Over the weekend, Saudi King Salman shocked the world by abruptly announcing the arrests of 11 senior princes and some 38 ministers, including Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, the world’s sixty-first richest man and the largest shareholder in Citi, News Corp. and Twitter. The purge was orchestrated by a new “supreme committee” to investigate public corruption created by King Salman but under the control of Crown Prince...
Read More »Frontrunning: November 15
GOP Seeks to Derail Moore, Salvage Senate Seat (WSJ) Army takes control in Zimbabwe (Reuters) Senate Tax Plan Guts Obamacare, Sunsets Many Middle-Class Cuts (BBG) Senate Republicans tie tax plan to repeal of key Obamacare mandate (Reuters) Trump’s Campaign Foreign Policy Team Under Mueller’s Microscope (BBG) Ryan Says Future Congresses Will Preserve Tax Bill’s Temporary Measures (BBG) Shareholders take aim at Murdochs with Fox voting rights push (Reuters) AT&T Engages Its Washington...
Read More »Mysterious Bitcoin Dip-Buyer Identified
Amid the cataclymsic collapse of Bitcoin late on Friday night, the crypto currency suddenly saw a large buyer step in as prices plummeted below $6000. We now have an idea who that buyer of last resort was... As a result of a giant publicity effort from its proponents, BCH saw mass investment as it heads towards a potentially contentious hard fork set for just after 7 p.m. GMT today. The failure of SegWit2x, coupled with endorsement from the soon-to-be-defunct Bitcoin...
Read More »Saudi Billionaires Scramble To Move Cash Offshore, Escape Asset Freeze
Over the weekend, Saudi King Salman shocked the world by abruptly announcing the arrests of 11 senior princes and some 38 ministers, including Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, the world’s sixty-first richest man and the largest shareholder in Citi, News Corp. and Twitter. The purge was orchestrated by a new “supreme committee” to investigate public corruption created by King Salman but under the control of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who chairs the committee and is widely...
Read More »Each Bitcoin Transaction Uses As Much Energy As Your House In A Week
While Bitcoin bulls will probably never have it so good as they have in 2017, we wonder whether many of them have stopped to think about the environmental downside of this roaring bull market. After all, back in the dot.com boom, people had ideas about potential internet businesses, issued pieces of paper representing ownership and watched their prices go parabolic parabolic. All it took was a Powerpoint presentation,...
Read More »Each Bitcoin Transaction Uses As Much Energy As Your House In A Week
While Bitcoin bulls will probably never have it so good as they have in 2017, we wonder whether many of them have stopped to think about the environmental downside of this roaring bull market. After all, back in the dot.com boom, people had ideas about potential internet businesses, issued pieces of paper representing ownership and watched their prices go parabolic parabolic. All it took was a Powerpoint presentation, some computer programming expertise and a “research” report,...
Read More »If American Federalism Were Like Swiss Federalism, There Would Be 1,300 States
In a recent interview with Mises Weekends, Claudio Grass examined some of the advantages of the Swiss political system, and how highly decentralized politics can bring with it great economic prosperity, more political stability, and a greater respect for property rights. Since the Swiss political system of federalism is itself partially inspired by 19th-century American federalism, the average American can...
Read More »If American Federalism Were Like Swiss Federalism, There Would Be 1,300 States
Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute, In a recent interview with Mises Weekends, Claudio Grass examined some of the advantages of the Swiss political system, and how highly decentralized politics can bring with it great economic prosperity, more political stability, and a greater respect for property rights. Since the Swiss political system of federalism is itself partially inspired by 19th-century American federalism, the average American can usually imagine in...
Read More »Key Charts: Gold is Cheap and US Recession May Be Closer Than Think
by Dominic Frisby of Money Week Every year, Ronald-Peter Stoeferle and Mark J Valek of investment and asset management company Incrementum put together the report In Gold We Trust – 160-plus pages of charts and thoughts, mostly gold-related, on the state of the world’s finances. There’s so much to look at and consider. It’s a sort of digital equivalent of a coffee-table book. Yesterday I got an email from them, containing a “best of” – a compendium of some of the best...
Read More »WTI Tumbles Below $50 To 3-Week Lows
On the heels of continued dollar strength, output increases by OPEC (and US production at 2 year highs), and Libya restarting its biggest oilfield, WTI prices are tumbling for the 3rd time this week, back below $50 to their lowest in 3 weeks... As Bloomberg notes, while oil rallied into a bull market last month on the prospect of stronger demand, prices struggled to hold above $52 a barrel as supply grew from the U.S. and two members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting...
Read More »