Venezuela Runs Out of Toilet Paper, Achieves True Socialism

“Venezuela’s product shortages have become so severe that some hotels in that country are asking guests to bring their own toilet paper and soap, a local tourism industry spokesman said on Wednesday.  Says Xinia Camacho, owner of a 20-room boutique hotel in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada national park, ‘For over a year we haven’t had toilet paper, soap, any kind of milk, coffee or sugar. So we have to tell our guests to come prepared.’  Recently, Venezuelan officials have been stopping people from transporting essential goods across the country in an effort to stem the flow of contraband. So now Camacho’s guests could potentially have their toilet paper confiscated.”

http://fee.org/blog/detail/venezuela-runs-out-of-toilet-paper-achieves-true-socialism

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‘Beats paying $10K’: Uninsured opt for Obamacare fine over coverage

“A moratorium for uninsured Americans to avoid paying a tax penalty under the Affordable Care Act may not be accomplishing its desired goal, as many citizens appear to be opting to pay a fine rather than sign up for coverage.  Although it’s still early in the process—the extended deadline lapses in April—a senior executive at H&R Block said that ‘a significant percentage of taxpayers’ are opting to pay the penalty.  Separately, only 12 percent of uninsured people would buy policies if informed of the penalty, according to a survey of 3,000 adults polled by McKinsey & Co.”

http://www.cnbc.com/id/102524819

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Bill Bonner: The Day the ATMs Run Out…

“You will have a credit card with a $10,000 line of credit. You have $5,000 in your debit account. But all financial institutions are staggering. And in the news you will read that your bank has defaulted and been placed in receivership. What would you rather have? Your $10,000 line of credit or a stack of $50 bills?  You will go to buy gasoline. You will take out your credit card to pay.  ‘Cash Only,’ the sign will say. Because the machinery of the credit economy will be breaking down. Whose lines of credit are still valuable? Whose bank is ready to fail? Who can pay his mortgage? Who will honor his credit card debt?  No one will know the answers. Quickly, they will stop guessing… and turn to cash.”

http://bonnerandpartners.com/day-atms-run/

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Attacking Payday Predators Misses the Point

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“Holder wants to prosecute Wall Street bankers and Bloomberg wants to regulate payday lenders. Neither approach deals with the fundamental issue of the business cycle and central banking’s role in it.  Holder’s latest initiative targets Wall Street banking. The CFPB believes a similar level of exploitation lurks within the payday loan industry. It would be far more productive to try to understand why such payday loans are necessary, why poverty is increasing in the US and throughout the West, why some 40 million US citizens use food stamps while tens of millions more cannot find a job. These are deep and serious issues that would demand scrutiny of the US’s basic economic model.”

http://www.thedailybell.com/news-analysis/36100/Attacking-Payday-Predators-Misses-the-Point/

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Belarus: Loans return, but interest rates double to 65%

“In addition to a 30% duty on the purchase of foreign currency imposed in December, the National Bank recommended banks not to issue loans to stabilise the situation on the financial market.  The measure was supposed to restrict the growth of money supply and increase the value of money. As a result, Belarusians have not been able to take loans from banks for a month.  Commercial bank began to issue loans again, but raised interest rates. The cheapest loan has an interest rate of 45%, the most expensive one – 82%.  Average interests rates are now from 60 to 65% against 25-30% in early December.”

http://charter97.org/en/news/2015/1/22/136361/

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CNN’s Morgan Spurlock: Living On Bitcoin

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Bitcoin: The People’s Money with Roger Ver and Jeffrey Tucker

“This is the first episode in a monthly series dedicated to Bitcoin.  We could hardly have better guests than Chief Liberty Officer of Liberty.me, Jeffrey Tucker, and Roger ‘Bitcoin Jesus’ Ver, investor in some of the most successful Bitcoin companies like Blockchain.info, BitPay, and Kraken. We will talk about Jeffrey’s latest book ‘Bit By Bit: How P2P Is Freeing the World’, businesses that Roger is involved in, their path to Bitcoin, and how it relates to the philosophy of liberty and the Austrian school of economics.”

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How Long Can Central Banks Push Bonds to Absurdity?

“By throwing free money around that has to go somewhere,and by making leverage essentially free, central banks have catapulted asset prices into absurdity. They have created a mechanism by which governments and corporations can load up on debt without paying the otherwise normal costs of capital, and sometimes at an outright profit, while at the same time depriving those whose money this is – regular investors, pension funds, savers, and others – of a return. Confiscation comes to mind.  But there are costs. It saddles these governments and corporations with a future problem: debt doesn’t just go away. It has to be rolled over (or be paid off, a novel concept in these circles).”

http://wolfstreet.com/2015/02/04/how-long-can-central-banks-push-bonds-to-absurdity/

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Mortgage Banks Meet With Danish Government on Negative Rates

“Denmark is helping its mortgage banks figure out how to tackle negative interest rates after the industry called upon the government to step in.  Business Minister Henrik Sass Larsen is forming a working group that will address the challenges that negative rates pose for the $500 billion industry. The development follows the central bank’s historic efforts to save its euro peg, forcing policy makers to cut the benchmark deposit rate to minus 0.75 percent, suspend government bond sales and sell a record amount of kroner to weaken the currency.  Nykredit and Nordea have said they won’t issue bond-backed mortgages at negative yields. Realkredit Danmark A/S has said it will.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-05/mortgage-banks-to-meet-with-danish-government-on-negative-rates

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Negative mortgage rates in Denmark; $3.6 trillion of negative yield debt

“With negative interest rates in Germany, Switzerland, Ireland, Belgium, and Denmark, it was about time that we saw negative mortgage rates in Europe as well. In January, as much as $3.6 trillion of debt in Europe and Japan traded at negative yields. Unprecedented bond buying by the European Central Bank (the ECB) and Bank of Japan (the BOJ) has resulted in a manipulation of global capital markets that could lead to another major asset bubble.  The situation has gotten so out of hand that not only are interest rates -0.2% at the ECB’s overnight deposit facility, but commercial banks are also lending to individuals at negative rates.”

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/negative-mortgage-rates-denmark-3-210020766.html

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