Yearly Archives: 2013

Bubble, Bubble, Housing in Trouble

"It appears that the Fed’s zero-interest-rate and QE policies have finally achieved its insane goal of re-igniting a housing bubble. The Case-Schiller 20-City Index shows that housing prices increased by 1.2 percent in February and 9.3 percent year-over-year. All cities included in the index experienced substantial gains, which have been driven by staggeringly large increases in the bottom tier of the market. In Atlanta, bottom-tier home prices rose 36 percent year-over-year and at an annual rate of 70 percent in the past three months." Continue reading →

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Will Bitcoin Be Accepted by PayPal?

"EBay may open its wallet to the virtual currency Bitcoin. The e-commerce heavyweight is exploring ways to integrate bitcoins into its PayPal payments network, Chief Executive John Donahoe said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. 'It’s a new disruptive technology, so, yeah, we’re looking at Bitcoin closely,' Donahoe said. 'There may be ways to enable it inside PayPal.'" Continue reading →

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Fincen’s New Regulations Are Choking Bitcoin Entrepreneurs

"More than a decade ago, regulators nearly suffocated PayPal. Now it looks like they’re trying to squelch another disruptive, innovative payments system. At least three exchanges in the U.S. that traded the digital currency Bitcoin have shut down, apparently as a result of guidance issued last month by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. That agency has emerged as the top threat, at least in in the United States, to the decentralized Bitcoin network – moreso than the widely reported price volatility and hacker attacks. The fact that bitcoin survives at all with so many powerful forces lined up against it is a testament to its resiliency and tenacity." Continue reading →

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Germany will think twice before saving France next time

"The Franco-German axis that has driven EU affairs ever since Schuman and Adenauer in the early 1950s is collapsing before our eyes. This was inevitable. Their interests have become incompatible under monetary union. The currency that was supposed to bind them is turning them into enemies, as this newspaper long warned. The latest argument gaining traction – advanced by Prof Bernd Lücke and the German eurosceptic party AfD among others – is that the only way to save the Franco-German relationship and therefore the EU is to break up the euro before it does more damage. Interesting twist." Continue reading →

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Italian showdown with Germany as Enrico Letta rejects ‘death by austerity’

"Italy’s new premier Enrico Letta is on a collision course with Germany after vowing to end death by austerity, and warned that Europe itself faces a 'crisis of legitimacy' unless it charges course. He said the country is in 'very serious' crisis after a decade of stagnation and warned of violent protest if the social malaise deepens. The grand coalition of Left and Right - the first since the late 1940s - will abolish the hated IMU tax on primary residences, a wealth levy imposed by ex-premier Mario Monti, and push for tax cuts for business and young people to pull the country out of perma-slump. A rise in VAT to 22pc in July may be delayed." Continue reading →

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The Tenuous Nature of Borderless Money

"The G20 has fully endorsed the plan, and its implementation is complete or underway in member jurisdictions. The US is a G20 member, so don't kid yourself into believing it can't happen in America. It can and will. The Cyprus event has been carefully framed as an anomaly when in fact it is part of a well-orchestrated script. Americans are just one financial crisis away from triggering the provisions of the G20-backed FSB financial resolution regime. And that almost certainly will include restrictions on the movement of capital. Once your money is trapped inside the US, any type of concocted emergency 'tax' can be imposed on your wealth." Continue reading →

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Bank of Cyprus converts portion of uninsured savings to equity

"Bank of Cyprus (BoC) said on Sunday it had carried out a conversion of uninsured cash deposits in the bank into equity, one of the conditions of international lenders to offer the cash-starved island financial aid. The process, known as a 'bail-in', made depositors in the bank pay for its recapitalisation, after the institution was hit by massive losses from its exposure to debt-crippled Greece. It converted 37.5% of deposits exceeding €100,000 on March 26, into 'class A' shares – nominal value €1 -- with an additional 22.5% held as a buffer for possible conversion in the future. Another 30% would be temporarily frozen and held as deposits." Continue reading →

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The history of the requirement that U.S. citizens use U.S. passports to travel

"This requirement traces its roots all the way back to the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952. However, it’s worth remembering two rather amusing facts about the law as it originally stood: it only required United States citizens to bear a 'valid passport' and not a 'valid United States passport', and it only applied in time of war or national emergency. In 1994, a 'technical amendment' added the requirement that the passport used by a U.S. citizen to enter the United States be a U.S. passport. The restriction that the harsh passport control laws would only apply in wartime was removed by the Foreign Relations Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1979." Continue reading →

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Going Global 2013 – Internationalizing Your Assets – By Casey Research

"Featured Speaker includes: Doug Casey; Peter Schiff; Mike Maloney; David Galland; & Kevin Brekke. Going Global 2013 Report - Not only for Americans but all people of the world to consider in preserving their wealth legally against corrupted Governments." Continue reading →

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