The Swiss gold initiative has come and gone. It can be summarized as much ado about nothing. Even if it had passed, the initiative would have had no real impact on the central bank’s ability to print money or conduct monetary policy.

When the central bank meets to decide on the level of interest rates, most people care about only one thing: are my home loan, car, and credit card repayments going up, down, or staying the same? Although this is no trivial concern given the importance of managing a household budget, such a limited view does scant justice to the broad, critical, and complex role interest rates play in an economy.

Toward the end of her remarkable speech at this year’s One Young World Summit in Dublin, North Korean defector and human rights activist Yeon-mi Park listed three ways in which ordinary people can help freedom-seekers in North Korea:

One, educate yourself so you can raise awareness about the human crisis in North Korea. Two, help and support North Korean refugees who are trying to escape to freedom. Three, petition China to stop repatriation.

In the comments section of Jonathan Newman’s article on tiny houses today, “JC” writes: “The graph covers a period of time when there was vast expansion into the suburbs and beyond.

At the recent G-20 meetings the leaders of the world’s largest economies voted to approve a plan that will put depositor’s funds front and center to bail out banks during the next crisis. The Financial Stability Board drew up a resolution along the lines of Cyprus’s bail-in approach that uses depositor’s money to bail-out banks. Its called the “Adequacy of Loss-Absorbing Capacity of Global Systemically Important Banks.” It is basically an admission that the onerous Dodd-Frank regulations are entirely inadequate.

Information was recently released that both the Netherlands and Germany had discussions and planning meeting to investigate what to do if the Euro met its demise in 2012. 

According to the publication Market Oracle:

The Dutch finance ministry prepared for a scenario in which the Netherlands could return to its former currency — the guilder. They hosted meetings with a team of legal, economic and foreign affairs experts to discuss the possibility of returning to the Dutch guilder in early 2012.