemen" - documentary on current global economic issues. It was interesting, because I have recently read a book Confessions of an Economic Hit Man  by John Perkins who is also featured in the documentary. What I found is that though the general idea towards "greater good" is natural, the ways how issues are explained in the movie and the reasons and solutions that are briefly outlined are not consistent sometimes with either logic or obvious observations. 33:00 - The narrator states that the inflow of lending money into the housing market led to an unprecedent inflation. "House prices rose and rose." This completely satisfies the classical economic theory that guys just praised a bit earlier in the video. Because interest rates were low and people borrowed more and more to buy properties. But is it not because there is always a demand for property? People have to live somewhere. At 33:40 Prof. Simon Johnson (for...