Issues

Peak Real Median Income In USA = 1999; Washington DC = 2012

"Real Median household income peaked way back in 1999 at $56,000 and by 2012 it was down 9%—an unprecedented decline. It goes without saying that Washington’s Keynesian ministrations on the money printing and national debt front didn’t much help. In fact, the Fed’s balance sheet has expanded from $450 billion to $4.4 trillion during that period or by nearly 10X. Likewise, the national debt has nearly quadrupled to $17 trillion during the same period. Well, all this monetary and fiscal profligacy did apparently help in one precinct: Namely, the Washington beltway where median household income reached its all-time high in 2012 and undoubtedly continues to rise." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingPeak Real Median Income In USA = 1999; Washington DC = 2012

Former Fed Employee Charged With Felony For Threatening To Kill Boss

"After reading an article about the psychotic behavior of a former Federal Reserve employee, I would be reluctant to criticize the Fed in the presence of an employee of the world’s most powerful banking cartel. Zero Hedge has some stellar coverage about a former San Francisco Fed employee, and current employee at the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), that threatened to kill his boss and then take his own life. Richard Hornsby, Chief Operating Officer of the FHFA, was arrested and charged with a felony for threatening to kill Edward J. DeMarco. Mr. DeMarco was Hornsby’s superior at FHFA. The death threat was supposedly the result of a poor job performance rating." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingFormer Fed Employee Charged With Felony For Threatening To Kill Boss

Lew Rockwell: Speaking Truth to Monetary Power

"We have every reason to expect governments to exploit their positions as monopolists of the production of money in ways that increase their power and benefit favored constituencies. We do not need 'monetary policy' any more than we need a paintbrush policy, a baseball bat policy, or an automobile policy. We do not need a monopoly institution to create money for us. Money, like any good, is better produced on the market within the nexus of economic calculation. Money creation by government or its privileged central bank yields us business cycles, monetary debasement, and an increase in the power of government." Continue reading →

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Don’t Trust Congress. Ever.

Here’s something that cannot be repeated enough. In just the last week, Congress failed – once again – to do anything right. And, they failed on two of the biggest issues of the day. As expected, they gutted the USA Freedom Act, which now only sounds good but actually puts into law that NSA surveillance…

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Hawks Take Flight: Why the Fed’s Hypocritical Dialectic Continues

"The Fed's monetary expansion ended in 1929. The 1950s equity rise ended with a bust in the early 1960s. The Nifty Fifty fad ended with the Crash of 1969. The market recovery of the 1970s ended in 1982. The next crash was in 1987. In 1994, an expansion gave way to a recession. A great tech expansion turned sour in 2001. A housing bubble deflated violently in 2008, not just in the US but around the world. And that is where we are now. This expansion has been driven relentlessly upward for some five-plus years. Another year or two and this latest 'Wall Street Party' will be finished. We anticipate a downturn that will be as violent or even more so than 2008." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingHawks Take Flight: Why the Fed’s Hypocritical Dialectic Continues

Barclays fined $44 million over gold price fixing

"A U.K. financial regulator has fined Barclays (BCS) $43.8 million after it accused a former trader at the bank of improperly influencing gold prices. The British bank will be fined £26 million ($43.8 million) for failures that allowed trader Daniel James Plunkett to exploit the weaknesses in Barclays' systems and controls to seek to influence the price of gold, which allowed the firm to 'profit at a customer's expense,' according to a news release. The fine was handed down by the Financial Conduct Authority. Separately, Plunkett was fined £95,600, or about $161,000." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingBarclays fined $44 million over gold price fixing

NSA Empowered by USA Freedom Act

The USA Freedom Act was lauded as a great first step in trying to stop the abuses of the NSA. However, to even pass out of committee many changes altered the initial text of the bill. These changes didn’t improve privacy. And, unfortunately that’s just half of it. The amended bill which passed the House…

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Amicus Brief in Tuaua v. United States

Last week I joined a group of distinguished scholars on this amicus brief filed in support of plaintiffs/appellants in Tuaua v. United States, the Samoan citizenship case now at the D.C. Circuit.  As I’ve discussed before, the issue is whether the Constitution allows the United States to treat inhabitants of American Samoa (a U.S. territory) as something less than American citizens…

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Rare Truth from NSA: Agency is a Habitual Privacy Violator

Whenever the NSA slips up and actually tells the truth, it becomes obvious why they are so deceptive: the truth reveals them to be frighteningly cold, callous and malicious. A rare occurrence of NSA truth-telling revealed the lethal implications of their metadata gathering program. According to an article by civil liberties advocate David Cole in…

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FinCEN: Cloud Mining, Escrow Services Aren’t Money Transmitters

"The US Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) has issued new rulings indicating that digital currency-related cloud mining and escrow services should not be considered money transmitters. The two releases came via what appear to be responses to requests from businesses seeking to better understand FinCEN’s policies. FinCEN, the bureau of the US treasury that collects and analyzes financial transactions, has previously released influential decisions regarding how consumer bitcoin miners and bitcoin investors should be regulated under money transmission laws." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingFinCEN: Cloud Mining, Escrow Services Aren’t Money Transmitters