and more number of people get attracted in geometrical progression the chain breaks and fails. you need an organised and a regulated entity to ensure that the innocent and weak parties are protected. any democratic set up cannot dismiss it quoting ‘ consenting adult ’ argument. ‘ consenting adult ’ argument cannot be presented when mass scale failure takes place. 2 / 4 bis central bankers'speeches i want to discuss a little more about the blockchain or the distributed ledger technology and its professed capabilities to usher in virtual currency. as regards death of currency, it is not a new subject. it has been predicted right from early 1950s. as you will recall, isaac asimov ’ s robot series ( 1950s - 80s ) imagined a future where cash didn ’ t exist ; instead people earned “ credits ” that were traded electronically. in june 1991, the writers for omni magazine claimed “ … cash and credit will soon be obsolete. ” in 1994, joel kurtzman in his book titled ‘ the death of money ’ said “ few people realize that money, in the traditional sense, has met its demise. fewer still have paused to reflect on the implications of that fact. ” it was fashionable then to talk about the death of currency. people said “ by 2020 most people will have embraced and fully adopted the use of smart - device swiping for purchases they make, nearly eliminating the need for cash or credit cards. ” has currency died? is it dying? or at least will it die? in all these years, you will find that currency has actually increased in absolute terms, not just in developing and emerging economies where penetration of banking and finance is not yet complete, but also in the developed economies where the penetration of banking and finance has been far larger. countries are printing more and more of currency. perhaps the nordic countries are the exceptions. now cometh the crypto currency. people say, this time around currency will die. some others say, it will be a close call ; at least currency will be replaced by virtual currency. the quest for anonymous and independent digital currency has been in the minds of researchers for quite some time. the cypherpunks, as they were called, led by timothy may of intel and eric hughes in 1992 tried to develop privacy thru crypto logic. they endorsed a mistrust on the prevalent system of currency and boasted of an anarchist philosophy to find the anonymous and independent digital currency. wei dai in 1998 attempted to create what was called the b - money

and rising political tensions in the middle east have driven up the world price of oil that canada imports. at the same time, shale - oil development in the united states, together with other factors, has led to ample supply at cushing, oklahoma, where the north american price for west texas intermediate ( wti ) is set. the canadian price for western canada select ( wcs ) has been driven down further by outages in some pipelines and refineries equipped to handle canadian oil. underlying these divergences is a basic fact : the transport system determines bis central bankers ’ speeches the ability of canadian producers to move goods such as oil to those markets where it commands a higher price, and thus to benefit from participating in a global market. the various aspects of the macroeconomic outlook i have been describing come together in the outlook for inflation. because there is less slack in the economy and gasoline prices are also higher, the profile for inflation is expected to be somewhat firmer than anticipated by the bank in january. both overall inflation and underlying inflation are expected to remain close to 2 per cent through to the end of 2014 ( chart 9 ). bis central bankers ’ speeches reflecting all of these factors, the bank has decided to maintain the target for the overnight rate at 1 per cent. in light of the reduced slack in the economy and firmer underlying inflation, some modest withdrawal of the present considerable monetary policy stimulus may become appropriate, consistent with achieving the 2 per cent inflation target over the medium term. the timing and degree of any such withdrawal will be weighed carefully against domestic and global economic developments. opportunities for transport and logistics i would now like to touch on the longer - term trends in the global economy and what they mean for your industries. in 1902, charles melville hays saw opportunity in the waves of immigrants pouring into the west. prairie agriculture was expanding rapidly. mining and forestry camps were springing up in the north. the rate of growth was fast and it was clear that success depended on moving people and goods across this vast land quickly and efficiently. today, we can look across the pacific ocean where asia is urbanizing at a breakneck pace. china and india are housing the equivalent of the entire population of canada every 18 months. a massive middle class is being formed, growing by 70 million people each year – people who represent a rapidly - rising share of global demand for all types of goods. by shifting trade from slow - growing economies to fast - growing ones, canada can participate more fully