Probably not. But they may try.
Can or Should the US Fed Boost Employment?
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Author Archives: Susan_Hall
Why Are Financial Executives Not Prosecuted for Subprime Mortgage Crimes?
At a meeting of New York City securities lawyers this week, Jed Rakoff did what he does best: challenge Establishment Thinking. “While the economy has slowly improved, there are still millions of Americans leading lives of quiet desperation — without jobs, without resources, without hope.” Then he asked: Who is to blame?
Rakoff is the iconoclastic U.S. District Court judge who’s been at the heart of some of the most significant trials stemming from the financial crisis. And what he really wanted to know is why more there haven’t been more criminal prosecutions of top financial executives (the very ones who, not coincidentally, made many of the people in his audience quite wealthy). To Rakoff the answer, clearly, is gun-shy federal prosecutors. Why Are Financial Executives Not Prosecuted for Subprime Mortgage Fraud
US Job Market Flourishing for Compliance Experts
The new regulatory environment in the US has sent companies scampering for experts who can help companies comply with new regulations. This is one of the few bright markets in the US. US Jobs for Compliance Officers
Adaptation: Blackberry, Apple, Google, Twitter and You
A tech giant rises as another falls reported on the Financial Times. It juxtaposed Twitter’s initial public offering (IPO), which is set to raise more from the market than Google did in 2004, with the chaotic events at BlackBerry, which dropped a plan to sell itself got 4.7bn, jettisoned its chief executive and said it would raise 1bn in cheap debt.
Is that how it goes? Is the technology business a sort of one-in, one-out game? It’s certainly hard to find a company with more enthusiastic investors ahead of the bell than Twitter – though let’s see how things go once the shares are traded – nor one that has been more heftily dumped than BlackBerry, which in June 2008 boasted shares topping $144. Now they languish at $6.50. Lessons from Blackberry
Are Bitcoins Inevitable?
New Silk Road drug bazaar opens a month after FBI bust
A new anonymous Internet marketplace for illegal drugs debuted on Wednesday, with the same name and appearance as the Silk Road website shut down by U.S. law enforcement authorities a month ago.
Like its predecessor, the new Silk Road listed hundreds of advertisements for marijuana, cocaine, ecstasy and other illegal drugs available for purchase from independent sellers using the anonymous Bitcoin digital currency.
On October 1, the Federal Bureau of Investigation shut down the original Silk Road and arrested its alleged mastermind, Ross William Ulbricht, 29, known online as “Dread Pirate Roberts,” in San Francisco.
“It took the FBI two-and-a-half years to do what they did … but four weeks of temporary silence is all they got,” a site administrator wrote, also using the “Dread Pirate Roberts” moniker.
The FBI declined to comment on the new version of the Silk Road. For more than two years, the original site acted like an eBay of vice, allowing users to buy and sell illegal goods and services on the assumption that they were safe from the law. Deliveries were made through the mail in discrete packages.
U.S. authorities also say Ulbricht had tried to call out a hit on a user who had threatened to expose the identities of thousands of Silk Road users.
Ulbricht’s lawyer on Wednesday said his client would plead not guilty to drug trafficking, hacking and money laundering charges.
The charges against Ulbricht said his website generated sales of more than 9.5 million Bitcoins, roughly equivalent to $1.2 billion.
The new website improves on technology from the previous Silk Road meant to keep identities secret, including measures to keep users from losing their Bitcoins in case the site shuts down, according to the new Dread Pirate Roberts.
Senator Tom Carper, a top lawmaker on the Homeland Security committee, who plans to hold a hearing on digital currencies this month, said the new Silk Road site shows that government needs to adapt to fast-moving technology.
“Rather than play ‘whack-a-mole’ with the latest website, currency, or other method criminals are using in an effort to evade the law, we need to develop thoughtful, nimble and sensible federal policies that protect the public without stifling innovation and economic growth,” Carper said in a statement.
A week after authorities shut down the Silk Road, British police said they arrested four men accused of being significant users of the site.
Two weeks ago, federal prosecutors said 144,336 Bitcoins were discovered on Ulbricht’s confiscated computer, adding to more than 30,000 Bitcoins previously seized.
With the digital currency trading at an all-time on Wednesday, those Bitcoins were worth close to $50 million, according to the Mt Gox trading website.
Like the original Silk Road, users access the new site using a no-cost, anti-surveillance service known as the Tor network instead of traditional web browsers.
The relaunched Silk Road will soon hire staff to handle marketing for the site, the administrator mentioned in his post.
“The Silk Road has risen once more. … Open communication with your old suppliers and customers, let this wonderful news be taken to all corners of the Tor Network and beyond,” the person wrote.
Venezuela Tightens Currency Control
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is tightening control of the foreign exchange system to fight what he calls an “economic war” being waged against his government.
Maduro is creating a centralized agency to administer the nation’s dollars to ensure the supply of needed imports and prevent speculation by those he refers to as the “parasitic bourgeoisie.”
He is also creating a joint civilian-military task force of inspectors that will be given the job of stamping out what the government alleges is price gouging and the hoarding by businesses of scarce goods like toilet paper and milk.
Since Maduro took over from the late Hugo Chavez in April, inflation in Venezuela has soared to 49 percent while the bolivar has plunged on the black market to a sixth of its official value.
Ireland and the EU: Austerity Works?
The Irish have a long history of being tyrannized, exploited, and oppressed-from the forced conversion to Christianity in the Dark Ages, to slave trading of the natives in the 15th and 16th centuries, to the mid-nineteenth century “potato famine” that was really a holocaust. The British got Ireland’s food exports, while at least one million Irish died from starvation and related diseases, and another million or more emigrated.
Today, Ireland is under a different sort of tyranny, one imposed by the banks and the troika-the EU, ECB and IMF. The oppressors have demanded austerity and more austerity, forcing the public to pick up the tab for bills incurred by profligate private bankers. Bank Guarantee Bankrupts Ireland
Bitcoins: Currency or Commodity?
If you buy 3 barrels of grain and take it to Duane Reade and buy goods worth 3 barrels of grain, does this differ from a Bitcoin transaction?
Digital currency is coming. Banks fully expect money to become digital, with some betting that virtual currencies like Bitcoin will become mainstream.
This is cheery news for folks fighting drug trafficking, terrorism, corruption and organized crime. Cash has been recognized as crucial to funding illegal activity. Five hundred Euro banknotes are known as “the bin Laden” for its role in financing terrorism. It’s nearly impossible to trace bribes and stolen public funds when they disappear in briefcases of hundred dollar bills. Bitcoins Future The Future of Money
Blackstone GSO Ensures Credit Default Swap Trigger
GSO Capital Partners LP provided a loan to Spanish gaming operator Codere SA (CDR) in June with terms that gave it a guaranteed return on credit-default swaps, outmaneuvering sellers of the protection.
The unit of Blackstone Group LP (BX) structured the loan in a way that would lead to a payout on swaps it held, according to three people with knowledge of the situation who asked not to be identified because the discussions were private. The contracts were triggered on Sept. 18 after Codere delayed an interest payment by two days to comply with the loan terms. GSO held 25 million to 30 million euros of the swaps, meaning it may have made at least 11.4 million euros ($15.6 million), according to one of the people and data compiled by Bloomberg. No Lose Codere Trade
Digital Human Watch
Problems with the UK and US surveillance programs are representative of a broader, global issue. Given how intrusive digital surveillance can be, all governments should review their practices and update laws to ensure protection of all users’ data, regardless of their citizenship or location, Human Rights Watch said.
The US and UK’s actions also call attention to the ways governments are increasingly pressing Internet and telecommunications companies to help monitor online activity. Internet users trust companies to store and transmit the most intimate details of their daily lives. These companies have a responsibility to safeguard user privacy and avoid contributing to governments’ misuse of surveillance powers. Digital Human Rights
