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Canada
Casey Watson (B.A. (Hons.) LL.B) writes about a vast range of topics including law, social justice, policy, politics, history, science, literature, art, theology, technology, pop culture, and human idiosyncrasies. He's located in Windsor, Canada where he lives with two cats (with three eyes between them).
Nature
The green anaconda is the largest and most famous of four species of anacondas. They're members of the boa family of non-venomous constricting snakes. Thanks to popular media and myth-making, anacondas are somewhat misunderstood creatures. A lot of what you know might be based on pop culture rather than fact.
Literature
American writer John Updike was a legendary contributor to the pantheon of American literature. In the span of his 50-year career, he wrote 21 novels, 18 short stories, 12 collections of poetry, four children's books, and 12 collections of non-fiction. That level of output made him Updike of the country's most valued 20th-century authors.
Economics, Finance & Investing
Reserve currencies are large amounts of foreign currency that countries' central banks hold on deposit. Why would countries hold large amounts of another country's money? And which other countries' money is most often used as reserve currencies?
Financial Technology ( fintech) companies use and develop software and apps to transfer, lend, and invest money. Transferring, lending, and investing were once the exclusive domain of brick-and-mortar banks. Still, banks are increasingly being displaced from modern money management by technologies and innovations like mobile payment apps, cryptocurrency, Google Wallet, Apple Pay, and AI-backed investing.
Certificates of deposits (CD) are low-risk, but low-reward, options for investing money. Banks and credit unions sell CDs with maturity dates that are weeks or a decade down the road. When the maturity date comes, you receive the amount of your investment (principal) back plus interest.
Obvious as it may seem, banks need cash. Cash is required for operations and to fund the bank's positions. Counterintuitive as it may seem, banks don't always have enough cash. When a bank is short of cash for operations, to fund their positions, or even to satisfy regulatory requirements for minimum amounts on reserve, they may turn to the repo market.
Biotechnology has been defined as any type of technology "that involves the use of living organisms to develop agricultural or medical products." Commonly, those companies focus on clinical research and development of pharmaceutical products to treat diseases. Investing in biotechnology shares is not for the faint of heart, and is risky for even seasoned and savvy investors.
Mutual funds are essentially pools of money contributed by many investors. Those pools are invested by fund managers in things like stocks, bonds, and currencies. There are a wide variety of types of funds. They're characterized based on what the fund's managers invest the pool funds in.
Mutual funds are pools of money contributed by lots of investors and managed by a fund manager. Fund managers invest the pooled money in a wide variety of assets, depending on the nature of the fund.
Whatever one thinks of the fur industry - and there are strongly held opinions on all sides - political decisions in individual states can have enormous ramifications half a country away. California recently became the first state to ban the production and sale of furs state-wide.