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U.S. Dollar on the brink of 13-month lows: the long-term consequences

“While the stock market has been rising, the U.S. dollar has been sinking. It’s on the verge of breaking major 13-month lows. It’s not far from reversing everything it gained against a sinking euro during the recent European debt crisis. And once those barriers are breached, it could crash to its lowest level in history. But Washington doesn’t care, and few investors seem to give a damn. They celebrate the fact that, in the near term, a falling dollar helps make U.S. exports more competitive overseas. Plus, they like the fact that a dollar decline temporarily drives global investors away from safety and into risky investments, including U.S. stocks.” Continue reading →

Dwolla Credit launched as competitor to PayPal’s Bill Me Later

“Pay instantly and get paid instantly. It’s just how payments in the modern world should work. No more loading your account, no more typing in your card information. Simple and quick checkouts are just one benefit to building a new network, working with great developers and great retailers is another. On Dwolla’s network, there are no plastic cards, no terminals, no complicated reseller agreements, and no card data that could be left behind. Just the internet…simple. Credit, is now a feature. Dwolla Credit, provided by our friends at Comenity Capital bank, owned by Alliance Data (NYSE: ADS), is making this all possible. I’m exceptionally proud of the work both of our teams have done.” Continue reading →

The Markets Are Rigged! How to Opt Out and Still Profit

“Call me nostalgic, but I remember a time when a bad jobs outlook sent the large-cap companies down, not up. The economy is weak, so a company’s profit expectations suffer. The logic makes sense. Today, however, we live in the topsy-turvy world of government-manipulated markets, where such asinine statements make complete sense… until they don’t. The problem with a market that lives at the teat of Washington’s policies is that it can be reversed in mere moments. One election. One popular news story. One social media outcry. One back-channel policy. One bloody coup d’état. That’s all it takes.” Continue reading →

Bloated Fed Balance Sheet Propelling Market Rally

“Like preceding surges, the rally’s latest chapter is disconnected from the real economy’s fundamentals. Instead, what we are witnessing is the direct result of an unprecedented expansion of the Fed’s balance sheet. Recently, it has become clear just how addicted the stock market is to easy money policies, as even the slightest hint of the Fed tapering its asset-purchasing program sends the markets into a frenzy. When the Fed might actually rein in its money printing is anyone’s guess, but if the chart above is any indication, there’s only one direction the market is headed once its life support is yanked away.” Continue reading →

European Parliament votes to suspend US SWIFT data exchange

“The European Parliament has voted to suspend its SWIFT data exchange agreement with the US. They’ve called for US access to the SWIFT database to be halted following concerns that the US is spying on the EU, and not simply trying to combat terrorism. EU lawmakers suspect that the US has abused an agreement giving it limited access to SWIFT. As such, they voted to freeze Washington’s capacity to track international payments through the site. The worry comes after leaked American documents indicating the US was covertly tapping into SWIFT were aired on Brazilian television. The US denies any wrongdoing.” Continue reading →

Attempts To Eliminate Cash Are More Than A Privacy Disaster

“Politicians are suggesting that cash should be gradually replaced by credit card transactions and direct bank transactions, making every single movement of money trackable, seizable, and reversable. This is not just a privacy disaster, it’s also a resilience disaster. I had the privilege of having a long conversation with the Chief Security Officer of one of the larger European banks, and he told me the outcome was a given – there will always be some kind of cash. Whether it’s issued by a central bank is completely beside the point; if central-bank cash isn’t readily available, people will create a way to trade between them without involving a third party.” Continue reading →

Bank Calls Customer Over Detected Bitcoin Transactions

“Sean Percival today wrote about how he received a phone call from his bank, because ‘they detected Bitcoin related transactions,’ and they asked him if it was for personal use or business. And, no, it wasn’t because of some concern about fraud. Percival clarified that it was just about Bitcoin, and said they wanted to know about ‘a spike in activity’ with merchants like Coinbase. He later confirmed that it was not even from the fraud department. Percival does not name the bank, other than to say that it’s ‘one of the biggies.’ It will be interesting to see if this becomes a regular thing, and whether or not it’ll become yet another path for government officials to try to track Bitcoin usage.” Continue reading →

Mastercard Hates Bitcoins

“The new boss in charge of giving out a MasterCard licenses has no intention of allowing the brand or any bank that does private label cards to use Bitcoins. In fact, he nearly bragged to me about killing the BitInstant deal with a U.S. bank for the first planned $BTC card this year. Stephen Ruch, the heavyset MasterCard executive, is just a year into his job with the company, and while he monitors the Bitcoin space he told me he is still under the impression it’s one big Ponzi scheme. [..] His biggest fear was it would ‘hurt the MasterCard’ brand.” Continue reading →