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Zimbabwe: From Hyperinflation to Growth
The hallmark of Zimbabwe's economic collapse is hyperinflation. The most recent official inflation figure is for February 2008: a whopping 165,000 percent year-over-year. At present (early June 2008), inflation is unofficially about 2.5 million percent a year. Not surprisingly, the Zimbabwe dollar has lost more than 99.9 percent of its value against the U.S. dollar during the past year.Zimbabwe's hyperinflation is destroying the economy, pushing more of its inhabitants into poverty, and forcing millions of Zimbabweans to emigrate. Between 1997 and 2007, cumulative inflation was nearly 3.8 billion percent, while living standards fell by 38 percent. The source of Zimbabwe's hyperinflation is the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe's money machine. The government spends, and the RBZ finances the spending by printing money. The RBZ has no ability in practice to resist the government's demands for cash. Accordingly, the RBZ cannot hope to regain credibility anytime soon. To stop hyperinflation, Zimbabwe needs to immediately adopt a different monetary system. Any one of three options can rapidly slash the inflation rate and restore stability and growth to the Zimbabwean economy. First is "dollarization." This option would replace the discredited Zimbabwe dollar with a foreign currency, such as the U.S. dollar or the South African rand. Second is a currency board. Under that system, the Zimbabwe dollar would be credible because it would be fully backed by a foreign reserve currency and would be freely convertible into the reserve currency at a fixed rate on demand. Third is free banking. This option would allow commercial banks to issue their own private notes and other liabilities with minimum government regulation. Central banking is the only monetary system that has ever created hyperinflation and instability in Zimbabwe. Prior to central banking, Zimbabwe had a rich monetary experience in which a free banking system and a currency board system performed well. It is time for Zimbabwe to adopt one of these proven monetary systems and discard its failed experiment with central banking
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Expression of natural killer receptor alleles at different Ly49 loci occurs independently and is regulated by major histocompatibility complex class I molecules.
Ly49 receptor genes are expressed by subsets of natural killer (NK) cells in an overlapping fashion, accounting for the capacity of NK subsets to attack host cells that have selectively downregulated self-major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I molecules. It was shown previously that most NK cells express only one or the other allele of a given Ly49 gene, while a smaller population expresses both alleles. However, the methods used to detect monoallelic and biallelic cells were nonquantitative. Here, new allele-specific antibodies were used to provide the first quantitative examination of biallelic and monoallelic expression of Ly49A and Ly49G2. The results demonstrate conclusively that most Ly49A(+) and Ly49G2(+) NK cells express the corresponding gene in a monoallelic fashion, with a smaller subset expressing both alleles. Unexpectedly, biallelic Ly49A(+) NK cells were more numerous than predicted by completely independent allelic expression, suggesting some heterogeneity among NK progenitors in the potential to express a given Ly49 gene. The data also show that cells expressing one allele of Ly49G2 may express Ly49A from the same or opposite chromosome with equal likelihood, indicating that the expressed allele is chosen independently for different Ly49 genes. Finally, the data demonstrate that biallelic expression of Ly49A or Ly49G2 occurs least frequently in mice that express ligands for these receptors (H-2(d) mice), and most frequently in class I-deficient mice. Thus, biallelic expression of Ly49 genes is regulated by interactions of NK cell progenitors with MHC class I molecules
The path ahead for Bulgaria: Through the eyes of Steve Hanke
The path ahead for Bulgaria: Through the eyes of Steve Hanke-Intervie
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