"American forces went to Syria with the declared objective of pushing the ISIS terror gang out of territory it had seized there. This has been accomplished. It is an ideal moment for the U.S. to declare victory and depart. That, however, would be hauling down our flag. By Roosevelt’s logic — and evidently Tillerson’s — American soldiers should not be withdrawn from any country where they have ever been deployed."
"Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan: This trifecta of semi-permanent US military engagements reflects the extraordinary power of the Pentagon to sway even a president who had made opposition to such policies a central element of his campaign."
"While killing people with socialist policies might or might not be the aim of rulers in socialist countries, killing people is the aim of the U.S. government with its sanctions. The idea is that as people die from the sanctions, those who are still alive will have the incentive to rise up and oust the socialist regime from power. But of course, revolutions inevitably mean more death and destruction. U.S. officials don’t care. All they care about is regime change."
"China’s financial regulator has vowed to rescue the Chinese banking system immediately to avert a banking crisis when the bubble bursts, issuing a blanket guarantee that no major institution will be allowed to fail. Beijing says it has studied the errors that led to the Lehman crisis in the 2008 and will not allow a chain reaction to occur, even if this means paying a price in terms of lost economic growth and dynamism."
"President Donald Trump said Thursday he wants a strong U.S. dollar, claiming that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin was misinterpreted when he said earlier this week that the weak U.S. currency is good for trade."
"On both English and Japanese social media, Coincheck promised users it would provide full details in due course, while in the meantime apologizing for the abrupt cut to services. Notably, Coincheck is not registered with Japan’s Financial Services Authority - a regulator responsible for overseeing exchanges in the country - unlike several other prominent cryptocurrency exchanges, such as bitFlyer and Quoine."
"'The blockchain is real,' Dimon added in the interview. 'You can have cryptodollars in yen and stuff like that. ICOs ... you got to look at every one individually. The bitcoin was always to me what the governments are going to feel about bitcoin when it gets really big. And I just have a different opinion than other people.'"
"In 2014, he released the album Animal Ambition and became the first artist to accept Bitcoin as payment. The rapper received more than 700 Bitcoins under the deal, but then forgot about the cryptocurrency, according to celebrity news site TMZ."
"A former personal assistant to Goldman Sachs co-president David Solomon has been indicted in federal court for allegedly taking hundreds of bottles of wine worth an estimated $1.2 million from his boss' Manhattan cellar, and reselling them. One of his tasks was accepting wine deliveries at the finance executive's Manhattan apartment, and then transporting them to Solomon's East Hamptons house. According to the indictment, for a period of at least two years, De-Meyer sold hundreds of the bottles to an unnamed wine dealer based in North Carolina."
"Several major Indian banks have suspended the accounts of top Bitcoin exchanges in India. State Bank of India, Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, and Yes Bank cited suspicious payments in their decisions. The move comes after tax authorities sent notices to cryptocurrency investors warning that they must pay capital gains on their income from the virtual currency. For the few accounts still open, the banks have asked for more collateral, and have capped cash withdrawals."