scoobdog

Happy Birthday!

I think so, too. He might be referring to Arpeggio of Blue Steel.

Now we're never getting he clown react for sure. Better just stick with the tea-bag react.

Happy Birthday Ghosty.

Post a pic for us Nabby.

I never cared for the show personally, but there was a lot of buzz about how unlikeable Ross was.

David Schwimmer's career stalled because of how he was typecast by the role of Ross.

Fixed that for you... It does help, but it isn't feasible. The currency is artificially propped up after its value since the Crimean occupation (and resulting sanctions) has been unstable. There's no particular reason for someone not in Russia to use the ruble or, more importantly, accept the ruble Even if the rest of OPEC decided to band together and begin insisting on ruble as a payment for petroleum, nobody in the financial world (outside of Russia) is going to follow suit and lend in rubles. The stability that comes with trading this critical industrial commodity in a limited use currency is mitigated by it being a simple transactional exchange. To put it another way, a currency is only as viable as its underlying fundamentals.

Also.... love it when white people get confused by the whole two tortilla thing on street tacos.

Can confirm... those tacos look awful.

I did not.

In all seriousness... this extract has a distinct orwellian tone that somewhat belies the horrors of the decades immediately preceding this textbook

There is no particular advantage to the average person for having a global currency.

Why would you need to stabilize a currency that is used globally?

You used "stabilization" in the context of Russia's currency manipulation. You don't need to stabilize a global currency. If it is no longer a global currency, then the US government would manipulate it if it needs to be stabilized.

Sounds even less appealing.

Isn’t that basically just recorded phone sex?

Because what you're calling "stabilizing" is basically currency manipulation. If your currency has most of its value inside your borders, then of course you can do more things to prop up its value on a temporary basis. If the dollar were to stop being a global currency, then you could do a lot of the same things China does to control its value. In fact, a lot of currencies are manipulated to various degrees for much the same reason that yuan is: it's a way of creating a firewall between the global and national economies. In general currency manipulation is an important tool for smaller nations, and it can be a part of a healthy economy as long as it isn't used, as with the Russian ruble, as an implement to blackmail or coerce foreign investments or obligations. The big reason the US Government can't manipulate the dollar is because the goods and services the dollar buys may never touch American soil. Consider the petroleum market for instance: after WWII, the United States was the country most in position to capitalize on a post war boom, and, consequently, it was the biggest market for petroleum products. Naturally, that meant that the money that for decades paid for that petroleum was the dollar. Once other countries also underwent economic booms, the dollar was still a stable currency that was readily available, so they would also buy and sell oil in dollars. Now, a Spanish oil refiner might still use dollars to purchase crude oil from, say, Venezuela, and representing profits for said refiner and for the Venezuelan oil company. Either country can force them to deal with the local economies in local currency to purchase local supplies, pay local employees, and sell local services, but neither can force their respective companies to exchange the oil in local currencies because there are both other buyers and other producers who will buy and sell in the more stable US dollar. Ultimately the reason the US can't manipulate the dollar is because it has no control of how people outside its borders use that dollar. If you need an example of what happens when you try such a thing, look no further than Russia's failed attempt to force Europeans to purchase gas in Rubles. It's fine to tell people inside your own country what they can use to buy gas, but if you attempt to do so with a foreign buyer you not only lose the possibility of being paid for a product you already spent money to extract from the ground, you also lose future buyers for the product.

The dollar keeps it's position because it's used by the institutions that finance global commerce. Its strength as a currency isn't as important in that respect, though (naturally) a collapse would certainly force a lot of those same institutions out of business.

She kills it every fucking day.

Because our dollar is still worth more than a nickel, and it's a major benchmark currency unlike the otherwise useless ruble.

Abominable is right.

I wish someone else’s cock was big enough so I could send him a titanium ring and Captain Planet reruns.

One of the best collaboration teams in the history of EDM...

It's just a really really disappointing bite when you realize the thing you thought looked like a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup tastes like something you scraped off a stick at beach barbecue pit.