Philadelphia Reflections

The musings of a physician who has served the community for over six decades

2 Volumes

George IV

The Age of the Philadelphia Computer
Computers have a long slow history. The computer industry, however, had an abrupt start and sudden decline, in Philadelphia.

George and Computers(2)

New topic 2016-12-20 20:06:30 contents

TF-IDF Most-Significant Term In Each of Shakespeare's Plays

<- TF-IDF Step5
parolles@ALLS_WELL_THAT_ENDS_WELL	636.5775779521175
rosalind@AS_YOU_LIKE_IT	960.3227461677658
org@A_LOVER_S_COMPLAINT	58.20137855562217
hermia@A_MIDSUMMER_NIGHT_S_DREAM	378.3089606115441
imogen@CYMBELINE	603.83930251458
wolsey@KING_HENRY_THE_EIGHTH	367.396202132365
hubert@KING_JOHN	349.208271333733
buckingham@KING_RICHARD_III	337.6937697909743
bolingbroke@KING_RICHARD_THE_SECOND	304.22223709384275
berowne@LOVE_S_LABOUR_S_LOST	716.6044734660979
isabella@MEASURE_FOR_MEASURE	578.3761993964953
pedro@MUCH_ADO_ABOUT_NOTHING	563.8258547575898
falstaff@SECOND_PART_OF_KING_HENRY_IV	497.5354874920355
syracuse@THE_COMEDY_OF_ERRORS	865.7455060148798
talbot@THE_FIRST_PART_OF_HENRY_THE_SIXTH	431.6255580799069
fal@THE_FIRST_PART_OF_KING_HENRY_THE_FOURTH	549.2755101186842
cressida@THE_HISTORY_OF_TROILUS_AND_CRESSIDA	524.1101382916264
fluellen@THE_LIFE_OF_KING_HENRY_THE_FIFTH	323.74516821564833
timon@THE_LIFE_OF_TIMON_OF_ATHENS	1021.7203257707548
bassanio@THE_MERCHANT_OF_VENICE	461.973442285251
ford@THE_MERRY_WIVES_OF_WINDSOR	853.8873039582677
cade@THE_SECOND_PART_OF_KING_HENRY_THE_SIXTH	356.4834436531858
muse@THE_SONNETS	14.872575337986811
petruchio@THE_TAMING_OF_THE_SHREW	633.0543805207847
prospero@THE_TEMPEST	527.4499931603259
warwick@THE_THIRD_PART_OF_KING_HENRY_THE_SIXTH	465.14832600557935
antony@THE_TRAGEDY_OF_ANTONY_AND_CLEOPATRA	710.6432758418573
menenius@THE_TRAGEDY_OF_CORIOLANUS	712.9668873063716
ham@THE_TRAGEDY_OF_HAMLET_PRINCE_OF_DENMARK	1302.255845182046
cassius@THE_TRAGEDY_OF_JULIUS_CAESAR	668.3876482707819
lear@THE_TRAGEDY_OF_KING_LEAR	847.5575752162479
macbeth@THE_TRAGEDY_OF_MACBETH	1058.5375724803782
iago@THE_TRAGEDY_OF_OTHELLO_MOOR_OF_VENICE	1316.8061898209517
rom@THE_TRAGEDY_OF_ROMEO_AND_JULIET	592.9265440354009
titus@THE_TRAGEDY_OF_TITUS_ANDRONICUS	436.7506089296601
proteus@THE_TWO_GENTLEMEN_OF_VERONA	803.9065412995312
leontes@THE_WINTER_S_TALE	545.6379239589578
toby@TWELFTH_NIGHT_OR_WHAT_YOU_WILL	752.9803350633618
TF-IDF Main Page ->

Macroeconomics of The 2007 Collapse

Sudden wealth creation, whether from the discovery of gold or oil, the conversion of poverty into useful cheap labor, or the sudden abundance of cheap credit, is of course a good thing. Sudden wealth creation can be compared with a stone thrown into a pond, causing a splash, and ripples, but leaving a somewhat higher water level after things calm down. The globalization of trade and finance in the past fifty years has caused 150 such disturbances, mostly confined to a primitive developing country and its neighbors. Only the 2007 disruption has been large enough to upset the biggest economies. It remains to be seen whether a disorder to the whole world will result in a revised world monetary arrangement. One hopes so, but national currencies, tightly controlled by local governments, have been successful in the past in confining the damage. This time, the challenge is to breach the dikes somewhat, without letting destructive tidal waves sweep past them. Many will resist this idea, claiming instead it would be better to have higher dikes.

It is the suddenness of new wealth creation in a particular region which upsets existing currency arrangements. Large economies "float" their currencies in response to the fluxes of trade, smaller economies can be permitted to "peg" their currencies to larger ones, with only infrequent readjustments. Even the floating nations "cheat" a little, in response to the political needs of the governing party, or, to stimulate and depress their economies as locally thought best. All politicians in all countries, therefore, fear a strictly honest floating system, and their negotiations about revising the present system will surely be guilty of finding loopholes for each other; the search for flexible floating will, therefore, claim to seek an arrangement which is "workable".

In thousands of years of governments, they have invariably sought ways to substitute inflated currency for unpopular taxes. The heart of any international payment system is to find ways to resist local inflation strategies. Aside from using gunboats, only two methods have proven successful. The most time-honored is to link currencies to gold or other precious substances, which has the main handicap of inflexibility in response to economic fluctuations. After breaking the link to gold in 1971, central banks regulated the supply of national currency in response to national inflation, so-called "inflation targeting". It worked far better than many feared, apparently allowing twenty years without a recession. It remains to be investigated whether the substitution of foreign currency defeated the system, and therefore whether the system can be repaired by improving the precision of universal floating, or tightening the obedience to targets, or both. These mildest of measures involve a certain surrender of national sovereignty; stronger methods would require even more draconian external force. The worse it gets, the more likely it could be enforced only by military threat. Even the Roman Empire required gold and precious metals to enforce a world currency. The use of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) implies attempts to dominate the politics of the IMF. So it comes to the same thing: this crisis will have to get a lot worse, maybe with some rioting and revolutions, before we can expect anything more satisfactory than a rickety negotiated international arrangement, riddled with embarrassing "earmarks". Economic recovery will be slow and gradual unless this arrangement is better, or social upheavals worse, that would presently appear likely.

 

2 Blogs

TF-IDF Most-Significant Term In Each of Shakespeare's Plays
Run the TF-IDF algorithm using Hadoop and MapReduce on the collected works of Shakespeare and it will return this list of most-significant terms.

Macroeconomics of The 2007 Collapse
/>What happened to America in 2007 has happened to hundreds of developing economies in the past fifty years.
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