The Freedom Watch

Desperate Police Departments Ditch Hiring Standards

"Police could stop arresting people for drug crimes, and focus on violent and property crimes if they wanted to get by with less personnel. They could even pull some officers off speed-trap duty and actually respond to desperate calls for help. But no, the solution is to simply hire heroin addicts and crack heads. That will surely improve the tensions between the public and police. How could this go wrong, hiring even lower quality officers than before?" Continue reading →

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US to criminalize undeclared cash, bitcoin, gift cards, prepaid phones

"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 →

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Goldman Set Out to Automate IPOs and It Has Come Far, Really Fast

"A computer-based interface called Deal Link has replaced informal checklists that were once tended and passed down between generations of rainmakers. It now arranges and tracks legal and compliance reviews, fills in forms and generates reports. The industry is under intense pressure to improve profitability, while contending with young workers less willing to put in 18-hour days. At Goldman Sachs, managers say they’re looking to new technology to free up junior bankers in particular, letting them focus on more satisfying work." Continue reading →

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“Due To Popular Demand” Goldman Starts Covering Bitcoin

"It's official: not only has bitcoin officially made its way to Wall Street, but confirming rumors that emerged over the weekend, 'hedge' funds - starved of volatility in virtually all other asset classes - are now not only actively trading the volatile digital currency, but as clients of the vampire squid, have petitioned Goldman's chief technician, Sheba Jafari to start covering it." Continue reading →

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The DEA’s $4 Billion Warrantless Cash Grab

"Federal law enforcement officers are raking in hundreds of millions of dollars a year with little oversight or constitutional protections for property owners. Most of these types of seizures are never challenged. The I.G. found petitions were filed in only 20 percent of the DEA cash seizures it reviewed. Of those that were challenged, though, 40 percent saw money fully or partially returned to the owner, indicating that there may be a significant number of unfounded seizures going unchallenged." Continue reading →

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Cannabis Set to Cause a World of Pain for Big Pharma

"The study, which was first outlined by the Washington Post, helped stir up the debate over how a legitimate cannabis market might be able to reduce the national opioid problem. That’s because the University of Georgia data shows when medical marijuana is available, pain patients are increasingly choosing pot over powerful — and potentially deadly — prescription narcotics. Specifically, the researchers found that — in the 17 states with a medical-marijuana law in place by 2013 — prescriptions for painkillers and other classes of drugs fell sharply, compared with states that did not have a medical-marijuana law." Continue reading →

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State-Run Single-Payer Health Care: Prohibitively Expensive—and Illegal?

"State lawmakers in California and New York voted this year to pass state-run single payer health care plans, despite the fact that both states would need to double their existing tax revenue to pay for the new entitlement. But even if those political hurdles are overcome, and even if the two states figure out how they are going to come up with the necessary tax revenue—about $400 billion in California's case, and somewhere between $91 billion and $225 billion in New York's—to make those systems functional, both may run into another problem: The whole thing could be against the law." Continue reading →

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