“Rep. Alan Grayson asks the Federal Reserve Inspector General about the trillions of dollars lent or spent by the Federal Reserve and where it went, and the trillions of off balance sheet obligations. Inspector General Elizabeth Coleman responds that the IG does not know and is not tracking where this money is.”
“The deferred prosecution agreement was reached in December 2012 and was approved Monday. The settlement was seen as a record amount to resolve charges that the bank failed to stop billions of dollars in drug money from flowing through the bank from Mexico. Under the terms of the deal, the Justice Department agreed to suspend criminal charges against HSBC and its US subsidiary for five years if the bank agreed to pay the penalty. When announcing the settlement, HSBC Chief Executive Stuart Gulliver said: ‘The HSBC of today is a fundamentally different organization from the one that made those mistakes.'”
“Many people in the Bitcoin community were shocked when they heard Charlie Shrem was arrested for allegedly laundering money for drug dealers from the Silk Road, but the moral, and perhaps even the legal, case against him is rather weak. While the US Government will definitely try to make an example out of Charlie, it’s unclear as to whether or not the average person on the street would agree that he should be thrown in jail for decades. After reading through the entire criminal complaint against Charlie Shrem, it seems that he is guilty of nothing more than ordering some pot brownies off the Internet.”
http://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/2014/01/28/charlie-shrem-did-nothing-wrong/
“The Post story includes this chilling little tidbit: ‘Bharara’s statement suggests that Bitcoin exchange services that color within the lines of U.S. law—collecting information about their customers and reporting evidence of illegal transactions to the authorities—don’t need to worry about running afoul of money laundering laws.’ This is straight-up extortion, essentially saying that BTC is fine so long as there is no anonymity associated with it. If the feds can weaken it further—say, below the level of anonymity offered by a sack of dollar bills—then all that’s left is to decree that it build a flexible inflation rate to be monitored by the Open Market Committee of the Federal Reserve.”
http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/bitcoin-exec-arrested
“Budovsky said his problems began in 2011, when the FBI asked him for the source code of the software that powered the online currency transfer business. Budovsky suggested that U.S. authorities wanted to use it to undermine his business, the Associated Press reported. ‘I refused. It’s like asking Coca-Cola for their secret formula,’ he told the court through an interpreter. Budovsky said that the confiscation of Liberty Reserve’s servers allowed the United States to access financial information on some 800,000 users and 44 million transactions. He also suggested that his decision to renounce his U.S. citizenship may have labeled him a ‘traitor’ and played a role in his arrest.”
“The first gold coin ever made in the United States fetched a record $4.58 million on auction last week, while a nickel made at the Philadelphia Mint in 1913 raised $3.3 million. Th so-called Brasher Doubloon, the country’s first gold coin denominated in dollars, has been off the market since it was bought by a Chicago resident in 1979 for $430,000. Blanchard & Co., the New Orleans-based coin and precious-metals company that brokered the deal, said the doubloon was purchased by a Wall Street investment firm. Identities of the buyer and seller weren’t disclosed. Minted by Ephraim Brasher in 1787, a goldsmith and neighbour of George Washington, the coin contains 26.66 grams of gold.”
http://www.mining.com/historic-1oz-gold-coin-goes-for-4-6-million-at-auction-78428/
“In just the last year, giant secured private vaults located in free ports have opened, or are about to open, in Geneva, Hong Kong, Luxembourg, Monaco, Panama, Shanghai, and Singapore. Clients pay monthly or annual fees for secure storage, generally based on the value of the goods they keep there. In addition to the tax advantages, private vaults aren’t part of the global financial system. It’s difficult – and often impossible – for a foreign government to confiscate the goods kept in a private vault. And the information-exchange and asset confiscation agreements that the US and other high-tax countries have forced low-tax countries to sign don’t apply to assets outside the financial system.”
http://www.nestmann.com/the-one-place-they-cant-bail-in
“Germany’s central bank Monday proposed a one-time wealth tax as an option for euro-zone countries facing bankruptcy, reviving a idea that has circled for years in Europe but has so far gained little traction. ‘The question arises whether in extraordinary national emergencies in addition to privatization and conventional consolidation efforts, private wealth can also contribute to avert a government insolvency,’ the Deutsche Bundesbank said. The idea of a one-time tax on private wealth isn’t new. Italy has flirted with the idea of a wealth tax over the past three years. The IMF in October also floated the idea of a one-time ‘capital levy,’ amid a sharp deterioration of public finances in many countries.”
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304007504579346330639793674
“If you have an aggregate of $10,000 or more in foreign financial accounts at any time during the year, you must file an FBAR. And if you don’t, the penalties are what can only be described as cruel and unusual. Starting this year, it must be filed online—paper forms will no longer be accepted. People who are unaware of the change or who forget about it and snail-mail the old paper form may be considered as late filers or worse. So be sure to confirm with your tax preparer or accountant that he or she is aware that the FBAR must now be filed online. The official name of the FBAR also changed, from Treasury Form TD F 90-22.1 to FinCEN Form 114.”
“The worst example of government spying may be the web of laws and regulations that require banks to monitor our bank accounts and to share millions of reports about our financial transactions with the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. These laws have become very expensive and intrusive, yet they’ve had no measurable impact on crime rates. As you might expect, politicians and bureaucrats have decided to double down on failure and they’re making anti-money laundering laws more onerous, imposing ever-higher costs in hopes of having some sort of positive impact.”