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First Tax Haven in Armenia Launched

“Senior Armenian and Russia officials inaugurated over the weekend Armenia’s first-ever tax-free business zone which is meant to mainly cater to high-tech manufacturing companies. The Free Economic Zone is located in the premises of an electronics plant and a research institute in Yerevan that were handed over to Russia, along with several other Armenian enterprises, a decade ago in payment for Yerevan’s $100 million debt to Russia. Companies will be exempt from profit, value-added and property taxes as well as import duties. The government hopes that this privileged business environment will help to attract more foreign investment to Armenia.” Continue reading →

Lebanon’s Banks Have the Highest Cash Reserve Ratios in the World

“There are three features that distinguish the Lebanese financial system: 1. The banks have the highest cash reserve ratios in the world. 2. The central bank holds the second highest gold reserves on a per person basis. 3. Real financial privacy. Lebanon is also one of the few countries left in the world that still has real financial privacy, both in theory and in practice… just not for Americans, though, thanks to FATCA, which Lebanon has indicated it will comply with. Additionally, Lebanon ranks only behind Switzerland in terms of gold reserves per person according to this chart below from The Economist.” Continue reading →

The Secret’s Out: Now Is the Time for International Diversification

“For the United States and other debt-addicted countries, years of profligate spending have more or less sealed their economic fates. With the stage set, further encroachments of privacy are practically guaranteed. Faced with economic uncertainty, governments will search for new ways to plunder the productive members of society. These may include capital controls, more onerous regulations, or wealth confiscation, either explicitly or by way of the printing press. The developing NSA story along with the crisis in Cyprus prove that desperate governments will stop at nothing to prevent their house of cards from collapsing, no matter how futile.” Continue reading →

Bill Bonner: What if Mr. Summers weren’t so brilliant, after all?

“We read Mr. Summers’ commentaries regularly, in the Financial Times. We don’t recall a single insight worth repeating or a single proposal that merits further discussion. Like Tom Friedman, he sees problems everywhere and finds solutions for them readily. And every solution he comes up with would be neat, logical, and disastrous. Unintended consequences? Has he ever heard of the concept? For him, reason has no limits…intervention has no risks…and the world has no black swans. Seeing no danger to further monetary stimulus, he will put the pedal to the metal and run at full speed…right into a brick wall.” Continue reading →

Homeland Security “Constitution Free” Zones Inside US Ignored By Media

“It’s not ‘conspiracy’ and it’s not fraud, the DHS has literally created an imaginary ‘border’ within the United States that engulfs 100 miles from every single end of the nation. Within this fabricated ‘border’, the DHS can search your electronic belongings for no reason. No reason whatsoever is required under their own regulations. This ‘border’ even includes where the US land meets oceans in addition to legitimate borders with Mexico and Canada. As a result, you have over 197 million citizens suffocated in these 100 mile ‘border zones’ that include major cities like New York City, Houston, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia.” Continue reading →

7 surveillance reforms Obama supported before he became president

“As a senator, Obama wanted 1. to limit bulk records collection; 2. to require government analysts to get court approval before accessing incidentally collected American data. 3. the executive branch to report to Congress how many American communications had been swept up during surveillance; 4. to restrict the use of gag orders related to surveillance court orders; 5. to give the accused a chance to challenge government surveillance; 6. the attorney general to submit a public report giving aggregate data about how many people had been targeted for searches; 7. the government to declassify significant surveillance court opinions.” Continue reading →

I Only Regret That I Have But One Life to Give for My Country: Yours

“Today, for America’s spies, Nathan Hale’s job comes with health and retirement benefits. Top officials in that world have access to a revolving door into guaranteed lucrative employment at the highest levels of the corporate-surveillance complex and, of course, for the spy in need of escape, a golden parachute. So when I think about Nathan Hale’s famed line, among those hundreds of thousands of American spies and corporate spylings just two Americans come to mind, both charged and one convicted under the draconian World War I Espionage Act. Only one tiny subset of Americans might still be able to cite Hale’s words and have them mean anything.” Continue reading →

Army won’t suspend contracts with Al Qaeda-tied companies, citing ‘due process rights’

“The U.S. Army is refusing to suspend contracts with dozens of companies and individuals tied to Al Qaeda and other extremist groups out of concern for their ‘due process rights,’ despite repeated pleas from the chief watchdog for Afghanistan reconstruction. In a scathing passage of his latest report to Congress, Special Inspector General John Sopko said his office has urged the Army to suspend or debar 43 contractors over concerns about ties to the Afghanistan insurgency, ‘including supporters of the Taliban, the Haqqani network and al Qaeda.’ Sopko wrote that the Army ‘rejected’ every single case.” Continue reading →