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Brazil Halts Muni Market as Banks Collect $140 Mln Fees

“A year after it began, Brazil’s municipal bond market has been brought to a standstill by the federal government after Credit Suisse Group AG (CSGN) and Bank of America Corp. provoked a backlash by collecting $140 million in fees from the first two borrowings. Brazilian Treasury officials, who approve state financing requests and provide guarantees backing loans, are starting to demand terms to curb the profits, seeking to protect taxpayers from being exploited and to limit their own borrowing costs while alienating bankers in the process.” Continue reading →

Taper Is Coming. Stock Market Rises.

“Yesterday, the stock market rallied a little. The explanation, according to a Reuters story, is that there are signs that the Federal Reserve will begin tapering in September. As you will recall, for six consecutive days, the stock market tanked. The explanation for the tanking was this: the expectation was that the Federal Reserve will begin tapering in September. This expectation was based on a careful reading of the minutes, which said the FED will not change its present policy.” Continue reading →

Needy EU Nations Woo Chinese Home Buyers to Ease Slump

“Cyprus, Greece and Portugal are providing resident permits to foreign buyers, while Spain is about to adopt a similar measure. The chance to purchase a home at depressed prices in southern Europe and gain what’s known as a golden visa is mostly being sold to Chinese investors, according to brokers. Southern Europe is the latest target for rich Chinese homebuyers, who have been snapping up properties from Vancouver to London since 2010 as their wealth swells and China’s government steps up a three-year campaign to cool home prices there. The number of millionaires in China rose 4 percent from the previous 12 months to 2.8 million.” Continue reading →

Debt of One Quadrillion Yen? Not a Problem

“Haruhiko Kuroda doesn’t wear a wizard’s hat when he arrives at Bank of Japan headquarters each morning. Kuroda has done something truly supernatural in his five months as governor of the central bank. The more yen he conjures up to produce inflation, the more he mesmerizes markets. Yet a week after Japan’s IOUs reached the 1 quadrillion yen ($10.28 trillion) mark, yields have actually declined. What is Kuroda’s secret? The first is what economists call ‘financial repression’ — essentially transferring money via monetary policy from citizens to the government. The second is outright monetization of public debt.” Continue reading →

Treasury chief says U.S. again perilously close to breaching the debt ceiling

“Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew urged Congress on Thursday to raise the US borrowing ceiling, warning that not doing so could jeopardize Washington’s creditworthiness and raise fears of a default. With the US closing on the point where spending will surpass available funds, Lew said it was crucial for Congress to raise the debt cap as soon as it comes back into session at the beginning of September. Failure to raise the ceiling would force cuts to many parts of the government, including the military and social security benefit payouts, and ‘have disastrous effects for our nation,’ Lew told an audience in Mountain View, California.” Continue reading →

German jailed for Julius Bär bank data theft

“A German citizen who began working as a contractor for the Zurich-based bank in 2005, admitted that he had gathered information about the bank’s clients, including their names, addresses and account numbers, between October and December 2011. He had then compiled a list of German clients with assets of more than 100,000 euros, Swiss francs, British pounds or dollars, and passed it on to a retired German tax inspector. In exchange, he had been set to receive €1.1 million euros. He told the court he had planned to use part of his compensation to pay off his own back-tax debt to German authorities.” Continue reading →

Lavabit: The Latest Dead Canary in the Privacy Coal Mine

“Private data stored with a company which is US-based and/or has servers based in the US does not have strong legal or privacy protection. The US government can force that company to turn over its customer data while also preventing it from talking about it. Are you still entrusting your private data to a US-based company or a company with servers based in the US? If you are but you value your privacy, you need to move your data elsewhere. Otherwise, that company might be compelled to violate your privacy and give up your data to the US government. And they may never be able to tell you about it.” Continue reading →

Additional $2.1M Seized from Mt. Gox Accounts – Now Over $5M Total

“The executed seizure warrant for Mt. Gox’s account with Dwolla was published, showing $2.9 million was seized by the US government. According to documents obtained today by TGB’s research staff from the records of the District Court of Maryland, more than $2.1 million was also seized from two of Mt. Gox’ Wells Fargo accounts – totaling to more than $5 million seized from Mt. Gox accounts by the US government. One of the accounts at Wells Fargo was registered to Mutum Sigillum LLC, the same entity associated with the Dwolla account. The second Wells Fargo account seized was in the name of Mark Karpeles himself.” Continue reading →