Monthly Archives: August 2013

Fixing the fast-food strike

"If you are one of the concerned, caring, and vastly indignant activists behind this strike, I’m here to tell you that your social-justice problem has a simple solution. Take out a loan (or put together the money from your like-minded activist friends), buy a franchise from one of the chains, and hire workers at $15 an hour. There, that was simple, wasn’t it? You’ll make money hand over fist and demonstrate to all those eeevil corporations that they can too pay a 'just wage'; they just don’t want to because they’re greedy. The commercial landscape would be alive with virtuous workers’ collectives paying their members fat wages and thumbing their noses at top-hatted plutocrats. Why doesn’t this happen?" Continue reading →

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The More Attention on The Next Fed Chair, The Better!

"The head of the AFL-CIO and Bette Midler are making Fed Chair endorsements??!! That has to make the establishment's skin crawl! People are talking...and that's not good for The Fed. The more that people talk, the more they will find out...or hopefully want to find out. Senator Barry Goldwater once said 'Most Americans have no real understanding of the operation of the international moneylenders. The bankers want it that way.'" Continue reading →

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How to Make More Money than a Venture Capitalist

"I've taken to calling them growth capitalists (GCs), since that's what they do: fund startup companies through the all-important rapid-growth periods. Instead of placing thousands of bets on charismatic founders with a slide deck and a dream, growth capitalists focus on a different niche: profitable or near-profitable companies with rising revenues that need access to significant capital to grow to the next level, but are too small for public stock or bond offerings. By doing so, they've actually taken a page right out of the VC playbook. Chasing the 1,000x return grand slams, most venture capitalists aren't interested in dealing with companies that are already established—even ones they funded early on." Continue reading →

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So you want to invent your own currency

"Our ability to exchange without knowing where things come from blinds us to the real core of the economy: not money, but the physical things we must wrench from the ground by human effort, which is underpinned by agricultural systems, and energised by sunlight, water and soil. The more we abstract and fetishise money as a thing in itself, the more we lose sight of its sources and its goals. We get confused, and feel disempowered relative to those who wield larger flows of it. Sealed off from inquiry in its hermetic shell, money distorts our perceptions of one another. We can’t seem to remember that it is merely one means of exchange among many." Continue reading →

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Bitcoin-friendly Internet Credit Union suddenly dumps accounts: ‘regulatory issues’

"The Internet Archive Federal Credit Union, an experimental financial institution run by the eponymous nonprofit that archives web history, has established itself as a Bitcoin haven. In contrast to traditional banks, which snubbed businesses built around the virtual currency, the IAFCU basically put up a Bitcoin welcome sign. 'These are not drug dealers, money launderers, or whatever. These are average folks,' IAFCU CEO Jordan Modell told Wired. That all changed yesterday, however, when the credit union announced it will be dumping its Bitcoin clients." Continue reading →

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10 Small or remote places that have embraced Bitcoin

"World travelers may occasionally find themselves in a beautiful but also small and remote location and go through the difficult experience of having to deal with foreign currency. But what if there was a business around the corner that accepted Bitcoin? That would completely change the way you live your adventures. Well, in some cases this can happen, as there are actually remote places that know and have embraced cyptocurrency. In other cases, Bitcoin is a reality, but is still waiting to be accepted." Continue reading →

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Understanding & How To Avoid Bank Fees While Traveling

"It is important to understand & learn how to avoid bank fees while traveling. Avoiding credit card fees, currency exchange fees, and foreign transaction fees while traveling overseas is important in order to save money for more trips and adventures. In this travel tips post we are going to cover the main fees charged by banking and credit card institutions. The fees can be broken down into three types; ATM withdrawal fees, foreign conversion fees (which can also be tied into credit card fees), and exchange rate fees. Its quite easy to avoid paying bank fees while traveling once we understand the structure of how banks charge customers for service." Continue reading →

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Lawmaker: My ‘gut feeling’ says Syria got chemical weapons from Iraq

"While admitting to not having any information on the matter, Rep. Lee Terry (R-NE) still offered speculation based on his 'gut feeling' that the Syrian government acquired chemical weapons from Iraq, the Huffington Post reported. 'I have not had any classified briefing, but all we know is that Iraq had declared chemical and biological weapons, and then they weren’t there,' Terry told radio host Tom Becka on Thursday. 'It wasn’t something that the U.S. was guessing, that was something that they actually declared. But they went someplace.' Terry, who supported the U.S. campaign to oust Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq, said Syria was a different situation." Continue reading →

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New Snowden Leak Reports ‘Groundbreaking’ NSA Crypto-Cracking

"The Post’s article doesn’t detail the 'groundbreaking cryptanalytic capabilities' Clapper mentions, and there’s no elaboration in the portion of the document published by the paper. But the document shows that 21 percent of the intelligence budget — around $11 billion — is dedicated to the Consolidated Cryptologic Program that staffs 35,000 employees in the NSA and the armed forces. Last year James Bamford reported that the NSA secretly made some sort of 'enormous breakthrough' in cryptanalysis several years earlier. The leaked budget document is the first published Snowden leak to touch upon the question of how safe routinely encrypted traffic is from cutting-edge nation-state spying." Continue reading →

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Obama slams ‘incapacity’ of UN Security Council on Syria

"US President Barack Obama on Friday slammed the 'incapacity' of the UN Security Council to act on Syria and warned the world must not be 'paralyzed' on responding to a chemical weapons attack. 'What we have seen so far at least is an incapacity at this point for the Security Council to move forward in the face of a clear violation of international norms,' Obama said, as he met Baltic leaders at the White House Obama said he understood that there was widespread war fatigue both in the United States, Britain and elsewhere, but that did not absolve nations of their responsibilities." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingObama slams ‘incapacity’ of UN Security Council on Syria