Alternative News

Bitcoin Securities Exchange Shutters, Cites Regulatory Environment

"BTC Trading Corp (BTC-TC) announced that it will close all trading by October 7, two weeks from today. BTC-TC is one of the largest bitcoin securities exchanges, responsible for 101,000 BTC ($12M) in deposited securities and 2,900 BTC ($350K) in daily volume. The company’s notice cited 'recent changes in the virtual currency regulatory environment' as the reason for shuttering operations. Also closing is LTC-Global, a litecoin-denominated securities exchange also run by Ethan Burnside, the same operator as BTC-TC. All trading was temporarily halted and order books were cleared after the announcement was made at 5am EST." Continue reading →

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Subprime lending execs back in business five years after crash

"Five years after the financial crisis crested with the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., top executives from the biggest subprime lenders are back in the game. Many are developing new loans that target borrowers with low credit scores and small down payments, pushing the limits of tighter lending standards that have prevailed since the crisis. Some experts fear they won’t know where to stop. The Center for Public Integrity in 2009 identified the top 25 lenders by subprime loan production from 2005 through 2007. Today, senior executives from all 25 of those companies or companies that they swallowed up before the crash are back in the mortgage business." Continue reading →

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Debt: Still Cheap, and Getting Looser

"The industry is clearly rebounding. Guy Cecala, publisher of the trade magazine Inside Mortgage Finance, says, 'You're going to see a little more risk coming into the system' as lenders permit smaller down payments and finance more investment properties. 'Five years down the road and we're back in the thick of it again. It's a weird place to be,' says Cliff Rossi, who was a high-level risk management executive at Countrywide, Washington Mutual, and Freddie Mac before the crisis. 'In that intervening 20 years, we forgot what we learned in the '80s,' he says. 'I fear right now, human nature being what it is, that downstream we could find ourselves in the same situation.'" Continue reading →

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The FED Does Not Control the Federal Funds Rate

"Because they are sitting on $2 trillion of excess reserves, banks rarely borrow money overnight. They do not have to. They have plenty of reserves. Before late 2008, a bank would borrow overnight if its reserves threatened to fall below the legal requirement set by the FED. But now banks have so many reserves that they rarely borrow. So, there is little demand. So, the rate is low. The FOMC has increased the monetary base at times. In most of 2012, it decreased it. The FedFunds rate has not changed when FOMC policy has changed. Here is the inescapable conclusion: the Federal Reserve does not control this rate. The FED pretends that it does." Continue reading →

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BitScan’s exclusive Q&A with Roger Ver

"If you look at bitcoin, it has all those same characteristics of gold in terms of it being easily recognizable, easily divisible and similarly, they both have a limited supply and can’t just be made out of thin air. Where bitcoin differs from gold is that it is easily transportable. You can send bitcoins anywhere on the planet instantly basically for free. It is incredibly expensive to ship gold around the world and if you do, you have to trust the shipping company or the delivery company, with bitcoin you don’t have to trust anybody at all. All you do, is send the bitcoins and they have been sent. So bitcoin has gold’s valuable characteristics as money but it is also transportable." Continue reading →

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The biggest Bitcoin win in gambling history

"In just one weekend of furious gambling, a single Internet high roller has taken home close to 11,000 bitcoins—or about $1.3 million. The man, known online as Nakowa, has turned one of Bitcoin’s most popular and profitable casinos into a loser. What no one can figure out: Is he a cheater, a genius, or the luckiest man on earth? Just-Dice.com, a European-based cybercasino offering a set of dice games played for the highly valuable digital currency Bitcoin, has been on a roller coaster ride. Nakowa’s weekend started on a losing streak that made Just-Dice richer than it had ever been, causing the site to hit its highest single profit point of all time (7,000 bitcoins or $862,400 on hand)." Continue reading →

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Marc Faber on higher education & protecting yourself in economic collapse

"Marc Faber is an economic authority on global macroeconomics, capital markets, and investment and the Editor & Publisher of 'The Gloom Boom & Doom Report'. He spoke with The Prospect Group about university style formal education, the coming economic collapse, and the options people to preserve their wealth." Continue reading →

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Cruz’ plan B for defunding Obamacare: ‘Shut down the military’

"Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) on Sunday warned Senate Republicans that refusing to filibuster a bill that defunds President Barack Obama’s health care reform law 'is a vote for Obamacare,' and he also advised House Republicans to 'shut down the military' if they had to. 'If Harry Reid kills the bill in the Senate, the House should hold its ground, and should begin passing smaller continuing resolutions, one department at a time,' Cruz explained. 'It should start with a continuing resolution focused on the military.' 'Send it over, see if Harry Reid is willing to shut down the military,' he quipped." Continue reading →

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The co-conspirators in military mass shootings

"Republican Sen. Susan Collins was prompted to 'question the kind of vetting contractors do.' Ask the government you serve, Susan, for it, not the contractors, conducts background checks. 'The government maintains the final approval authority,' Rear Adm. John Kirby told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. And for government officials, no infraction committed by Alexis was too egregious to ignore. Even stranger is the discrepancy between the killer’s performance during his Navy service and the glowing evaluations and awards he received from his superiors. If anything, top brass’s outsized ambition for Alexis incriminates them, not him." Continue reading →

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