11 Apr 2013

Banks get Fed minutes early and Winklevoss twins pump Bitcoin + How to Be Smart Money

Silverfuturist

"Never Mind The Bollocks" about Margaret Thatcher - Max Keiser with Jan Skoyles

Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert explore the myth of whether Margaret Thatcher "saved Britain," or gave us a British dream of "striving to mature before your debts do." They look at North Sea oil production, and wonder how big a UK sovereign wealth fund would be today if Thatcher had saved any of the country's oil wealth. In the second half of the show, Max Keiser talks to Jan Skoyles of The Real Asset Company about Bitcoin: Is she bit-curious or bit-con? They also discuss her report released today which asks, who is buying gold? Brazil, Paraguay, China are stacking bail-ins with the people's money in the bank.

The Eroding Premium on Truth and Trust

Charles Hugh Smith: The premium in America has shifted from truth to self-serving distortion, and from trust to manipulation.

The premium we place on truth and trustworthiness is self-evident. Truth is uniquely productive feedback from the real world. Truth (including factual data) is indispensable,  for it alone enables us to correct errors, learn from mistakes and improve our effectiveness and communication.

We pay a premium for trust because the cost of dishonesty and artifice is steep.Would you pay more to buy a used car from someone you trust? If you place no premium on trustworthiness, then you buy the "great deal" used car you found online: oops, the "new" battery was spray-painted black, the crankcase leaks, the engine is shot and doesn't pass smog, and the certificate of ownership is forged.

Bitcoin virtual currency hitting the mainstream

Mike Caldwell, a 35-year-old software engineer, mints physical versions of bitcoins at his shop in Sandy, Utah.

Foundation of Utopian economy or 'trading tulips in real-time'?

CBC News: With $600 stuffed in one pocket and a smartphone tucked in the other, Patricio Fink recently struck the kind of deal that's feeding the rise of a new kind of money — a virtual currency whose oscillations have pulled geeks and speculators alike through stomach-churning highs and lows.
The Argentine software developer was dealing in bitcoins — getting an injection of the cybercurrency in exchange for a wad of real greenbacks he handed to a pair of Australian tourists in a Buenos Aires Starbucks. The visitors wanted spending money at black market rates without the risk of getting roughed up in one of the Argentine capital's black market exchanges. Fink wanted to pad his electronic wallet.
In the safety of the coffee shop, the tourists transferred Fink their bitcoins through an app on their smartphone and walked away with the cash.
'I can access my money from any computing device at any time and do whatever the heck I want with it.'—Anthony Gallipi,BitPay
"It's something that is new," said Fink, 24, who described the deal to The Associated Press over Skype. "And it's working."
It's transactions like these — up to 70,000 of them each day over the past month — that have propelled bitcoins from the world of internet oddities to the cusp of mainstream use, a remarkable breakthrough for a currency which made its online debut only four years ago.

Cyprus Denies Gold Sale - Debtors Sell Gold; Creditors Buy

GoldSeek: Cyprus has denied the plan to sell its very small gold reserves of 13.9 tonnes as a contribution to the international bankster robbery.

Were the sale to happen it would be unlikely to set a precedent for other troubled Eurozone countries as these nations now greatly value their gold reserves as important stores of value that will protect against currency devaluations.
The Central Bank of Cyprus (CBC) said last night however that selling the island’s gold had not been on the table.
“Such an issue has not been raised, has not been discussed and is not being discussed at the moment,” CBC spokeswoman Aliki Stylianou said.
Stylianou added that sale of the gold was a matter handled exclusively by the CBC board.
A spokesperson for the Central Bank of Cyprus told the Cyprus News Agency (CNA) that reports of the $523 million gold sale have not been, “raised, discussed or debated,” with the bank’s board of directors.

War Criminal: 'Thatcher's "crimes" go unpunished with her death' + Maggie Thatcher Actions and Legacy - Morris

Press TV: The death of ex-British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher has revived sad memories in Argentina. It was Thatcher who ordered the sinking of an Argentine warship during the Malvinas War in 1982. The incident claimed the lives of hundreds of Argentinean soldiers. And as our correspondent reports many Malvinas war veterans say Thatcher died without ever being punished for the crimes she committed.

Winner Takes All: The Super-priority Status of Derivatives

By Ellen Brown: Cyprus-style confiscation of depositor funds has been called the “new normal.”  Bail-in policies are appearing in multiple countries directing failing TBTF banks to convert the funds of “unsecured creditors” into capital; and those creditors, it turns out, include ordinary depositors. Even “secured” creditors, including state and local governments, may be at risk.  Derivatives have “super-priority” status in bankruptcy, and Dodd Frank precludes further taxpayer bailouts. In a big derivatives bust, there may be no collateral left for the creditors who are next in line.  Shock waves went around the world when the IMF, the EU, and the ECB not only approved but mandated the confiscation of depositor funds to “bail in” two bankrupt banks in Cyprus. A “bail in” is a quantum leap beyond a “bail out.” When governments are no longer willing to use taxpayer money to bail out banks that have gambled away their capital, the banks are now being instructed to “recapitalize” themselves by confiscating the funds of their creditors, turning debt into equity, or stock; and the “creditors” include the depositors who put their money in the bank thinking it was a secure place to store their savings.

David Cameron refered to “gay smears” in order to protect Tory Elm House paedophiles!

CHE’s blatant attempt to get old paedophile charges wiped out


camsofaCameron on the ITV sofa…defending gays or covering for paedophiles?

The Elm House paedophile investigation: senior Conservatives “hiding Downing Street connections to paedophile activists in the Tory Campaign for Homosexual Equality”

The Slog: As Peter Spindler gets bounced off the Fairbank and Fernbridge paedophile investigations, the signs are there yet again that the Establishment is closing ranks to protect its endemic perversion problem. But a new look at an old Tory homosexual group casts some light into that infamous Cameron remark on ITV about “not smearing Gays”. Based on the evidence available, it is entirely possible that the Prime Minister is knowingly protecting murderers.
Peter Spindler, Scotland Yard’s top police officer overseeing the Fairbank and Fernbridge investigations into allegations of child sex abuse, has left the Met abruptly. He is probably leaving to spend more time with his children. Worried they might get abused or something. Sorry: tasteless I know, but the blatant nature of this filibustering makes me angrier than any other single topic.
In order to keep up the appearance of something going on, senior Met officers are in talks with the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to bring in ASBO-style civil protection orders against paedophiles. This will doubtless work alongside the ideas of Law consultant Helen Reece, who wants all paedophiles to be absolved of monitoring and guilt the minute they’re released. Or put another way, I have no idea HTF it would work beyond making them all wear yellow stars that say “I fuck kids”.

US IRS claims they can read your e-mail and other electronic communications without a warrant

By Madison Ruppert: According to documents recently obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) believes they have the authority to read the private e-mail messages, Facebook chats and other online communications of Americans without obtaining a warrant.
This probably isn’t surprising given the blatant nature of the government’s illegal spying at this point and the complete flouting of judicial scrutiny when it comes to government surveillance.
According to IRS lawyers, the American people have “generally no privacy” in online communications which means no Fourth Amendment standards apply and no search warrant is needed to read our private communications.
The 2009 IRS Search Warrant Handbook obtained by the ACLU through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request claims that mails and other transmissions generally lose their reasonable expectation of privacy and thus their Fourth Amendment protection once they have been sent from an individual’s computer.”
Considering the fact that this so-called handbook was prepared by none other than the Office of Chief Counsel for the Criminal Tax Division, this is quite troubling.

BitCoin Drama Continues After Hours

Tyler Durden's picture Think the great BitCoin drama is over? After plunging by over 60% intraday, touching $100 from an all time high of $265 earlier, BitCoin was just getting started, posting a just as epic rebound to $200 in mere hours... before tumbling once more to $125... before rebounding again to $180... before sliding to $140... and so on. As the vomit-inducing sequence above hints, merely following every twist and turn of the real time tragicomedy that is the minute chart of BTC is a full-time job. And with the bulk of assorted BTC price charts DDoSed into oblivion, or merely down due to record traffic, the only remaining real-time chart may be the following from Clark Moody: we suggest using 1 Minute resolution. Perhaps what is most fascinating, is that unlike regular stock, FX or commodity charts which are largely dominated by robots, algos and other electronic traders, the trading in BTC is purely carbon-form based. So for those who enjoy some seriously hypnotic after hours undulations, this chart's for you. Source

GET INTO FOOTBALL - GET OUTTA YOUR FACE

 (Live) Deek Jackson