CLibertyC

Venezuelan minister: Facebook users unwittingly work as CIA informants

"A government minister in Venezuela, which has offered fugitive US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden asylum, is urging her countrymen to cancel their Facebook accounts lest they be targeted by US snooping. 'Fellow Venezuelans: cancel your Facebook accounts, since you unwittingly have worked as CIA informants! Look at the Snowden case!' prisons minister Maria Iris Varela said in a Twitter posting. Varela also said victims of 'gringo espionage' should file lawsuits to demand 'fair compensation' and bankrupt the US government." Continue reading →

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One Million Children Labor in Africa’s Goldmines

"The U.S. Department of Labor also is funding a four-year, $5 million project in Burkina Faso, one of the world's poorest nations, to reduce child labor in cotton farming and gold mining. The grant will be used to help raise awareness about child labor laws and build government capacity to monitor and enforce the laws, said Eric Biel, acting associate deputy undersecretary for the Bureau of International Labor Affairs. Small-scale gold mining began here in earnest in the 1980s as droughts and famines forced families from farms and into mines to earn a living. It remains a family affair." Continue reading →

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What Every Student in America Needs to Know About the Federal Reserve

"This whole concept of infinite fiat is hard for people to grasp; it is something outside of their experience. People's lifelong experience with money is that it is a limited resource. It is hard to conceive of a group of people who have unlimited, infinite money. Yet the Federal Reserve has just that. The Fed is not like a doctor who prescribes a short-term stimulus for a patient who is feeling run down. The Fed is not like a parent who temporarily puts training wheels on a bike until the kid learns how to ride it. These metaphors make people think that the Fed's fiat printing is temporary and limited. It is not." Continue reading →

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IRS Reporting Rules for Cash Transactions and Precious Metals

"As you can tell by the title this commentary is our third revision at understanding what the government had in mind when IRS reporting rules for cash transactions came up on the radar screen more than 30 years ago. This subject has to be one of the most misunderstood and misrepresented in the trade today so I can’t figure out why you don’t see more about these rules? The reason might be that these mystical directions while holding sway over dealers are a poorly written mess which should have been avoided or at least provided with updating options. With mistrust of government reaching new highs these famous reporting rules become more important." Continue reading →

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9 foreign countries where you can use U.S. dollars

"There are many great pleasures of the globe-trotting life, but dealing with pesky Travelex lines is not one of them. Sick of exchange rates, transaction fees, and coming home with pockets filled with useless coins? Here are foreign destinations where you can pay with U.S. dollars, from the sunny and subtropical to the still-undiscovered." Continue reading →

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Internationalizing in Chile

"In Chile, there are incredible opportunities for those in the know. Opportunities for a guy like me, and maybe for you if you're really serious about planting a flag in a South American country where things actually work – and work quite well. I've been living in Chile for about 6 months of the last two years, fulfilling my residency requirements. So, while I'm not an expert in all things Chile, my intent is to share some up-front impressions and on-the-ground experiences in the hope that this information will be helpful should you decide to plant one of your flags in what I believe is a wonderful country. So, with that in mind, let's get started." Continue reading →

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John Williams: Pulling Back the Curtain on Phony Government Statistics

"The crux of the dollar-debasement and ultimate, severe-inflation/hyperinflation issues indeed is this political inability of the United States to cover its long-range obligations, other than by printing the money it needs. Based on the US Treasury's financial accounting of the federal government using generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), the GAAP-based federal budget deficit was $6.6 trillion in fiscal-year 2012 (year ended September 30). Well beyond the simple cash-based deficit of $1.1 trillion in fiscal 2012, the GAAP-based annual deficits have been in the range of $4 to $5 trillion for the six years leading up to 2012." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingJohn Williams: Pulling Back the Curtain on Phony Government Statistics

Deutsche Bank’s Opaque Loans From Brazil to Italy Hide Risk

"Deutsche Bank AG (DBK), perennially among the top three in global credit markets, made billions of dollars of loans to banks worldwide since 2008 and accounted for them in a way that obscured their continuing risk to investors. Germany’s largest bank managed to lend to firms from Brazil to Italy while making the transactions disappear from its balance sheet, even though it still is owed the money, according to four people with knowledge of the practice and internal documents provided to Bloomberg News. In the no-balance-sheet transactions, Deutsche Bank received the collateral, sold it and used the cash to make the loan." Continue reading →

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The wheels are coming off the whole of southern Europe

"A leaked report from the European Commission confirms that Greece will miss its austerity targets yet again by a wide margin. Italy’s slow crisis is again flaring up. Its debt trajectory has punched through the danger line over the past two years. Spain’s crisis has a new twist. The ruling Partido Popular is caught in a slush-fund scandal of such gravity that it cannot plausibly brazen out the allegations any longer, let alone rally the nation behind another year of scorched-earth cuts. Portugal is slipping away. Professor João Ferreira do Amaral’s book -Why We Should Leave The Euro – has been a bestseller for months." Continue reading →

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New! No Medicaid Expansion Campaign Launched

“Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.‘ Declaration of Independence — 1776 This morning I send out a press release about the launch of a NO Medicaid Expansion yard sign campaign and web site, No Michigan Expansion.com.  As spokesperson I say, ” “I was contacted by the …

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