Tag Archives: System D

Puerto Rico’s crisis illustrates the risks of minimum wage hikes

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“Only 40 percent of the adult population on the island is employed or looking for a job — versus a U.S. labor force participation rate of 63 percent.  Of course, many Puerto Ricans work for less than the minimum — in the black-market economy, which is untaxed. In other words, the minimum wage also helps explain Puerto Rico’s lack of revenue with which to service its debt.  Also killing the demand for, and supply of, labor are the island’s onerous overtime, paid-vacation and job-security regulations.  And even at the minimum wage, full-time work in Puerto Rico pays less than the combined package of welfare, Medicaid and food stamp benefits for which a family of three might qualify.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/puerto-ricos-lesson-for-the-mainland/2015/07/08/24e63970-25ad-11e5-b77f-eb13a215f593_story.html

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Inside Barcelona’s Bitcoin Drug Lab

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“At the headquarters of Energy Control in Barcelona, Northern Spain, a nondescript envelope arrives. Hidden inside, between layers of cardboard and tape, are two fluorescent pink pills purchased from one of many eBay-style marketplaces on the dark web.  For €50-worth of bitcoin, the non-profit provides anyone in the world with a breakdown of the substances contained in their drugs – and the quantity – no questions asked.  Energy Control has been carrying out drug checking in raves and at its labs since 1998. Its dark web service, introduced in April 2014, operates under the same premise: to reduce harm among users by arming them with facts.”

http://www.coindesk.com/inside-barcelonas-bitcoin-drug-lab/

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Police Confiscate 11,000 Bitcoin Wallets; Shut Down Dark Web Site

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“As the final legal chapters close on Ross Ulbricht’s Silk Road website held within the ‘Dark Web’, the proliferation of many, many more dark markets is making international news. Authorities have closed down one of these Dark Web havens, and have confiscated thousands of bitcoin wallets in association with its use.  Under code name ‘Operation Babylon’, Italian officials have shut down the site that hosted over 14,000 members, performing over 170,000 transactions using Tor’s web browser.  Over 200 drug dealers are claimed to have used the site for trafficking purposes, but this may be only one site of its kind out many. The website is said to have been masterminded by an Italian near Naples.”

http://cointelegraph.com/news/115043/police-confiscate-11000-bitcoin-wallets-shut-down-dark-web-site

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How Life Finds a Way in the Regulatory State

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“Instead of calling it the sharing economy, perhaps a better name for these phenomena might be the ‘gap economy’ — the economy that grows like a weed in the interstices of regulated markets and incumbent cartels. In an interventionist, mixed economy, it’s not hard to find examples of both ‘differentiation from generality’ and ‘life finds a way.’ It’s in the spaces left free from arbitrary government constraint and meddling where the ingenuity and resourcefulness of ordinary people are comparatively free to do extraordinary things.”

http://fee.org/freeman/detail/how-life-finds-a-way-in-the-regulatory-state

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Uberocracy: How the Sharing Economy Changes Politics

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“Uber’s request that drivers keep working in areas where the service is illegal is a sign that they know people want the service. The fact that people keep using the service while it is illegal shows that entrepreneurship outpaces politics. While they are technically engaged in civil disobedience, users likely neither care nor know the legal status of the services.  Airbnb hosts rent out their apartments against the terms of their leases. They probably violate some hospitality regulations in their cities. They don’t really care. The experience is so positive that both hosts and users win.  What makes this entrepreneurship new is that the barrier to entry is so low for somebody to engage in the exchange.”

https://medium.com/life-learning/uberocracy-how-the-new-entrepreneurship-changes-politics-99bc515e31b0

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Who Is Building the Private, Peer-to-Peer Marketplace?

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“Online commerce today is mostly centralized; companies own websites where users visit to buy and sell things. Those companies charge fees, monitor their users’ data, and censor their transactions based on their own rules and on behalf of the government.  OpenBazaar is different. Instead of relying on a centralized third party, trades occur directly between buyers and sellers. Users install peer-to-peer software on their computers, similar to bitcoin or BitTorrent, and this connects them to other users running the same software. They transact in bitcoin. Since there’s no middleman, there are no fees, no collection of data, and no censorship of trade.”

http://fee.org/freeman/detail/who-is-building-the-private-peer-to-peer-marketplace

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New York Agrees to Pay $5.9 million to Settle Case of Eric Garner

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“Making taxpayers shell out for abuses committed by officers does nothing to pressure departments to reform their use of force. The costs are hidden and dispersed among all taxpayers, and even if a few people read about it in the paper and are annoyed, they don’t have the incentive (or even the mechanism) to force the police department to change officers’s incentives or hold them accountable.  That’s just the way government bureaucracies and unions like it. The problem here is the doctrine of ‘qualified immunity,’ which shields police officers from being held liable for violating people’s rights.”

http://fee.org/anythingpeaceful/detail/new-york-agrees-to-pay-59-million-to-settle-case-of-eric-garner

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Online gambling ban won’t stop online gambling, but will stop growth

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“The Sheldon Adelson-backed legislation to ban regulated online gambling — The Restoration of America’s Wire Act (RAWA) — is back in the spotlight thanks to the House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations.  RAWA would immediately abolish the legal, state-regulated online gambling markets in New Jersey, Nevada and Delaware, where regulated online casinos directly employ hundreds of people. It will only serve to prop up unregulated markets that have none of the age verification, identity verification, consumer protection or anti-money laundering systems that regulated sites are required to utilize by law.”

http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/economy-budget/236442-online-gambling-ban-wont-stop-online-gambling-but-will

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Author Behind Ransomware Tox Calls it Quits, Sells Platform

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“The developer behind Tox, a ransomware-as-a-service tool that only surfaced late last month, acknowledged in a post on Pastebin Wednesday that despite his plan to stay ‘quiet and hidden,’ he’s quickly found himself over his head.  Now the malware author is looking to sell Tox but claims if no one buys it he’ll just release the keys and decrypt his victim’s files.  Tox is encouraging prospective buyers to contact him to purchase both source code and documentation for the ransomware, adding that he’ll entertain offers for the platform and virus together, or as a package deal, alongside an additional database and .onion private key.”

https://threatpost.com/author-behind-ransomware-tox-calls-it-quits-sells-platform/113151

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Money laundering investigation stymied by China, Italy says

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“In April, China launched a new initiative, ‘Skynet,’ to trace fugitives and their overseas money and released a list of its 100 most wanted economic criminals. Forty of them are thought to be in the U.S, according to the party’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. Many of the transfers, fractioned into small sums to avoid scrutiny, were a way for Chinese immigrants to avoid paying taxes, according to hundreds of pages of court documents reviewed by The Associated Press. Other migrants were caught with heaps of counterfeit purses and shoes. Police also traced money to men running Chinese prostitution rings.”

http://news.yahoo.com/money-laundering-investigation-stymied-china-italy-says-050440484–finance.html

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