Alternative News

Coinbase: First $1,000,000 USD in merchant processing is now free!

"We’ve long believed that merchant adoption is key to bitcoin going mainstream, and the next large phase of bitcoin usage will be as customers spend their bitcoin with more merchants. With that in mind, we wanted to lower all barriers for new merchants to get started, and help highlight some of the economic benefits of accepting bitcoin. Today we’ve decided to announce free processing on your first $1,000,000.00 USD in orders for all merchants. This waives our previous fee of 1%. For your first one million USD (equivalent at the time of purchase) in bitcoin merchant orders our fee will be 0%." Continue reading →

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Ron Paul Unfiltered; Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg takes on the NSA

"Ron Paul joins Larry to blast US government secrecy and talk about his new Web channel. Plus, have his supporters finally found peace with the GOP? Also, whistle-blower Daniel Ellsberg says the government is always watching... even while you sleep." Continue reading →

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The Pentagon: Angry Birds Hold the Key to Our Security

"'The digital battlefield has to be as easy to navigate as an iPhone,' writes Wired magazine’s Noah Shachtman. 'The attacks have to be as easy to launch as an Angry Bird.' Mr. Shachtman points out that U.S. cyberoffensives have taken months of planning and have required small specialized units. Instead, the Pentagon wants 'munitions made of 1s and 0s to be as simple to launch as ones made of metal and explosives.' The Pentagon has brought in 'designers behind some of Apple’s most famous computers — with assistance from the illustrators who helped bring Transformers to the silver screen.' The DoD will shell out $16.1 billion in contract money to conduct their cyber makeover." Continue reading →

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Meet the men who spy on women through their webcams

"RAT operators have nearly complete control over the computers they infect; they can (and do) browse people's private pictures in search of erotic images to share with each other online. They even have strategies for watching where women store the photos most likely to be compromising. Women who have this done to them, especially when the spying escalates into blackmail, report feeling paranoia. One woman targeted by the California "sextortionist" Luis Mijangos wouldn't leave her dorm room for a week after Mijangos turned her laptop into a sophisticated bugging device. Mijangos began taunting her with information gleaned from offline conversations." Continue reading →

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Obama Signs Law Gutting Insider Trading Regulations For Congress

"President Obama signed a law that gutted the reporting requirements originally included in the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act. Before these changes were made the STOCK Act required congressional staffers to disclose their finances to the public to help ensure they were not engaging in corrupt practices. But on second thought, President Obama and Congress decided that congressional staffers should be able to escape transparency. Unanimous consent, no one wanted to put their name down as openly supporting corruption while supporting corruption. And now President Obama has signed the bill guaranteeing a more corrupt Washington." Continue reading →

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The Closed Door Silicon Valley Meeting with Treasury Secretary Lew

"Last week Thursday, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew visited the west coast and had a closed door meeting with key players from Silicon Valley. The meeting was held in Mountain View, California at the headquarters of Facebook. EconomicPolicyJournal.com has obtained the list of attendees. How would you like to be able to make your investment and business decisions after attending a meeting like this?" Continue reading →

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Former Cyprus President Named In Loan Write-Offs Leading To Banking Insolvency

"We asked 'how much longer will the rule of law remain in Cyprus once the 99% are generously handed the list of the 1% who were 'informed' enough to pull their money from the flaming sovereign equivalent of Bernie Madoff?' We may get the answer much sooner than expected, as the first iteration of this list, one naming the beneficiaries of millions of loans written off by the now insolvent Cyprus banks and therefore indirectly responsible for the 'impairment' of the banks' depositors, was released yesterday by Greece's daily Ethnos newspaper. But what virtually assures substantial political fallout is that among the people listed is Cyprus' former president, George Vassiliou." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingFormer Cyprus President Named In Loan Write-Offs Leading To Banking Insolvency

Cyprus gets €2bn EU bailout despite money laundering concerns

"The EU on Monday (13 May) said many Cypriot banks do not know who their customers really are, but wired Nicosia €2 billion anyway. Commenting on a recent study on money laundering in the Mediterranean island, eurozone finance ministers said in a joint communique that it must do better on 'customer due diligence by banks' and must fix 'the functioning of [its] company registry.' A branch of the Strasbourg-based Council of Europe and US accountancy firm Deloitte did the audit in March and April. Cyprus hosts about 12,000 shell companies which have no physical presence on the island. But its company registry has a 10-year backlog of paperwork on who owns what." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingCyprus gets €2bn EU bailout despite money laundering concerns

Have You Heard the One About the Fiat Money Printing Central Banker?

"Here’s the abstract from a new paper in the October 2013 issue of Economic Inquiry: 'During their meetings, the members of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) make monetary policy, but they also make each other laugh. This article studies the amount of laughter elicited by members of the FOMC during their meetings. The study finds that a member elicits more laughter if he or she expects higher inflation, other things being equal. This finding suggests that members may use humor to cope with the threat of inflation. (JEL E52, E58, C23)' They use humor. One wonders what savers and pensioners use." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingHave You Heard the One About the Fiat Money Printing Central Banker?

The Technical Bankruptcy of the Government Is Kicked Out Another Six Weeks

"The U.S. government's debt has been locked in at this implausible limit for three months: $16,699,396,000,000. The Secretary of the Treasury says that it will not hit the ceiling until mid-October. This warning is silly. The U.S. government has obviously been over the limit ever since late May. The world knows this. There is no way that the debt simply stopped growing. There is no good reason why the government cannot report this same figure from now on. If the government can legally cook the books from May 17 until today, and promises to cook them until mid-October, and no one in Congress asks how, then why not for two more months, two more years, or forever?" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingThe Technical Bankruptcy of the Government Is Kicked Out Another Six Weeks