"It's not illegal to sell bitcoins per se, but at least four people across the US this year have been charged or pleaded guilty to the crime of exchanging the cryptocurrency for fiat as a business without a license—'business' being the keyword." Continue reading →
"If one repeatedly learns that feeding a beast can briefly appease it, but predictably makes it more enormous, savage, and unstable, it is best to remember the lesson. Instead, central bankers have doomed the world to learn that lesson again." Continue reading →
"Have too much cash? You’d better tell the government. If not, they’re authorizing themselves in this bill to seize not just the money you didn’t report, but ALL of your assets and bank accounts. They even go so far as to specifically name 'safety deposit boxes' among the various assets that they can seize if you don’t fill out the form." Continue reading →
"You can imagine my surprise when I found out that SWIFT runs on Windows Vista - an obsolete operating system that Microsoft no longer supports. When my bank received its SWIFT code, we were told that we had to have a computer running Vista in the office in order to connect to SWIFT. It was such an absurd exercise to find an obsolete computer running an obsolete operating system to connect to the supposedly most advanced and important international payment network in the world. Unsurprisingly, SWIFT has been hacked numerous times, both by the NSA as well as private hackers who have stolen a great deal of money from their victims." Continue reading →
"In its latest John Doe summons, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is requiring American Express to send account information of Dutch residents with credit or debit cards linked to bank accounts outside the Netherlands to U.S. tax authorities. The IRS had requested the information in cooperation with the Dutch government as part of an investigation to determine whether Dutch citizens living outside the Netherlands are complying with tax laws." Continue reading →
"The Treasury disclosed that it is studying the possibility of ultra-long bonds, with maturities greater than 30 years, currently the bond with the longest maturity. It also said it is preparing for the time when the Fed begins to reduce its giant $4.5 trillion balance sheet — by buying fewer Treasurys and mortgage securities, and perhaps ultimately even unloading the ones it holds." Continue reading →
"One famous answer to the riddle of fiat money is that governments use force to ensure that fiat money is valued. But this can't be the case in Somalia: it hasn't had a government since 1991, yet shillings continue to be accepted." Continue reading →
"You read that right: They’re not going to pay. It’s not just Illinois facing crippling pension liabilities: It’s also happening in California and New York." Continue reading →
"As long as investors are comfortable with expected S&P 500 10-12 year total returns of less than 1% annually, with likely interim losses on the order of 50-60%, investors are free to label this situation as 'fairly valued' or with any other phrase they wish." Continue reading →
"On Thursday, two Democratic senators said that Trump indicated he would support the bank following a lunch with lawmakers on Capitol Hill. In addition, they said Trump promised to fill two vacant seats on the bank's board, which in the meantime is barred from financing deals of more than $10 million. 'I specifically talked with the president about the need to get the Export-Import Bank up and running,' Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota said. 'It's great news he agreed.' Though the bank said that 90 percent of its authorizations are for small businesses, Boeing is one of its biggest beneficiaries." Continue reading →