Europe s Chimerical Capital Markets Union

Memories of spilled blood, be it Israeli or Palestinian, remain vivid in the hearts of both peoples. An immediate break in the hostilities is therefore more important than a chimerical long term capitulation.

In China, changes in the export sector s structure similar to those observed in Japan are now taking place. These changes are likely to make today s attempts to find an equilibrium yuan dollar exchange rate seem just as chimerical in hindsight as previous calculations of the yen dollar equilibrium rate.

I hope so, and certainly the Obama administration is a breath of fresh air after the stunning ineptness of the Bush Cheney years. But governments all over the world are always convinced that their expansions can be substantially financed by efficiency gains, and that dream usually proves chimerical.

There is no power save a new violent dictatorship that can bring Shi a, Sunnis, and Kurds to live once again in one body politic. America s chimerical dream of democratizing overnight a deeply divided society accustomed only to violence and coercion has unleashed a terrifying array of political demons.

It may be reassuring to believe there are cheap and easy things we can do as individuals to stop global warming, or that the answer is to continue chasing a chimerical global agreement on carbon cuts, as in Cancún. But the real action that we can take is to press our politicians to put smarter ideas on the table.

Thus, although a true synaptome of the mammalian brain is a chimerical quest, it is possible that in the near future we will be able to construct a silicon cortex, a computerized machine based on a realistic model of the complete anatomical, physiological, and molecular design of the cortical circuit. If we succeed, we will finally be able to see the forest without having to look for every tree.