Joan Baez

“Joan Baez: I am a noise” is at the top of my list of movies to see. I fell in love with her music listening to her free Friday concerts on the steps of Sproul Hall at the U of California, Berkeley in 1964 during the Free Speech Movement protests. I became, and remain, a big fan of Joan Baez, Simon and Garfunkel, Peter, Paul and Mary and many other folk as well as Irish and Andean folk music singers.

As I am writing this I am listening, as I often do sitting here in my easy chair, to Kate Wolf, which will be following automatically by Joan, etc. Tears often form as I listen, and I don’t really understand why. I think my life has been amazingly wonderful and exciting, full of happy and sad events. Why would the music that I have always loved so much tear me up? They are neither sad nor happy tears as my mind glides over time to the past. They really are a mystery. Perhaps they are tears of gratitude for taking my mind off the world outside us today. Joan sang of love and peace.

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Author: Warren Coats

I specialize in advising central banks on monetary policy and the development of the capacity to formulate and implement monetary policy.  I joined the International Monetary Fund in 1975 from which I retired in 2003 as Assistant Director of the Monetary and Financial Systems Department. While at the IMF I led or participated in missions to the central banks of over twenty countries (including Afghanistan, Bosnia, Croatia, Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kosovo, Kyrgystan, Moldova, Serbia, Turkey, West Bank and Gaza Strip, and Zimbabwe) and was seconded as a visiting economist to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (1979-80), and to the World Bank's World Development Report team in 1989.  After retirement from the IMF I was a member of the Board of the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority from 2003-10 and of the editorial board of the Cayman Financial Review from 2010-2017.  Prior to joining the IMF I was Assistant Prof of Economics at UVa from 1970-75.  I am currently a fellow of Johns Hopkins Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise.  In March 2019 Central Banking Journal awarded me for my “Outstanding Contribution for Capacity Building.”  My recent books are One Currency for Bosnia: Creating the Central Bank of Bosnia and Herzegovina; My Travels in the Former Soviet Union; My Travels to Afghanistan; My Travels to Jerusalem; and My Travels to Baghdad. I have a BA in Economics from the UC Berkeley and a PhD in Economics from the University of Chicago. My dissertation committee was chaired by Milton Friedman and included Robert J. Gordon. I live in National Landing Va 22202

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