Word: systemically
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...dollar. There are (at least) three good reasons to fret. First, the events of the past 14 months have made predictions of impending economic doom seem a lot more credible than they used to. When Faber forecasts not only a worthless dollar but also a "collapse of our capitalistic system as we know it today," it's impossible to dismiss him out of hand. Second, the data point that has dollar worriers most alarmed - burgeoning U.S.-government debt - is for real. Finally, the global monetary setup we've had since the early 1970s (one with the dollar at its center...
Then there is the creaky contraption that is the global monetary system. Since the early 1970s, the world's major currencies have generally been allowed to float freely against one other, but lots of emerging-market countries link their currencies to the dollar. They began doing this to secure a bit of stability in turbulent currency markets...
...problem is that after a decade of strong growth in China in particular, we now have an unbalanced system in which the dollar is overvalued against the Chinese yuan (among other emerging-market currencies). That has contributed to big U.S. trade deficits and, as China built up a huge stash of dollars it needed to put somewhere, to the credit bubble that precipitated the financial crisis. There's widespread agreement that this setup has to change but little agreement about how to change it. Which is a risky situation...
...climate change with Our Choice, a sequel to his 2006 slideshow-book-film, An Inconvenient Truth. Our Choice discusses the causes of global warming (fossil fuels, deforestation), viable solutions (renewable energy) and ways to make these solutions a reality (a CO[subscript 2] tax and a cap-and-trade system). It's packed with scientific data explained in painstaking detail--including a full-page graphic on how a wind turbine works--but it reads like a homework assignment. Gore's excellent lessons--why biofuel isn't as environmentally friendly as you'd think; why large-scale, sustainable changes...
...recliner, shouting orders and insults at her daughter when she's not smacking her around: if Precious isn't going to be in school, she'd better get herself to the welfare office and start bringing home her own check. Mary is an unabashed abuser of that system, and she's terrifying - unbelievably awful yet completely believable. Mo'Nique should prepare for a busy awards season...