“WikiLeaks has called for a ‘global blockade’ of Coinbase, after the world’s biggest bitcoin brokerage banned the whistleblowing organisation’s online store from using its service.”
“The ultimate goal of countries like Venezuela, Iran and Russia seems to be to create a parallel financial system under a new alliance of nations.”
Read more: https://moneyandmarkets.com/iran-russia-launching-cryptos/
“Tehran announced that it will start reporting foreign currency amounts in euros rather than US dollars, as part of the country’s effort to reduce its reliance on the American currency.”
Read more: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20180419-iran-switches-from-dollar-to-euro/
“Under the deal, the payments for oil will be made through India’s state-run UCO Bank, which has no US exposure.”
Read more: https://www.rt.com/business/428245-india-iran-dollar-rupee-oil/
“Communications Minister Sam Basil said the one-month shutdown would ‘allow information to be collected’ about people using the site for nefarious purposes.”
Read more: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/05/papua-guinea-ban-facebook-month-180530053406737.html
“There are on the order of 10,000 sales tax jurisdictions. There is substantial variation in what is or is not taxed and subtleties like coupons. ”
Read more: https://www.ebaymainstreet.com/issues/internet-sales-tax
“The limitations emerged as President Donald Trump announced plans to impose tariffs on $50 billion of Chinese imports and curb investment in sensitive technology.”
Parents concerned about mass murders perpetrated in gun-free zones should ditch public schools for safer alternatives with better educational outcomes, writes Thomas Eckert.
Read more: https://mises.org/wire/it%E2%80%99s-time-focus-school-school-shooting
The Baton Rouge Bus Boycott which occurred in Baton Rouge, Louisiana in 1953, was the first large-scale boycott of a southern segregated bus system. The Baton Rouge Boycott inspired the Montgomery Bus Boycott two years later. [..] The boycott was prompted partly by the 1950 decision by the Baton Rouge city council to support the financially strapped municipal bus company by revoking the licenses of nearly 40 competing black-owned companies.
Today, the Louisiana governor has barred companies expressing opposition to the Israeli government’s Gaza occupation policy from engaging in contracts with the state of Louisiana, becoming the 25th U.S. state to do so.
Then as now, what the State giveth, the State taketh away, so this sort of political correctness masquerading as commercial policy is not exactly new or surprising.
The real curiosity is that twenty-five U.S. states, now including the Democrat governor of a state with a microscopic Jewish population, would be so curiously eager to align their administrations with the territorial ambitions of a foreign government on the other side of the world.
Exactly what articulable public policy objective is being advanced by curtailing freedom of expression in this way? Well, perhaps the objective is not one of public policy, but to respond to a private pressure campaign. The effect, however, is to ensure that company owners that refuse to do business with the state of Israel are also placed at a disadvantage domestically: to be taxed just as heavily but to have fewer commercial opportunities.
If the courts do not curtail this practice (which almost certainly runs counter to the freedom of expression guarantees in state constitutions), one could certainly imagine this anti-boycott ‘tool’ being applied in a variety of ways to force merchants to perform services they would otherwise morally object to.
If it’s acceptable to extort merchants into fulfilling orders from a foreign government and to, say, bake gay wedding cakes, as is presently fashionable, perhaps forcing merchants to support Louisiana’s prison labor regime is a reasonable next step?
“States that have legalized either recreational or medicinal marijuana now lead the way in companies which are dropping drug tests.”