Network Archives

Texas Governor Rick Perry Signs a Pair of Bills Upholding Fourth Amendment

"With Governor Perry’s signature on HB 912, Texas now joins Idaho, Virginia, Florida, Montana, and Tennessee on the list of states that have enacted laws regulating the use of drones in their sovereign skies. Meanwhile, on June 14, Governor Perry signed into another important bill. As explained prior to Governor Perry’s signing of the bill by the blog Law360, HB 2268 'would establish the strongest email privacy protections in the U.S. by becoming the first measure to override a provision in the federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act that allows law enforcement to access emails that are open or more than 180 days old using only a subpoena.'" Continue reading →

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Government considers using search engines as source of cheap info on citizens’ lives

"It takes a lot to make the prospect of filling in a 52-page census form appealing. But the suggestion that Google’s vast stores of data could soon help replace it probably does the trick. Internet search engines could be used as a source of cheap information on citizens’ lives, interests and movements, a government paper has suggested. It could spell the end of the national census, which was first conducted in 1801 and has been carried out every ten years since, apart from during the Second World War. It aims to cover every home in the country but the last census – the 52-page giant in 2011 – missed out three-and-a-half million people." Continue reading →

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The Secret to Picking Winners in ‘Submerging Markets’

"With investors already on edge as global markets came unglued last week, China picked a fine time to engineer a credit crunch. Drowned out in the noise about Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s tapering talk last week was the fact that half a world away, China’s banking system was caught up in a cash squeeze. Short-term lending rates tripled as the financial system essentially froze. It was frighteningly reminiscent of the 2008 financial crisis in the U.S. Hedge fund managers and economists have long warned of a potential bursting of China’s debt-fueled real estate bubble, a replay of our own subprime crisis. Could this be the beginning?" Continue reading →

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Who Says the Market Cannot Supply Its Own Money?

"I just arrived back from lecturing at the week-long Free State Project’s Tenth Annual Porcupine Freedom Festival, a huge gathering of libertarians of all stripes from all over the U.S. in the beautiful White Mountains of New Hampshire. Many of the vendors accepted an array of payments media. I was particularly struck by the sign on one stall which read: 'Bitcoin, silver coins, Shire Silver, ammo and even Federal Reserve notes accepted.' I was also delighted to discover that privately minted gold and silver money were circulating at the festival in the form of the aforementioned Shire Silver. These were widely accepted as media of exchange by vendors and paid out in change." Continue reading →

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Private Fee-For-Service Medical Practice Now Accepts Bitcoin

"Whether coming to us for treatment of a new sore throat, for immunizations before a business trip to India, for the complex care of a parent who’s homebound with a stroke, or for something more sensitive like addiction to opiates, we offer a highly confidential and discreet experience at our offices in the heart of downtown San Francisco. But one important part of the confidentiality puzzle is payment. So My Doctor Medical Group is now pleased to announce that we accept payment for medical services in Bitcoin, the virtual currency that offers heightened security and enhanced privacy." Continue reading →

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EMC raises $5.5bn via corporate bonds to fund share buybacks

"The sharp shift in Treasury yield rates over the past few weeks means time is of the essence for those companies looking to undertake a capital return program and fund it with bonds. The rate rise increases the cost of funding and limits the ability to take advantage of an arbitrage between the current lower cost of issuing debt versus paying dividends on shares they could otherwise buy back with the fund raising. 'There is the obvious arbitrage there,' said one head of debt capital markets at a Wall Street bank. 'Why pay a dividend in the 3% to 5% range, when you can issue bonds at 2% or less and buy back those shares?'" Continue reading →

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Euro Pacific Capital Global Investor Newsletter – June 2013

"The central premise of Abenomics seems to be that the Bank of Japan could succeed in pushing inflation up to 2% without raising the rates on long-term debt. To do this, one would have to assume that bond investors would accept negative interest rates, even while a falling yen was eating away at principle. Such an outcome is not consistent with demonstrable human behavior. If the investors didn't play ball, it was assumed that the Bank of Japan could step up their quantitative easing and buy the bonds that investors were rationally selling. But the BoJ is already buying 70% of the new government debt." Continue reading →

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Get Out of Muni Bond ETFs Now

"The biggest exchange-traded fund tracking the $3.7 trillion U.S. municipal market is selling at its deepest discount ever to the value of its assets. The $3.5 billion iShares S&P National AMT-Free Municipal Bond Fund, known as MUB, touched $100.42 (the net asset value is 105.3). This is the lowest since April 2011 according to, data compiled by Bloomberg. The move reflects yields on benchmark 10-year local debt climbing as high as 2.68 percent , the most since October 2011. The plunge follows investors pulling $1.86 billion out of U.S. muni mutual funds from Jan. 1 through June 19, Lipper US fund Flows data show." Continue reading →

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Marijuana Stocks: How to Legally Invest in the Ultimate Cash Crop

"In short, we just don't know enough about these businesses yet to make a low-risk investment. Does this mean you shouldn't look into Medbox or Cannabis Science? Not necessarily. But investors would need to treat the position as money taken to the casino -- speculative and expendable. As time goes on, and politicians continue to be influenced by the more than 70 percent of our nation's population who believe pot should be legal for medical purposes, the marijuana industry will be seen more and more as a "legitimate" business. For opportunistic investors, there will be some incredible investing opportunities. For now, though, just chill, dude." Continue reading →

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National Lawyers Guild Report Supports Further Marijuana Legalization Initiatives

"As the nation waits for a response from the White House, the NLG joins other organizations and individuals in calling for the end to marijuana prohibition. 'Marijuana legalization will create new jobs, generate millions of dollars in tax revenue, and allow law enforcement to focus on serious crimes,' said Brian Vicente, NLG member and one of the primary authors of Colorado’s legalization amendment. 'It would be a travesty if the Obama administration used its power to impose marijuana prohibition upon a state whose people have declared, through the democratic process, that they want it to end.'" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingNational Lawyers Guild Report Supports Further Marijuana Legalization Initiatives