Won the Best Novel Hugo over the weekend.

Something like 300 backbenchers all with an effective veto? Not sure how the Euro side works, but I suspect each EU nation can depand its pound of flesh for a softer brexit. I doubt it is so much a "WTO brexit or not" so much as a "will England annoy the EU enough for them to accept Scotland".

While I understand that MPs are typically always party creatures who vote the party line, I can't help but think that the Tories might have a few factions who will simply demand a hard brexit. They paid dearly for the Orange vote, I doubt there is a real way to appease the "hard brexit" vote without everybody demanding thier share. If they thought that any deal was on the table, they pretty have to be already talking.

Great War and quantitive easing. I have to wonder how much of that money was sucked out by J.P.Morgan and partners and how much such a boom-bust wave would contribute to the [US] Great Depression.

Wumpus

…the link leads to PDFs of the BoE history which contains several interesting stories of the practical problems of banking in the 1910s/1920s. The sheer size of the 3.5% drive (350m) had the staff working flat out for weeks just dealing with the paperwork.

Never thought about it, but dealing with loans in a purely paper-based ledger of that size must have been a nightmare (the pain offset by free drinks to the evening staff).
-- The revolution will not be televised.

Watching the Windies over the last 3 days, it's really sad what they've become. It's going back a few years, but bowlers like Holding, Masrshall, Ambrose, Walsh etc. and batsmen like Lara, Richards, Gayle ... others

You can't inspire people with facts
- Small Gods