Monthly Archives: July 2013

Government Student Loan Program a Scam?

"If you think the federal student-loan program looks like a bad deal for taxpayers, imagine how it would look with honest accounting. And now you don't need to imagine thanks to a new [CBO] report that's receiving far too little attention. Turns out that the official 'savings' for taxpayers of $184 billion over the next decade really add up to $95 billion in losses.' The 'scam' is that Congress has enabled a huge subsidy for universities while claiming that student loans create huge tax savings, the editorial says. It can make that claim because a 1990 law 'requires a deliberate under-counting of the cost of defaults,' the editorial says." Continue reading →

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Thomson Reuters to Suspend Early Peeks at Key Index

"Over the last several years, an exclusive group of investors has paid a steep premium to receive the results of a closely watched economic survey a full two seconds before its broader release. Those two seconds can mean millions of dollars in profits for the investors, who practice a computer-driven strategy called high-frequency trading. On Monday, the company providing these investors with that lucrative edge, Thomson Reuters, is expected to announce that it will suspend the practice, yielding to pressure from the New York attorney general, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter." Continue reading →

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No criminal charges for Jon Corzine in MF Global probe

"It’s official. Jon Corzine will not be cuffed over MF Global’s improper handling of customers’ funds leading up to the commodity brokerage firm’s spectacular collapse in late 2011, The Post has learned. Federal investigators have found no evidence that the disgraced Wall Street titan broke the law. The Justice Department’s decision to drop the case is sure to come as a relief to Corzine, who has been widely blamed for MFG’s bankruptcy — as well as the misuse of some $1.6 billion in customers’ funds." Continue reading →

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Spaniards Fight to Get $10.3 Billion In Savings Back From Bank Investment Schemes

"Today, Mr. López is one of about 300,000 Spaniards who, in the midst of a brutal recession, have seen their life savings virtually wiped out in what critics call a deceptive and possibly fraudulent sales campaign by banks that were threatened by the implosion of Spain’s property market. Many, like Mr. López, are older and lack formal education, and were easily misled when bank officials hit on the idea of raising capital and cleaning debts off their books by getting people with savings accounts to invest in their banks instead. oon, they came to understand that they had purchased complex financial products, originally designed for sophisticated investors." Continue reading →

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Bitcoins Soar In Value In Argentina Due To Capital Control Laws

"With the Peso undergoing yet another period of severe inflation at a rate of 20%, and now President Kirchner’s attempt to lure citizens back into the banking system over which they have absolutely no trust, by attempting to repatriate the US dollars held overseas or in hidden accounts by citizens in exchange for the domestic Cedin, the demand for Bitcoins has rocketed. Compared to Argentina’s much more freedom-orientated neighbor Uruguay, values of Bitcoins in Buenos Aires are between 30% and 40% higher than just 75 kilometers away in Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay according to Argentinian Bitcoin expert Mauro Betschart." Continue reading →

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Rogue Employee Fired for Turning Game Network Into Bitcoin Mining Colony

"In April, ESEA (the E-Sports Entertainment Association) admitted that its software — which serious Counter-Strike players use to play each other in anti-cheating modes — had been altered to secretly mine Bitcoins. At the time, ESEA blamed an unidentified staffer. Now, as the company faces a class action lawsuit, it says that employee has been axed. Class action lawyers are trying to help them out. So far the company has resolved 275 claims from customers who say they were damaged by the mining software, and the company is working to resolve another 15, Levine said. The Bitcoin-mining update may have been installed on as many as 14,000 computers." Continue reading →

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Bitcoin developer Jeff Garzik on Satoshi Nakamoto and the future of Bitcoin

"The core developers carry ultimate veto, and they’re notoriously cautious. 'In general, the devs try to be very conservative. Typically, we don’t introduce new features. We just try to ensure that the existing ones work.' That isn’t to say that new features can’t happen. There’s a mechanism called the Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BPI) used to put forward proposed new features for the protocol. But it’s controlled by the core devs. 'If we want to extend it, we’ll write up a BIP and publicise it through blogs, and we just try to judge through user feedback whether they like the feature, or don’t understand it, or things of that nature.'" Continue reading →

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3D Printer for $1,000

"A British firm is selling a 3D printer for home use for about $1,000. It’s for people who are technologically savvy, and who want to be on the cutting edge. Watch it build a gadget. This is the equivalent of the Altair 8800 microcomputer in 1975. Soon, there will be an Apple I, then a TRS-80. Then a PC. Then there will be the equivalent of Visicalc, a 'killer app' for business. That is when this technology will get into the general population. This will change the world. It will take a decade or two, but we can see what’s coming. When a home brew version starts out at $1,000, the cost will fall, and capabilities will increase." Continue reading →

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Senators push bill to replace Fannie, Freddie with national mortgage insurance

"The two firms, which back nearly half of all new U.S. home loans, were chartered by Congress to expand mortgage finance but operated as private, profit-making companies. Given the central role they played in the financial system, the government felt compelled to bail them out when they ran into trouble. The bill would require private entities to buy mortgages from lenders and issue them to investors as securities. Private equity would be required to absorb a 10 percent loss of the principal underlying those new mortgage-backed securities if the loans went bad. A new guarantor, called the Federal Mortgage Insurance Corp., would replace Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac." Continue reading →

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