Network Archives

How To Make A Quick $1,944,000

"Buy a truckload of cigarettes in Virginia and sell them in New York. Yeah, it's illegal. But that's how much can be made from selling a tractor trailer's worth (that's 800 cases, each holding 600 packs of cigarettes) of low-tax Virginia cigarettes in high-tax New York, based on estimates from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. And that's exactly what criminals are doing. In 2011, more than 60% of all cigarettes sold in New York were smuggled in from another state, according to the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a free-market think tank. That's up from about 36% in 2006." Continue reading →

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Sleeping Bag Coat for the Homeless Finds Fans in the Fashion World

"A few years ago, Veronika Scott, now 23, set up a coat manufacturing business in a graffiti-covered building in an old Irish manufacturing neighborhood of Detroit. She had a few sewing machines and a drive to help the homeless. Since late 2010, Scott and her employees -- 10 formerly homeless women who moved into housing only after they started working for Scott's nonprofit company, called The Empowerment Plan, have made more than 1,000 of the coats, which have been distributed for free to the homeless nationwide -- mostly by nonprofits in Detroit and Ohio but also in San Francisco, New York, New Orleans, Washington, D.C., Aspen and Philadelphia." Continue reading →

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CFTC Considering Bitcoin Regulations

"Bitcoin 'is for sure something we need to explore', Bart Chilton, one of the five commissioners at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) told the Financial Times. Said Mr Chilton: 'It’s not monopoly money we’re talking about here – real people can have real risk in these instruments, and we need to ensure that we protect markets and consumers, even in what at first blush appear to be ‘out there’ transactions.' In essence, we’re talking about a type of shadow currency, and there is more than a colourable argument to be made that derivative products relating to Bitcoin falls squarely in our jurisdiction.'" Continue reading →

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California Supreme Court deals massive blow to medical marijuana industry

"The California Supreme Court ruled Monday that local municipalities can legally ban medical marijuana dispensaries, dealing a massive blow to the burgeoning industry that’s exploded across the state since 2009. The ruling in City of Riverside v. Inland Empire Patient’s Health and Wellness Center boils down to whether the California constitution trumps provisions in the state’s medical marijuana laws. The California constitution gives cities the zoning power to dictate land use within their borders, enabling them to declare businesses a 'public nuisance' and toss them out — which is precisely what happened to the Inland Empire dispensary in Riverside." Continue reading →

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Turns Out British Spies Were Giving Bags of Cash to Karzai, Too

"A week after we learned that the CIA delivered bags full of cash to Afghan President Hamid Karzai in exchange for his cooperation, the United Kingdom's MI6 admitted to doing the same thing this weekend. While the British spies say they forked over just a fraction of what their American counterparts did, the new information proves that this quasi-bribery scheme was hardly an isolated incident. In fact, it sounds like it was a big part of the allies' operation in Afghanistan. The leader called the CIA and MI6 contributions an 'easy source of petty cash' for dealing with the Taliban." Continue reading →

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Bill Bonner: Does the Fed help make people better off?

"There were voices in the Fed, said the news, urging caution. There would be no further monetary stimulus measures, said the commentators. Investors grew cautious. Then, by the end of the week, investors were rolling the dice again. The Fed was working hard to fight the impression that it had either lost its nerve or recovered its senses. With the wind of the Fed at their backs, investors put out full sail. On Friday, they were skimming along nicely, riding high on a tide of EZ money. 'Don't fight the Fed,' said the analysts. The Fed is pumping...stocks are going to rise. Of course, it's not that simple. Zimbabwe pumped. Stocks rose...for a while." Continue reading →

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Publishing Atrocity: The 1963 Edition of Human Action

"This is the fiftieth anniversary of one of the most scurrilous incidents in academic publishing. The victim was Ludwig von Mises. The perpetrator was Yale University Press. This travesty was quite self-conscious. The editor knew exactly what he was doing. He was in control. Mises was not. This was how establishment liberalism worked in 1963. Today, ebooks, PDFs, and other technologies have broken the hold of traditional paper-based publishers. You can download the 1949 edition for free. But there was a time when they called the shots. Mises found out just how completely they called the shots at Yale University Press in 1963." Continue reading →

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The Permanent Overclass’s Propaganda System: A Century In The Making

"Two major social engineering projects were underway: one, the manufacture of ideology, largely the initiative of philanthropic foundations (and the social sciences), and the other, public relations as a modern form of propaganda. Through the educational system, the social sciences, philanthropic foundations, public relations, advertising, marketing, and the media, America and the industrialized states of the world developed a unique and complex system of social control and propaganda for the 20th century and into the 21st. It is imperative to recognize and understand this complex system if we are to challenge and change it." Continue reading →

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North Carolina Senate blocks testing themselves when passing welfare drug testing bill

"Republicans in the North Carolina state Senate on Monday pushed through bill that would strip public benefits like food stamps and job training for people who fail a drug test. The bill requires those applying for benefits to pay for their own drug tests. Applicants who test negative would be eligible to have the costs of their tests reimbursed. The policy could cost the state more than $2.1 million. At the same time, senators rejected an amendment offered by Democratic state Sen. Gladys Robinson that would have drug tested lawmakers, the governor and cabinet secretaries." Continue reading →

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