Investment/Trends

Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics… at FreedomFest

"Don’t believe everything you’re told by promoters about second citizenship and passports. They may be entertaining and persuasive, but they can get you into some serious trouble. Same goes with anyone who promises that you can somehow hide your offshore holdings from the IRS. You’re asking for a world of trouble (not to mention setting yourself up to be blackmailed). Look, I’ve been in asset and privacy protection business for more than a quarter century. I’ve seen these things come and go. And, from experience with thousands of clients, I can tell you that the only proper way to do this is the legal way." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingLies, Damned Lies, and Statistics… at FreedomFest

Americans Are on a Tight Leash

"Dealing with the burdens associated with citizenship-based taxation is an unfortunate fact of life for Americans. It is not likely to change in the foreseeable future. In fact, I would bet that the burdens will actually increase as the US government becomes more financially desperate. Which is a significant incentive to act sooner than later… or before it is too late altogether. However unpleasant this reality is, it does not negate the need to internationalize. Quite the contrary. As spending on welfare/warfare related programs continues to rise, it is clear that the US government will sink deeper into fiscal and moral bankruptcy, with political risk increasing in tandem." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingAmericans Are on a Tight Leash

It Isn’t All About the Benjamin (Bernanke)…

"While true that markets do at times move in tandem, that doesn’t tell the whole story. In fact, it leaves out the most important part — that not every stock in the world is tied to America’s every sniff and sniffle. And true diversification means owning exposure to the companies singing from a variety of hymnals. Conventional wisdom holds that the West is the be all and end all of the global economy. Economic fright in the West, this warped theory holds, means an economic nightmare everywhere else. While there is a modicum of truth in that … it’s overblown and an excessively Western view of what’s really happening in the rest of the world." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingIt Isn’t All About the Benjamin (Bernanke)…

SF Bay Area House Sales Plunge in June (Month-over-Month AND Year-over-Year)

"What’s most alarming about this is that 'June' existing sales are actually from 'contracts and price decisions' made in April and May when rates were at HISTORIC LOWS. This tells me the market — underpinned for 18 months by investors and 'distressed supply' — was already exhausted before the historic rate 'surge'. Historic, artificially low rates for so long filled so much pent-up demand, pulled so much demand forward, and caused institutional investors to buy so much blindly that years of housing market activity was shoved through the eye of a needle." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingSF Bay Area House Sales Plunge in June (Month-over-Month AND Year-over-Year)

Which of Bernanke’s Statements Should We Believe?

"On one hand, he's giving precise numbers like 6.5% and 7% unemployment, and on the other hand, his message seems to be, 'Don't pay attention to those numbers too much. We're just going to play it by ear.' Kind of confusing, in my opinion. Does the Fed want the market to pay attention to those metrics or not? The answer is probably somewhere in between. Not a whole lot from his statements this time around, but we do have two things to closely keep our eye on now—near 7% unemployment and faltering real estate prices—as two key trigger points." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingWhich of Bernanke’s Statements Should We Believe?

Bill Bonner: Should Larry Summers replace Ben Bernanke?

"What sets Summers apart is his readiness to make mistakes on a colossal scale, with other people's money. But as far as we can see that gives him all the qualifications you need to be America's top banker. A high IQ moron is just what you need for this kind of work. You have to be smart enough to talk the talk, pretending that you know what you're talking about. But you have to be stupid enough to believe it. You must think you really can improve the financial decisions of 310 million people. And you have to be arrogant enough contradict all of them...putting your own asinine plans into action even though they will almost certainly bankrupt the entire nation." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingBill Bonner: Should Larry Summers replace Ben Bernanke?

Bernanke “The Only Game in Town”: Really?

"America's real economy is innovating away from the dead hand of the Fed and its toxic spew of free money to the predatory class. There's actually three games in town: the financier game the Fed is playing that will end in collapse, the Federal government's borrow-and-blow trillions of dollars game that will also end badly, and the real economy, where millions of people don't give a rat's rear-end about Bernanke's latest attempt to placate the financial Monster Id he has created. Bernanke is irrelevant to millions of people who are building the next economy beneath the rotting soggy mess of the financialized one Bernanke is attempting to resuscitate." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingBernanke “The Only Game in Town”: Really?

The Original Value of Bitcoins

"Two centuries ago, oil was less than worthless. It was a blight that people would pay to have removed from their land. However, suppose one day a mysterious stranger appeared claiming to be a time-traveler. He told everyone that one day oil would be the world’s most valuable fuel. It would called 'black gold'. Wars would be fought over it and enormous machines would be built to collect every last drop. Though no one knew if the purported time traveler was telling the truth or how to develop the technologies that would one day make oil valuable, some entrepreneurs believed him and began to collect oil to prepare for the day that it became black gold." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingThe Original Value of Bitcoins

The Original Value of Bitcoins

"Two centuries ago, oil was less than worthless. It was a blight that people would pay to have removed from their land. However, suppose one day a mysterious stranger appeared claiming to be a time-traveler. He told everyone that one day oil would be the world’s most valuable fuel. It would called 'black gold'. Wars would be fought over it and enormous machines would be built to collect every last drop. Though no one knew if the purported time traveler was telling the truth or how to develop the technologies that would one day make oil valuable, some entrepreneurs believed him and began to collect oil to prepare for the day that it became black gold." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingThe Original Value of Bitcoins

SatoshiDice Sold for $12.4 Million

"Erik Voorhees has announced that SatoshiDice, by far the most popular gambling site in the Bitcoin community, is being sold in full for 126315 BTC, worth $12.4 million USD at the time of the announcement. SatoshiDice is now one of the largest businesses in the Bitcoin economy, beaten out by the mining company ASICMiner, worth roughly $150 million, and perhaps Bitcoin merchant and exchange juggernauts such as BitPay, BitInstant and Coinbase, all of which have received millions of dollars in investment. The company’s success can be attributed to its simple interface." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingSatoshiDice Sold for $12.4 Million