Category Archives: Reference

Tax-Saving AB Trusts and New Estate Tax Rules

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“Under the old tax laws, each spouse had an estate tax exemption, but typically, the first spouse to die didn’t use his or her exemption. That’s because most spouses left everything to the survivor and bequests to a surviving spouse aren’t subject to estate tax. But the surviving spouse then owned all the couple’s assets; estate tax would be owed when the second spouse died. The portability provision (which became effective in 2011) lets the surviving spouse use any part of the total exemption — $10.24 million for deaths in 2012 — that isn’t used by the first spouse to die. So for most couples, there’s no need for an AB trust.”

http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/tax-saving-ab-trusts-29621.html

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How Bitcoin Works Under the Hood

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How Bitcoin Works Under the Hood

“The goal of this video is to explain how Bitcoin works under the hood, to give a clearer idea of what it really means to own, send or ‘mine’ Bitcoins.  First, a brief high-level overview of what Bitcoin is.  At its core, Bitcoin is just a digital file that lists accounts and money like a ledger. A copy of this file is maintained on every computer in the Bitcoin network. The Bitcoin system is amazingly designed so that no trust is needed–special mathematical functions protect every aspect of the system. The rest of this entry will explain in detail how Bitcoin allows such a group of strangers to manage each other’s financial transactions.”

http://www.imponderablethings.com/2013/07/how-bitcoin-works-under-hood.html

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Mondragon Corporation (Wikipedia)

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“Currently it is the seventh-largest Spanish company in terms of asset turnover and the leading business group in the Basque Country. At the end of 2012, it employed 83,321 people in 256 companies in four areas of activity: Finance, Industry, Retail and Knowledge. The determining factor in the creation of the Mondragon system was the arrival in 1941 of a young Catholic priest José María Arizmendiarrieta in Mondragón, a town with a population of 7,000. In 1943, Arizmendiarrieta established a technical college that became a training ground for generations of managers, engineers and skilled labour for local companies, and primarily for the co-operatives.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation

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St. Louis Fed: The Financial Crisis Timeline 2007-2009

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http://timeline.stlouisfed.org/index.cfm?p=timeline

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History of the Internet (Wikipedia)

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“Since the mid-1990s, the Internet has had a revolutionary impact on culture and commerce, including the rise of near-instant communication by electronic mail, instant messaging, VoIP ‘phone calls’, two-way interactive video calls, and the World Wide Web with its discussion forums, blogs, social networking, and online shopping sites. The Internet’s takeover over the global communication landscape was almost instant in historical terms: it only communicated 1% of the information flowing through two-way telecommunications networks in the year 1993, already 51% by 2000, and more than 97% of the telecommunicated information by 2007.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Internet

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Cypherpunk (Wikipedia)

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“A cypherpunk is an activist advocating widespread use of strong cryptography as a route to social and political change. Originally communicating through the Cypherpunks electronic mailing list, informal groups aimed to achieve privacy and security through proactive use of cryptography. Cypherpunks have been engaged in an active movement since the late 1980s. A very basic cypherpunk issue is privacy in communications and data retention. Such guarantees require strong cryptography, so cypherpunks are fundamentally opposed to government policies attempting to control the usage or export of cryptography, which remained an issue throughout the late 90s.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cypherpunk

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Whitfield Diffie (Wikipedia)

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“Bailey Whitfield ‘Whit’ Diffie is an American cryptographer and one of the pioneers of public-key cryptography.  In 1975-76, Diffie and Martin Hellman criticized the NBS proposed Data Encryption Standard, largely because its 56-bit key length was too short to prevent Brute-force attack. Subsequent history has shown not only that NSA actively intervened with IBM and NBS to shorten the key size, but also that the short key size enabled exactly the kind of massively parallel key crackers that Hellman and Diffie sketched out. When these were ultimately built outside the classified world, they made it clear that DES was insecure and obsolete.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitfield_Diffie

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Data Encryption Standard – NSA’s involvement in the design (Wikipedia)

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“In 1973 NBS solicited private industry for a data encryption standard (DES). The first offerings were disappointing, so NSA began working on its own algorithm. Then Howard Rosenblum, deputy director for research and engineering, discovered that Walter Tuchman of IBM was working on a modification to Lucifer for general use. NSA gave Tuchman a clearance and brought him in …] NSA worked closely with IBM to strengthen the algorithm against all except brute force attacks and to strengthen S-boxes.  Conversely, NSA tried to convince IBM to reduce the length of the key from 64 to 48 bits. Ultimately they compromised on a 56-bit key.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Encryption_Standard#NSA.27s_involvement_in_the_design

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Sword hunt – Wikipedia

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“Several times in Japanese history, the new ruler sought to ensure his position by calling a Sword hunt (刀狩 katanagari). Armies would scour the entire country, confiscating the weapons of the enemies of the new regime. In this manner, the new ruler sought to ensure that no one could take the country by force as he had just done. The most famous sword hunt was ordered by Toyotomi Hideyoshi in 1588.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sword_hunt

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The Federal Reserve: Heavily Laden

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Fed_Balance_Sheet

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