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December 18[edit]

Bethlehem: singular or plural[edit]

Is it true that there were in fact two Bethlehems in the time of Jesus and that he was actually born in the other one?--GreenSpigot (talk) 03:11, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Rudolf Steiner (one of my many slightly nutty country men) proposed that there were two Jesus children, so I suspect that two Bethlehems would be no surprise: There is one in the North, near Nazareth in Galilee and one in the South, near Jerusalem in Judea. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 05:04, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps Jesus shares a hometown with noted creationist Michael Behe? Adam Bishop (talk) 09:18, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Hence the phrasing "Bethlehem in Judea," much as Americans will say "Washington State" to avoid confusion with "Washington D.C." Or "Springfield, [name of state]" as opposed to "Springfield, [name of a different state]." ---Unsigned comment added by User:OtherDave 12:19, 18 December 2008 ---
What's current in Israel, and certainly reflected in the pages names right here in the English WP, is that Bethlehem ("in Judea", as OtherDave put it, though I've neither seen nor heard that wrote) is the "default," as it were, and the other locale is Bethlehem of Galilee, or directly translated from the Hebrew Beit Lehem ha-G'lilit, always referred to as "Galilean Bethlehem." -- Deborahjay (talk) 17:50, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Deborahjay: I was just thinking of Matthew 2:5-6:
They (the wise men from the east) told him (Herod the Great, who asked where the child destined to rule Israel would be born), “In Bethlehem of Judea, because that is what was written by the prophet:
O Bethlehem in the land of Judah, you are by no means least among the rulers of Judah,
because from you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel. (a reference to Micah 5:2)
--- OtherDave (talk) 18:01, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Aha, helpful indeed, OD, as:
  • Matthew is a "closed book" to me, and as for Micah, we non-Christian Israelis are still waiting...
  • I'd have done better to write, above: **among non-Christian Hebrew-speakers in Israel unconversant with the New Testament and relating to these as two unambiguously distinctive geographic locales**
-- Deborahjay (talk) 18:25, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Not at all -- it was just a clarification, a phrase whose context I happened to know, the way someone else might know "if not for myself..." or "the rest is commentary." --- OtherDave (talk) 19:10, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Such a situation was not all that unusual. The Bible itself differentiates between several Antiochs, Pisidian Antioch and Syrian Antioch, as well as Tarsus (city), St. Paul's home town, which was also known as Antioch on the Cydnus. The ancient world also had mulitple Tripoli's (in Libya, Lebanon, and Greece) and names such as Alexandria and Caesarea and Colonia existed for up to a dozen cities. I would not be surprised that there were two Bethlehem's, though contextually and explicitly, the Bible is refers exclusively to the Judean Bethlehem as Jesus's birthplace and ancestral home. There is no evidence at all that the Bible may have meant Gallilean Bethlehem. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 18:08, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just a technical note. The word "Bethlehem" is grammatically singular. The word "Bethlehems" (e.g. Were there two Bethlehems?) is grammatically plural. But the existence of more than one Bethlehem does not make the name "Bethelehem" "Bethlehem" plural. We don't say that "eye" is plural just because we happen to have more than one of them. -- JackofOz (talk) 20:16, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

WTH is Bethelehem?--GreenSpigot (talk) 01:50, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It's how you get Bethel's attention. --- OtherDave (talk) 02:02, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No, that would be Ahem-Bethel. A completely different Jewish word. —Preceding unsigned comment added by GreenSpigot (talk • contribs) 02:23, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It's living proof that I - yes, even I - am merely human and fallible. I know this must come as a great shock and disappointment to many. Get over it.  :) -- JackofOz (talk) 04:57, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
See, I would be perfect, except this one time a few years ago, I thought I had been wrong about something. Turns out that I was right in the first place, but that tarnished my perfection!!! Oh well... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 20:48, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The strong historical likelihood is that Jesus was born in Nazareth, the town where he grew up. In John 7:42, it is mentioned as a challenge to Jesus that he was not born in Bethlehem or of the lineage of David, as required by prophecy. The birth stories in Matthew and Luke address these concerns but otherwise give radically different accounts (e.g., in Matthew Joseph and Mary live in Bethlehem; in Luke they live in Nazareth and travel to Bethlehem for the census). John M Baker (talk) 16:44, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Slit, Log drums[edit]

Log drums were used in southeast asia to communicate between villages to warn villagers of pirates activities in the area. I heard these drums when I was along the South border of China. These were hollowed tree trunks ten feet long and three feet in diameter. The villagers understood the coded messages. Any information about this mean of communication —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.58.139.32 (talk) 03:12, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We've got this article Drum (communication), but I don't see any mention of the area you visited. DuncanHill (talk) 03:17, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Who are these two?[edit]

Queen Elizabeth II's Little Spy (talk) 04:34, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The one on the left, according to the image description page at commons is "Tsarevna Praskovia Ioannovna (Прасковья Иоанновна) was daughter of Ivan V of Russia and tsarina Praskovia Fedorovna (nee Saltykova). She lives during the reign of her uncle, Peter the Great". DuncanHill (talk) 04:37, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The one on the right is "Natalya Alexeevna (1673–1716)", daughter of Alexis I of Russia. DuncanHill (talk) 04:40, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
(A bit late) Googling indicates that the picture on the right is a portrait of Tsarevna Natalia, the youngest sister of Peter the Great, by Ivan Nikitin. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 04:49, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Then why would it be titled Tsarina (wife of tsar) instead of Tsarevna (daughter of tsar)?Queen Elizabeth II's Little Spy (talk) 06:33, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This [1] shows two portraits of her, including the above picture (right), entitled Portrait of Tsarevna Natalia. Ivan Nikitin, 1716. Another site [2] mentions that it can be seen at the Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia. The left painting, of Tzarevna Praskovya Ivanovna, also from the same painter, hangs in the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg. Ivan Nikitin was the favourite artist of Peter the Great. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 07:55, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Federal reserve[edit]

So now the interest rate is zero. Does this mean they are basically printing money on demand from whatever financial institution asks it? Why do low interest rates result in inflation? Please keep your explanation concise and simple; visuals would be nice. (I'm in high school and have never taken any course related to economics, and I live outside of the United States. This subject is a complete mystery to me.) 99.245.92.47 (talk) 09:07, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, US interest rates are not zero. There are two different rates involved here:
  • The federal funds rate is a target rate that the Federal Reserve sets for US banks lending money to one another. At the moment it is a range rather than a single rate - and the range is 0% to 0.25%. The Federal Reserve cannot force banks to lend to one another within this range (indeed, it cannot force them to lend to one another at all), but it can and does encourage this through open market operations.
  • The discount rate is the interest rate at which the Federal Reserve itself will lend money to US banks. At the moment this is 0.5%. This rate is normally set higher than the federal funds rate because the Federal Reserve prefers banks to borrow money from one another as much as possible - it wants to be seen as a lender of last resort.
  • Even if one bank did lend money to another at 0% interest, the loan must still be secured with collateral - usually government bonds. So the borrowing bank cannot borrow as much as it likes - its borrowing capacity is limited by the amount of collateral that it can provide.
The relation between central bank interest rates, money supply and inflation is complex and not fully understood - whenever economists think they have understood it, some country's economy goes and does something unexpected. Our inflation article summarises various theories around the causes and control of inflation. Gandalf61 (talk) 12:20, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Low interest rates can have an effect on inflation this way: Think of interest as the rent you pay when you borrow money. If the rent is low and you feel confident you can pay it, then it's easy to borrow more money -- just as you might rent a larger apartment if the rent seems low for the amount and quality of space. Now you've got more money, so you can buy more things. And if you think prices might go up soon, you feel likelier to buy now (because things will cost more in the future).
Combine this with lots of other people thinking the same way -- more people trying to buy the new car or rent the big apartment. In the short run, the supply of goods for sale doesn't increase as fast (because it takes time to build cars or erect apartments). So, if you're a seller of cars or a renter of apartments, you feel able to increase your prices to increase your profit. (Increase = inflation. Could be mild, could be severe.)
As the car dealer or the landlord, you also might borrow money at low interest to have more cars in stock or buy another apartment building. As you spend, more and more money is circulating, triggering more demand, which in turn makes it likelier that prices will increase.
This works for money, too: as the demand for loans rises, the bank can increase its interest rates.
None of this is inevitable, but it's a common pattern. Right now in the U.S., lenders are very hesitant to make loans -- I heard the other day that some finance companies was a credit score of 780 for an auto loan, which means that most people couldn't qualify. The lowering of rates by the Fed, and the bailouts by the government, are (to oversimplify) aimed at getting money flowing through the system, overcoming that hesitation. (Note: I am not an economist; this is not investment advice.) --- OtherDave (talk) 12:36, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Also, all of this bank de-leveraging (and less credit generally!) is actually acting to reduce the effective money supply somewhat. This is deflationary (makes money more valuable) and will 'absorb' some of the 'inflationary effects' of Fed policies. This is uncharted territory for the current Fed. A lot of the data that they will use to determine if they are doing the right thing (CPI, PPI) is delayed, and is often revised over many months as more data comes in.NByz (talk) 00:50, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

east asia[edit]

What are some major themes that came from early china that still exist in Korea, Japan, and Vietnam. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Shschrgrs (talk • contribs) 13:46, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Japanese writing is strongly based on Chinese writing, and the same was true of Vietnam and Korea through the 19th century (though since then Vietnam and North Korea have completely dispensed with Chinese characters in non-historic contexts, while they're somewhat vestigial in South Korea). AnonMoos (talk) 16:27, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Some aspects of Chinese culture and tradition which are still prevalent to various extents in Korea, Japan and Vietnam include:

Bernie Madoff's degree[edit]

Has Bernie Madoff any sort of college degree?--80.58.205.37 (talk) 13:47, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Bernie Madoff graduated from Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, in 1960. - Nunh-huh 16:16, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Financial criminals from Ivy league[edit]

Are Ivy league's alumni overrepresented under the financial criminals?--80.58.205.37 (talk) 13:50, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Its hard to say. Many Ivy League schools (for those that don't know, they are Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Pennsylvania, Princeton, and Yale) are known for atttracting many students with familial political connections, and political connections lead to higher positions of authority, and higher positions of authority tend to afford greater opportunities for corruption, in both the public and private sectors). One would probably have to dig up, say, a random sampling of a few hundred "white collar criminals" (embezzling, securities fraud, influence peddling, etc.) and see what their educational background was. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 17:53, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Plus we can only account for mediocre financial criminals, since presumably those more adept at swindling operate within legal loopholes or find ways of not getting caught. --Fullobeans (talk) 21:59, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
...At not getting caught right away. Even this guy ran outta time... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 23:08, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
...at age 70. His great mistake was failure to chainsmoke from an early age. But Madoff was a Hofstra grad, so that's one check in the non-Ivy column. Perhaps the OP would find Category:American white-collar criminals an interesting read? --Fullobeans (talk) 07:10, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I just pulled 10 out of that category... Here's the results I came up with:
That's 33% of our decidedly unscientific poll of notable white-collar criminals. Seeing as the Ivy League does not represent 33% of college graduates in the U.S. (not even close), I would say that the thesis is somewhat confirmed; however as I noted about the Ivy League's connection to political power, this result does not seem surprising. There may be many more "white collar criminals" who just don't rate on Wikipedia who never went to an Ivy League school; and those two facts may be related. I wouldn't read much into this... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 13:28, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If you look at the subset of senior managers (i.e. white collar criminals that are likely to be notorious), I wouldn't be surprised if you saw a much larger percent that went to an Ivy. A more interesting comparison would be "ranking of business school attended" to "likelihood of white collar crime." The two Penns listed there are from the Wharton School, which is one of the top (if not the top) ranked MBA programs in the country. SDY (talk) 19:19, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
JayRon, I think you overestimate the "connection to political power" as the relevant issue here. I think you'd find that most Wall Street financiers in general went to Ivy League schools—that's part of how you end up on Wall Street to being with! It's not a question of whether the Ivy League schools are over-represented compared to all possible college graduates, but compared to the overall representation of Ivy League educations on Wall Street. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 02:47, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Not really, because your missing the part of the equation, which is why people end up in Ivy League schools. How did you end up at Princeton? Because your dad, who is now a COO of a Fortune 500 company went there. What do you do when you get out of Princeton? Get an MBA from Wharton at Penn, and work your way up to COO of a Fortune 500 company, and send your kids to Princeton. Its a closed cycle. The reason you find more people in positions of power who went to Ivy League schools is because more people who are in positions of power have children who go to Ivy League schools. It's no coincidence that Senator Prescott Bush, a Yale grad, had a son who went to Yale and became President, and HE had a son who went to Yale and became President. The poor kid from the other side of the tracks who is at Yale on scholarship? He's not going to become President... Lots of public universities have very well respected business programs. But graduates of those schools don't get into the high powered Wall Street jobs mostly because their dads didn't have those jobs. If their dads DID have those jobs, then they didn't go to the public university... Its a self-perpetuating cycle. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 04:31, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well it's not quite as bleak as all that... just mostly. The obvious rebuttal would be that the current American president, though hardly "the poor kid from the other side of the tracks," was certainly not born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Bill Clinton, even less so. One of the main perks of a fancy-schmancy education, for the ambitious poor kid on scholarship, is having the opportunity to shmooze with the affluent and well-connected, and to take advantage of the alumni network after graduation. But anyways. The question now is, "What percentage of CEOs are Ivy League grads?" (Presumably we're just talking about big-time crime here, not Office Space) If 85% of CEOs are Ivy League, and 33% of big-time financial criminals are Ivy League, well then, it looks like those Ivy League grads are a fine, upstanding bunch of fellows by comparison. If only 10% of CEOs are Ivy League, well then they're all a bunch of crooks. --Fullobeans (talk) 06:48, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I suspect you mean the next American president, not the current one. But both are equally Ivy League! Barack Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School. His wife is also Ivy League, having graduated from Princeton. - Nunh-huh 17:32, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Determining National Profits After Tax[edit]

Dear Sir/Madam, I'm trying to work out for a political paper what the average take home wage per worker would be in a nation by dividing national profits after tax by national workforces. Would national gross domestic product be the figure used to calculate this? Thank you in advance 78.152.211.162 (talk) 15:06, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

GDP includes all production taking place within the country, versus GNP, which measures all income by "nationals" of that country (so it doesn't include foreigners (and foreign capital) working in the country, but does include nationals (and national capital) working overseas). The inclusion of capital in GDP makes it tricky. A country with a low savings rate and therefore high foreign ownership of capital, could have very low income per capita (GDP attributable to residents or nationals), but high GDP. If you use GNP, however, you're ignoring income attributable to foreign capital in the country, but also ignoring income attributable to foreign workers in the country. Plus you'd be including wages and rents of people and capital not in the country. Depending on your application, either or both of these methods may be inappropriate.
Taxes also plays a role. A country with a high personal tax rate (Sweden, say) will have lower "take-home" wages at any given level of GDP (or GNP, depending on if taxes are based on citizenship, like in the US, or residence, like up here in Canada) than a country with a low tax rate. But they still may be able to consume the same value of services.
Also, investment income, or rents derived from capital IS included in GDP and GNP, (in the way that is mentioned above), but wouldn't be considered a 'wage', as a wage is reimbursement for labour services. Again, this may be inappropriate for your application.
Also, because Purchasing Power Parity doesn't hold for non-tradable goods, any of these measures (including direct wage estimates) may not act as a good proxy for standard of living. If that's what you're after, that is.
I think these will be your top four issues (that I can think of!) using per capita GDP as a proxy for wages. I'm sure there are others. If you're doing a multi-country comparison, finding local statistics from Department's of Labo(u)r's will be easy for countries like the US (here it is), but more difficult for smaller countries. Also, methods will differ by country.
As for other data sources, this seems to have a good database of wages up to 2007. It looks like you may have to extract them one country at a time. It looks like this might be a good amalgamation of the very same data into one file (although it's only up to 2003). I can't vouch for the methodology. In order to get the .csv file to display properly, I had to open it in excel, select column A, then go "Data->Text to Columns->Next-Next-Next...". In order to interpret it, you'll have to know the country and occupation codes. If you make a legend, you could use formulas to auto-populate the fields though. NByz (talk) 00:36, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You know, before even using that data source, I guess I should clarify: For the purposes of your paper, are you interested in residents (people who live in the country?) or nationals (people who are nationally affiliated, usually through citizenship, with the country)? Also, are you interested in wage (income from labour) per person, income (both labour wages and capital rents (investment income)) per person, or are you just looking for a good proxy for 'standard of living'? I probably should have asked those questions first... NByz (talk) 00:43, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Interest Rates on Bank Deposits[edit]

When did Federal Reserve stop setting rates that Banks could pay on their deposits? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.159.179.2 (talk) 16:43, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like that happened in 1980, as part of the Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act. --LarryMac | Talk 16:51, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Tax and gross domestic product (GDP)[edit]

is tax included in gross domestic product (GDP) figures? 78.152.211.162 (talk) 16:48, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. Gross income without tax is called disposable income. However, disposable gross domestic product (GDP=Gross domestic income) is really difficult to calculate due to complexities in calculating taxes. See Taxes#Kinds_of_taxes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.206.22.11 (talk) 21:17, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, there is another thing regarding GDP and taxes. If you read an economics textbook, there is something called GDP at factor cost and GDP at market price. GDP at factor cost + indirect taxes – subsidies = GDP at market price. Hence, indirect taxes are included in GDP at market price but not in GDP at factor cost. 132.206.22.11 (talk) 22:02, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Father vs. Unwilling Mother[edit]

Has there ever been a court case, US or other, where the female was impregnated accidently (like a one night stand) and wanted to terminate the pregnancy but the biological father legally prevented her from doing that? --Emyn ned (talk) 20:09, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In 1989 there was a famous case in Quebec (as in, front page news of all newspapers). The mother, Chantal Daigle, wanted an abortion, but the father, Jean-Guy Tremblay tried to obtain an injunction to prevent her from doing so. They were an unmarried couple and he had a history of domestic violence. A lower-court judge granted the injunction, but it was overturned by the Supreme Court of Canada (and meanwhile, the mother had obtained an abortion in the US). There is a lot of information on the case available in French, such as here. We even have an article: Tremblay v. Daigle ! --Xuxl (talk) 21:21, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The article Paternal rights and abortion lists several examples from the UK where fathers have unsuccessfully attempted to prevent pregnant women obtaining abortions (as well as the above Canadian example) but also lists countries in which the law requires the consent of a woman's husband for an abortion. It's not clear from the article if in these countries this requirement of consent extends to fathers who are not married to the mother. Valiantis (talk) 04:54, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Canadian banks[edit]

What has been the policy of Canadian banks during the recent economic crisis ? Why have they fared rather well ? 69.157.229.14 (talk) —Preceding undated comment was added at 23:11, 18 December 2008 (UTC).[reply]

Speaking anecdotally, Canadian banks were better capitalized and less exposed. In terms of capitalization, I can't seem to find a good source right now, (which is why I said speaking anecdotally :) ) but I saw a source that suggested that the average Canadian Bank had a tier one capital adequacy ratio of 9.6%. this source puts Citigroups as low as 2.4%. Most of the regulated banks (as opposed to "investment banks" or previously unregulated financial institutions; many are now "Bank Holding Companys") had highly levered capital ratios.
The Capital Adequacy ratio is a measure of how much "investor capital" vs. "depositor capital" is being used to finance the firm. Since Assets = Liabilities (depositor capital) + Equity (investor capital), and any loss in asset value reduces equity and less-senior claims first, a firm with a low ratio of investor capital to depositor capital tends to be more profitable (on a per share basis) when times are good, but risks wiping out equity, and eroding customer accounts when times are bad (when their assets get devalued). Because of this moral hazard (the desire for profits in good times encourages banks to over-lever; it's exacerbated by FDIC insurance and Fed money market intervention) banks have a tendency to over-lever, so regulators maintain minimum capital adequacy standards, and force banks to gather more investor capital when it falls below certain thresholds.
In terms of exposure, Canadian banks had less. I think that a large part of it has to do with the fact that there was never any sort of Glass-Steagal Act-like legislation in Canada forcing banks and investment banks to remain separate. My own personal theory on why the financial crisis got as bad as it did for the banks in the US is that so much financial capital was being put into essentially unregulated firms (MS, G, MER, LEH), which had no capital adequacy restrictions, contributing to the total leverage in the system. More mainstream explanations include stricter mortgage credit restrictions (very little bad residential debt created in canada) and investor nationalism (very little US bad debt held in Canada). NByz (talk) 00:10, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You've got to remember that five banks take up the vast majority of market share in Canada. This is different from the U.S., where every region has its own banks. Canadian banks are therefore very diversified. You don't have firms like Morgan Stanley that are so focused on and exposed to one segment of the market. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 00:46, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
And which wasn't regulated as a bank until this fall. NByz (talk) 01:20, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
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