How Venezuelan Used ‘Scrape’ to Make Six Times Her Salary

Venezuela’s currency controls are turning trips abroad into profitable junkets. A 27-year-old trade analyst from Caracas said she earned six times her monthly salary by traveling in April to Lima, where a business swiped her credit card and gave her $1,600 cash, charged at the official exchange rate of 6.3 bolivars per dollar. When the analyst, who requested anonymity because what she did is illegal, returned to Venezuela, she sold the dollars at the street rate of 29-to-1, enough to pocket 25,000 bolivars after paying off her credit card and travel expenses. The scheme, known as ‘raspao’ or ‘big scrape,’ is booming in Venezuela.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-31/how-venezuelan-used-scrape-to-make-six-times-her-salary.html

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Challenging a Long-Held Assumption about Commodities

“When it comes to oil demand, 17 years ago, China was a net exporter. Today, it is the second-largest importer, transporting 5.4 million barrels of oil into the country every day. That’s why it is widely accepted that the Asian giant spurred higher commodity prices in the past decade. And if the country was the force behind the boom, then the assumption is that China’s lower, but still healthy growth will be a drag on commodity prices. But recent research challenges this assumption. According to BCA Research’s Chen Zhao, what is initially an ‘outrageous proposition’ may not actually be.”

http://dailyreckoning.com/challenging-a-long-held-assumption-about-commodities/

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Why Buffett Bailed on India

“Buffett isn’t alone in voting with his feet. Wal-Mart Stores Inc., ArcelorMittal (MT) SA and Posco are pulling back on investments in India that they had announced with great fanfare. What’s scaring foreigners away? A rampant political dysfunction that has stopped India’s progress cold. Headwinds from New Delhi are contributing to the slowest growth rates in a decade, a record current-account deficit and a 7.9 percent plunge in the rupee this year. Fiscal neglect has bond traders demanding higher yields for government debt than India wants to pay.  Foreign-direct investment slid about 21 percent last fiscal year, and this one doesn’t look promising.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-22/why-buffett-bailed-on-india.html

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Jim Rogers: I’m Optimistic About the U.S. Dollar

Jim Rogers: I’m Optimistic About the U.S. Dollar

“Rogers had a few tips for investors. ‘I’m wildly optimistic about agriculture,’ he explained. ‘It’s going to be one of the most exciting economic sectors in the world in the next 20 or 30 years. Prices have been so low… the sugar price has been down 75% since 1974.’ He noted the longtime lows signaled good long-term buying opportunities. Rogers has shifted his currency strategy, now believing that ‘currency turmoil’ around the world will lead investors to flee to the relative security of dollars. ‘To my astonishment, I’m optimistic about the U.S. dollar, which I’ve been terribly pessimistic about for years.'”

http://dailyreckoning.com/jim-rogers-im-optimistic-about-the-u-s-dollar/

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2013 Bitcoin Mid-Year Review and Outlook

“The past six months may one day prove to be among the most important in bitcoin’s history. As global events sparked increasing need for frictionless wealth transfers, bitcoin’s popularity ballooned and ignited a conversation that will likely continue to flourish in the years to come. Growth in bitcoin’s value was outpaced only by the incredible interest from entrepreneurs, investors and the press. In this 27-page report we cover the major events from the first half of 2013 and what to look out for in the months ahead.”

http://thegenesisblock.com/bitcoin-mid-year-review-and-outlook/

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China’s Central Bank Subsidizes the Federal Deficit

“The Chinese central bank creates money out of nothing, just as the Federal Reserve does. Then it takes this newly counterfeited money and buys U.S. government debt, just as the Federal Reserve does. It bought $25 billion of this debt last month. The Federal Reserve bought $45 billion. So, when it comes to currency-rigging, which central bank is the greater culprit?  The two economies, China’s and America’s, are addicted to the drug of fiat money. The first central bank to quit counterfeiting — the first one to ‘taper’ — starts the international recession. The first one to stop inflating permanently will turn the recession into a depression. Which will it be?”

http://teapartyeconomist.com/2013/07/17/chinas-central-bank-subsidizes-the-federal-deficit/

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Google no longer able to pay Android developers in Argentina, pulling apps on July 27th

“Developers in Argentina have begun receiving letters from Google informing them that ‘Google Play will no longer be able to accept payments on behalf of developers registered in Argentina starting June 27, 2013.’ The change applies to both paid apps and apps that use in-app purchases. The move appears to be related to new, restrictive regulations the Argentine government has imposed on currency exchanges, which The Telegraph detailed this past September. Twitter has quite a few developers complaining about the changes, but it’s not clear how many people will be affected.”

http://www.theverge.com/2013/5/24/4363960/google-no-longer-able-to-pay-developers-in-argentina-for-apps-pulling

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As the market panic demonstrates, central banks are stuck on a treadmill of money printing

“Last night’s panic in Tokyo, where the Nikkei dropped a stomach churning 7 per cent, demonstrates just how difficult it’s going to be for the world’s central banks to exit their loose money policies. It’s not even as if Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Fed, said he was planning to exit; in fact, initially he said the reverse in testimony to Congress. What the subsequent violent gyrations in markets indicate is that any hint of applying the brakes risks generating a fresh financial crisis, which in turn would render the economic recovery still born. Both financial markets and the real economy have become addicted to ‘quantitative easing’, such that they can’t do without it.”

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jeremywarner/100024675/as-the-market-panic-demonstrates-central-banks-are-stuck-on-a-treadmill-of-money-printing/

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The Bank of Japan must crush all resistance, and will do so

“Kudos to Kyle Bass at Hayman Advisers for warning that the Bank of Japan would lose control of its ¥70 trillion bond buying blitz. The spike in the 10-year yield to 1pc on Thursday was certainly shocking to behold. His point is that the BoJ faces a ‘rational investor paradox’. The authorities are trying to drive up the inflation to 2pc and therefore to devalue Japanese government bonds (JGBs), so why on earth would you want to own them? He says the scramble to sell has ‘overwhelmed’ buying by the BoJ. Governor Kuroda will now have double down with a huge increase in the scale of QE.”

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/ambroseevans-pritchard/100024696/the-bank-of-japan-must-crush-all-resistance-and-will-do-so/

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Peter Schiff: The Biggest Loser Wins

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“Never in the course of history has a country’s economy failed because its currency was too strong. It’s a pathology that simply does not exist. On the other hand, the list of those ruined by weak currencies is extensive. The view that a weak currency is desirable is so absurd that it could only have been devised to serve the political agenda of those engineering the descent.  A currency war is different from any other kind of conventional war in that the object is to kill oneself. The nation that succeeds in inflicting the most damage on its own citizens wins the war. The only real way to win is not to play.”

http://www.europac.net/commentaries/biggest_loser_wins

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