“Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein delivered a speech on Tuesday about what he calls ‘responsible encryption’ today. It misses the mark, by far.”
“The Spanish government has come under increasing criticism for raiding the offices of the .cat internet registry in the lead-up to a referendum on Catalans’ independence. On Wednesday morning, police entered the registry’s headquarters in Barcelona and seized all of its computers. The cops also arrested six members of staff, and held four of them for two days. Its CTO has been accused of sedition. The raid and arrest has sparked protests from the .cat company, as well as the Internet Society and the EFF.”
“Rajoy said Catalan authorities broke the law by holding the referendum and incited street protests to give an appearance of legitimacy to the vote. He did not refer to the violence with which police cracked down on voting day but said ‘nobody can be proud of the image’ Spain projected, adding the only ones to blame were the Catalan leaders.”
“The two financial giants are now offering trades in derivatives that enable investors to bet on or against high-risk bank bonds that financial regulators can wipe out if a lender runs into trouble. Others are also planning to start making markets in the contracts, known as total-return swaps, in the coming weeks, according to Max Ruscher, the London-based director of credit indexes at IHS Markit Ltd., which administers the benchmarks that the swaps are linked to.”
“Investors placed almost 11 billion euros of orders for Austria’s first century bond, which had a yield of 2.1 percent. That’s less than the current yield earned on Treasuries coming due in just 10 years. The ‘quite peculiar’ bond market reflects expectations of a subdued investor response to when the European Central Bank decides to rein in its super accommodative monetary policy, according to Kim Liu, senior fixed-income strategist at ABN Amro Group NV.”
“Something similar happened back in 2014, when police in Peoria, Illinois, arrested a man for impersonating the town’s mayor on Twitter. The man (Jon Daniel) sued the city with the help of the ACLU and argued that the arrest violated his First Amendment rights. Ultimately, the city was forced to pay $125,000 to settle the case.”
“The defendant, who faces a maximum of three years in prison if convicted, argued that it was ‘patently illogical’ to hold someone criminally liable for sending nude pictures to a minor—yet it’s legal to expose themselves to minors in person. The Indiana ruling is among a string of cases in which sexting laws are clearly nonsensical.”
“Buyers of Lennar’s homes could receive a payment of up to $13,000 toward their student loans, as much as 3% of the home’s purchase price, from its subsidiary, Eagle Home Mortgage. The nation’s collective student debt stands at an all-time high of $1.34 trillion, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.”
“Those kinds of bets have often paid off. Buyers who snapped up co-ops and office towers when New York was near bankruptcy in the 1970s made a killing. More recently, companies including Blackstone Group LP and other marquee names bought foreclosed homes after the 2008 financial crisis and are sitting on billions in potential gains. The cycle begins with small-time investors such as Schild, who’s bought more than 30 waterlogged houses for an average $175,000 apiece. Then Wall Street swoops in.”
“Despite strong criticism from President Trump over the deal reached by Obama with Iran and the strong distrust of Iran, the country has benefitted strongly in the almost 2 years since over 90% of sanctions were lifted.”
Read more: https://www.investmentfrontier.com/2017/10/08/iran-firing-cylinders/
