Tag Archives: Money

Rome: Money, Mischief and Minted Crises

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“In a period of about 370 years, the denarius and its successors were debased incrementally from 98 percent to less than one percent silver. The massive spending of the welfare/warfare state exacted a terrible toll in the name of either ‘helping’ Romans or making war on non-Romans. Financial and military crises mixed with poor leadership, expediency, and a clear misunderstanding of economic principles led to the destruction Rome’s monetary system.  Honest and transparent policies could have saved the Romans from centuries of economic hardships. The question future historians will answer is, ‘What did the Americans learn from the Roman experience?'”

http://fee.org/anythingpeaceful/detail/rome-money-mischief-and-minted-crises

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Fincen Conducting Bank-Style BSA Exams of Virtual Currency Firms

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“Financial Crime Enforcement Network Director Jennifer Shasky Calvery said Wednesday that Internal Revenue Service examiners are conducting banklike exams of virtual currency firms for possible anti-money-laundering violations.  Her speech comes just after the agency levied a $700,000 fine against prominent virtual currency company Ripple Labs on Tuesday night for alleged violations of the Bank Secrecy Act, including failing to report suspicious activity.  Calvery first mentioned the exams earlier this year while speaking on a panel at a Council on Foreign Relations event on cryptocurrency policy, but the remarks were not widely known.”

http://www.americanbanker.com/news/bank-technology/fincen-conducting-bank-style-bsa-exams-of-virtual-currency-firms-1074179-1.html

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Former Bank of England Economist: Make Cash Illegal

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“Your current account will no longer be held with a bank, but with the government or the central bank. Banks still exist, and still lend money, but they get their funds from the central bank, not from depositors.  Having everyone’s account at a single, central institution allows the authorities to either encourage or discourage people to spend. To boost spending, the bank imposes a negative interest rate on the money in everyone’s account – in effect, a tax on saving.  Faced with seeing their money slowly confiscated, people are more likely to spend it on goods and services. When this change in behaviour takes place across the country, the economy gets a significant fillip.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/comment/11602399/Ban-cash-end-boom-and-bust.html

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Bitcoin Startup 21 Unveils Plan For Embeddable Mining Chips

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“The world’s best-funded bitcoin startup has revealed plans to market a line of chips to embed in consumer devices, allowing smartphones and other Internet-connected gadgets to continuously earn digital currency through the process known as ‘mining.’  The news from 21 Inc., which is also adding former Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers to its advisory board and announcing that tech giant Cisco Systems Inc. and former AMR Holdings PLC chief strategy officer Mark Templeton are investing in the company, ends 18 months of intense speculation within the bitcoin community.  In March, the company said it had stealthily amassed $116 million in fundraising– a record for the sector.”

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/05/18/bitcoin-startup-21-unveils-product-plan-embeddable-mining-chips/

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This Bizarre Russian ATM Wants to Lend You Money

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“This strange kind of ATM began popping up at railway stations and shopping malls around Moscow last year. It looks like a regular cash machine, but it’s designed to accept loan applications and dole out money on the spot.  There are currently about 20 automated loan machines installed throughout Moscow. They allow customers to request as much as 15,000 rubles ($241) that must be paid back in 20 days or less. The interest rate is 2 percent a day, which works out to 730 percent on an annualized basis. That may seem insane, but some Russians have been willing to embrace the technology to make ends meet between paychecks.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-25/russian-atm-spits-out-loans

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DEA agents seize black businessman’s $16K life savings; no charges filed

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“Even after a telephone call to Joseph’s mother in Detroit to corroborate his story, the agents refused to believe the young man, insisting that the money was drug-related.  Despite the fact the officers found no drugs or guns in Joseph’s luggage – and failed to charge him with any crime – they took his cash away from him under the civil asset forfeiture program.  The Justice Department’s multibillion-dollar civil asset forfeiture fund allows officers to seize a citizen’s belongings, based only on a suspicion that a person is breaking the law. Rivers claims that he was picked on by officers as he was the only black person in his section of the train.”

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3077890/Black-aspiring-businessman-16-000-life-savings-seized-DEA-never-charged-crime.html

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Chinese woman pays for new BMW with mountain of one-yuan notes

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“A woman stunned staff at a car showroom by making a part payment for a new BMW 730Li using 100,000 yuan (HK$126,700) in one-yuan banknotes.  The unnamed buyer, who owns a food retail business, paid the rest of the cost of her one-million-yuan car with her bank card.  She said people often paid her at work using small denomination notes.  As she was often busy she had decided to keep the banknotes until she was able to spend them all at once when buying a car. Li Moran, general manager of the car dealers, said the purchase had been the first time he and his staff had counted so much cash.”

http://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/1772697/chinese-woman-stuns-dealership-heavyweight-payment-new-car

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Poland’s Idea Bank Puts Mobile ATM Into BMW i3

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“The appropriately named Idea Bank has piloted a program where its members can summon an ATM-laden BMW i3 to conduct transactions. Customers simply need to download and register the app, then request one of the four i3s with built-in ATMs to any location within the user area.  It might sound like something concocted for those too lazy to hoof it a few blocks, but the real purpose behind the service is to benefit Polish entrepreneurs and business operators. As many as 80% of the people surveyed say that they make nightly cash deposits, with half of them doing so after dark.”

http://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/polands-idea-bank-puts-mobile-atm-into-bmw-i3/

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FinCEN Fines Ripple Labs for Bank Secrecy Act Violations

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“The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FincCEN) has fined Ripple Labs and its subsidiary XRP II $700,000 for ‘willful violations’ of the Bank Secrecy Act.  According to a 5th May press release, Ripple Labs failed to register as a money services business (MSB) with FinCEN prior to selling XRP, the digital token used within the Ripple network. Additionally, the company is said to have failed to implement appropriate anti-money laundering (AML) procedures.  FinCEN Director Jennifer Shasky Calvery said in a statement that the event should serve as a reminder that all US companies that facilitate the exchange digital currencies must bring products to market that comply with AML law.”

http://www.coindesk.com/fincen-fines-ripple-labs-700000-bank-secrecy-act/

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Cryptocurrency ‘Ripple’ Pursues Freezing Funds of Former Co-Founder

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“Ripple, the so-called decentralized payment network, has frozen funds worth more than US$1 million that belong to the company’s former co-founder Jed McCaleb.  Since their initial launch, Ripple has represented themselves to the public as a payment network of ‘decentralized’ gateways that convert different assets or types of payments—such as bitcoin or Paypal—into IOUs tradeable in the Ripple network.  On August 1, 2014, Ripple introduced a feature called ‘Balance Freeze’ which allowed the network’s gateways to freeze and prevent funds from being traded, an action that they claimed was necessary to protect the gateways’ wallets from being compromised.”

http://cointelegraph.com/news/114041/ripple-directs-bitstamp-to-freeze-funds-of-former-co-founder-jed-mccaleb

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