Economists noted that Draghi had said only 20 percent of purchases would be the responsibility of the ECB. This means the bulk of any potential losses, should a euro zone government default on its debt, would fall on national central banks.
Critics say this casts doubt over the unity of the euro zone and its principle of solidarity, and countries with already high debts could find themselves in yet deeper water.
"It is counterproductive to shift the risks of monetary policy to the national central banks," said former ECB policymaker Athanasios Orphanides. "It does not promote a single monetary policy. This path toward Balkanisation of monetary policy would signal that the ECB is preparing for a break-up of the euro."
U.S. Fears Chaos as Government of Yemen Falls →
The American-backed government of Yemen abruptly collapsed Thursday night, leaving the country leaderless as it is convulsed by an increasingly powerful force of pro-Iran rebels and a resurgent Qaeda.
The resignation of the president, prime minister and cabinet took American officials by surprise and heightened the risks that Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest country...
The resignation of President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi brought full circle Yemen’s Arab Spring revolution, which ousted former President Ali Abdullah Saleh in 2011 amid massive popular protests. Now Mr. Saleh, who has lately made himself an unlikely ally of the Houthi rebels who toppled the government, is poised to return to the forefront of Yemeni politics.
Saudi King Abdullah Is Dead →
Saudi Arabia's 91-year-old King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz has died, according to Saudi media outlets.He was admitted to the hospital in Riyadh for "medical checks" at the end of December.
Crown Prince Salman has been named the new king.
King Abdullah assumed the throne in 2005 as the country's sixth king. Salman, 79, is Abdullah's half-brother and has been making appearances and speeches on behalf of the late king for the last couple of months.
Salman is also reportedly in poor health, so from here the family's succession could get interesting...
New Illinois law gives schools access to students social media passwords →
Hopefully not a sign of a new trend. Most likely a sign that society isn't keeping up with the pace of change of technology.
A new Illinois law aimed at stopping cyber-bullying, gives schools access to kids social media accounts. Some say the law goes too far.
Previously Illinois schools could take action against students if online bullying occurred, such as something posted on Twitter or Facebook during the school day.
However, with the new law that Illinois legislators approved, school districts and universities in Illinois can demand a student’s social media password. The new law states if a school has a reasonable cause to believe that a student’s account on a social network contains evidence that a student has violated a schools disciplinary rule of policy. Even if it’s posted after school hours.
How ‘Warmest Ever’ Headlines and Debates Can Obscure What Matters About Climate Change →
Both NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration firmly concluded that last year beat out 2010 and 2005, the previous years that had held the title of warmest since methodical record-keeping began in 1880.
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Ever since, there’ve been salvos from critics decrying the definitiveness with which both agencies summarized the 2014 findings (each agency had a distinct methodology and slightly different conclusions).
I talked about this yesterday on Brian Lehrer’s radio show, making the point that it’s a distraction to focus on records — as the media and elected officials tend to do — given how year-to-year differences in global temperature are measured in a few hundredths of a degree Fahrenheit, and given the implicit uncertainty in such measurements. You can listen here.
Such fights divert attention from long-term trends...
There’s gold in them thar sewers—tons and tons of it! →
Researchers from Arizona State University analyzed sewage sludge—the stuff left behind after treating raw sewage—with a mass spectrometer, and found that a city of a million people gives out $13 million worth of metal annually—and $2.6 million of it is silver and gold.
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Where does all this gold come from? Speculation is that it finds its way into our sewage through the processes of manufacturing, such as mining, electroplating, and the manufacture of jewelry. It should be no surprise that there are items of value in the sewers—workers in Modesto, California, were once investigated for selling wedding rings and other items of jewelry that had been flushed down the toilet.
What does Cambridge sewage say about residents? MIT plans to find out →
These researchers—who include architects, computational biologists, designers, electrical and mechanical engineers, geneticists, and microbiologists—will be testing an idea that’s attracting interest around the world: namely, that sewage can tell us important things about the people who excrete it. Already, research has shown that sewage can reveal illicit drug usage, the presence of influenza, the poliovirus and other pathogens, and the state of community health. So far, however, none of this has been tested in our local waste systems, other than some proof-of-concept sampling done in Boston. That has led to this first formal effort by scientists and public health officials to get a sewage snapshot of the people of Cambridge.
Distortions, lies and omissions: The New York Times won’t tell you the real story behind Ukraine, Russian economic collapse →
This is an intriguing point of view, and one I'm seeing more of (especially couched in "Cold War" terms). I don't yet have an opinion, but it seems like a theme worth following. Is U.S. policy destabilizing Russia, and in a way that could cascade across Europe?
"...this will spiral first into a financial collapse, which will slam into all of Europe, and then who knows where it goes after that? Everywhere, far-right nationalist forces are building..."