Only Two Currencies Are Valuable In Argentina
U.S. Dollars and Bitcoin. See here and here.… read more
Read More CommentPolicing for Profit
Watch this Florida TV station’s report on shortening yellow lights from 4.5 to 4.3 seconds, generating $100 million in revenue last year inapproximately 70 Florida communities, with 52.5 percent of the revenue going to the state. The rest is divided by cities, counties, and the camera companies. In 2013, the cameras are on pace to… read more
Read More CommentThe New Tulipmania
Tim Price has penned a hysterical letter for PFP Wealth Management entitled “The tulip harvest is in !” with the clever dateline March 1637 Amsterdam (Ruyters). Readers of Early Speculative Bubbles will immediately point out that Tulipmania collapsed in February 1637. No doubt, Price’s message is that the current market is whistling past the graveyard.… read more
Read More CommentIt’s an Upside Down World
A Las Vegas Sun headline shouts, “Only in Las Vegas, where home construction and foreclosures surge simultaneously.” Yes, Sin City lacks housing inventory so builders pulled 349 permits in Q1. That’s a 57% increase from last year. Of course, 349 in a quarter is a long way from the 33,000 permits pulled in all of… read more
Read More CommentThe Attack on Digital Innovation
This seems to be the month that government discovered the Internet and noticed that it is a big deal. People are doing all kinds of things, like sharing files, inventing new things, distributing stuff to the world, finding new ways to trade that improve on official systems of the past. It kind of looks like… read more
Read More CommentLiving on Bitcoin: The Final Chapter
Read More CommentCody Wilson Responds the State Department
Read More CommentGovernment Might Get Addicted to GSE Profits?
Wow, what a difference a couple years and accounting magic make. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac looked like they were bottomless taxpayer pits post crash, now, Fannie announces its sending a $59.4 billion check to the Treasury. Freddie is handing over $7 billion and may be able to send the government another $30 billion this… read more
Read More CommentPrivate, Digital Money is the Future
I’m super jazzed about this podcast. The host of the show encouraged a real stretching out here, and so we speculate about the economic and sociological implications of the next stage of digitization. It happened to mail. It happened to film. It happened to education. Now it is happening to money and finance. And we… read more
Read More CommentWatch the Wired.com Bitcoin Miner Work and Work
Free desktop streaming application by Ustream… read more
Read More CommentLives and Property On the Line
There are many good conferences going on throughout the year but there is one with a long tradition that I can truly describe as absolutely great in every way. It is the Agora Financial Investment Symposium. The focus is investment but the theme is really all about applied individual liberty. In other words, this conference… read more
Read More CommentLockdown Nation
The lockdown of Boston last month has fallen out of the news cycle. People have moved on with their lives, and paid little attention to what the event implies. But here is the reality: every city government in the country is ready to repeat this experience. The implications are actually momentous. When Dzokhar Tsarnaev was… read more
Read More CommentNLRB Has a Bad Day
If we could only be so lucky more often. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) was slapped around yesterday by three judges on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, “ruling in National Association of Manufacturers v. National Labor Relations Board, struck down the NLRB’s diktat that businesses put up pro-union posters in the workplace. That,… read more
Read More CommentDiscrimination Nation
Various bank regulators are circling banks looking for discrimination and in the case of a Maryland community bank, the OCC (Office of the Comptroller of the Currency) found some. American Banker reports, Pikesville-based Community First Bank, which has just $7 million of assets, was slapped in March with an enforcement action by the Office of… read more
Read More CommentSome New Kids on the Monetary Block
Regulators and tax collectors can slow down the drive to modernize the money and banking system, but they can’t stop it. It is on its way, with young entrepreneurs working every day to innovate and break down the old model. It’s a heck of a way to celebrate the 100-year anniversary of the Fed. If… read more
Read More CommentWhine Time
Read More CommentBubbles, Bitcoins, and the Merit of Volitility: An Interview with Peter Earle
Read More CommentWhy Too Much Data Might Actually Protect Your Privacy
We’ve entered a new age based on technology and huge volumes of data. All these data will help to shape our future world. What this means for us is we can make smarter decisions and act faster. But it hinges on our ability to read and make sense of it all. The problem this creates… read more
Read More CommentShort Memories Make Greater Fools
Reuters reports on a story we’ve been following for a while: Big money is rushing to buy detached single family houses in Las Vegas while, according to the number crunchers at UNLV, 40,000 homes sit empty. These big investors and a handful of others have bought at least 55,000 single-family homes across the U.S. in… read more
Read More CommentJamie’s Birthday Suit
I review a great new book, The Bankers’ New Clothes for The Freeman. Also, the American Banker reports today, Second-lien loans have increased along with overall new issues in the leveraged loan market this year. U.S. companies closed on $130 billion in loans through April 30, an increase from approximately $90 billion at this point… read more
Read More CommentMen Who Built America
Who has seen “The Men Who Made America”? I can tell you that I’m absolutely crazy for this and I’ve only seen two episodes. This whole period, the Gilded Age, is completely forgotten in American history. Black out. It was the greatest time in the world to be alive, and the most prosperous spot on… read more
Read More CommentBitcoin Update
The market for Bitcoin is evolving quickly and furiously, posing both opportunities and risks. While the price has stabilized somewhat since the wild swings during the last two months but the velocity of transactions has fallen as people are choosing to hoard their existing stash rather than spend it. The consensus among close watchers is… read more
Read More CommentKhan Academy Tutorial on Bitcoin
Read More CommentLiving on Bitcoins for a Week
This piece in Forbes by Kashmill Hill has two surprises in it for me. First, Coinbase has fewer subscribers/users than I would have expected. Second, the retail market is actually more developed than I would have expected at this very early stage of adoption.… read more
Read More CommentThe eBook Release This Week
Tucker’s Take: Early Speculative Bubbles (Non-Member’s version) from Agora Financial on Vimeo.… read more
Read More CommentThe Trouble with New Model Cars
Here’s the problem with the newest models of cars. Thanks to government safety and efficiency regulations, they are not only super uncool but they also make you feel like you are driving a coffin. The tops of the doors are so high that you can’t see the road below you. The hood is high too… read more
Read More CommentThe Bitcoin “Crash” and the Trend
The people who want Bitcoin to fail keep going on about the Bitcoin crash, but here it how it looks today. A wild ride to be sure, but the overall trend is very impressive. This is also why I question the use of the term “bubble” to describe its high. Overbought is more suitable.… read more
Read More CommentThe Underwater Diploma
On Friday, CNBC.com headlines blared, “Job Picture Looks Bleak for 2013 College Grads.” If just simply finding a job isn’t bad enough, the Economic Policy Institute says the class of 2013 will earn less over the next 10-15 years. Recently, Brad Plumer wrote for The Washington Post that student loan debt “is dragging down the… read more
Read More CommentOblivion, The Movie that Questions Power
It took me a night’s sleep to figure out Oblivion, a new Tom Cruise sci-fi thriller. It is set in the future when Earth has been largely destroyed and a only a handful of people remain to keep the so-called scavengers away from the remains. Droids roam the earth to blast away the scavengers and… read more
Read More CommentThe Scramble To Get Away from Government Courts
For all people who think government courts are so necessary and fantastic, consider that in every big deal involving substantial amounts of money today, private arbitration agreements are routine. These agreements concede what everyone actually knows but few say outright: when the officials courts handle a case, only the government wins while both parties in… read more
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