Bitcoin has been around for about a decade now, and its influence on world financial markets cannot be understated. While acceptance of Bitcoin still isn’t as widespread as many Bitcoin adherents would like, it’s nonetheless an accepted asset, currency, and store of value whose utility is widely recognized. Bitcoin’s price and performance is assessed every […]
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One of the dominant themes of the 2016 Presidential campaign was President Trump’s combative attitude towards the US intelligence establishment. His distrust of the intelligence establishment was front and center in headlines throughout the campaign, and it was no surprise that the intelligence establishment didn’t like him either. In fact, the entire tenor of Trump’s […]
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While the Federal Reserve’s rate cut last week was fully expected, the reasons behind it are increasingly unclear. At the post-FOMC press conference, Fed Chairman Jay Powell seemed to flip flop on whether this was a one-time deal, “So we do think it will serve all of those goals, but again, we’re thinking of it […]
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The Federal Reserve cut its target federal funds rate last week by 25 basis points, half of the 50 basis points that Wall Street had hoped for. That came after significant pressure to cut in recent months, much of which came from President Trump, who has castigated the Fed for hiking rates in the first […]
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One aspect of the post-financial crisis recovery that is of particular concern is that people’s attitudes towards their financial well-being seems not to have recovered. Many of the benefits of the recovery accrued to those most connected to the financial sector, those who received the benefit of government bailouts and Federal Reserve liquidity facilities. But […]
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Recent news brought to light that Apple contractors frequently listen in to people’s sexual encounters. Their job is to monitor conversations overheard by Apple’s Siri voice assistant and perform quality control to make sure that Siri is doing its job. Part of that involves listening to conversations recorded by Siri, some of which may be […]
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Throughout China’s history the country was a silver standard country through and through. From its own silver coins to Spanish milled dollars to US trade dollars, the country made use of any silver coinage it could get its hands on. Even today collectors look for vintage coins with so-called “chop marks,” assay marks made by […]
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One thing that has characterized political debate in recent years is the profusion of insults that pass for argument. Chief among them is one of the oldest in the book, the accusation of racism. Pretty much everything you hear from the left today when criticizing President Trump, Republicans, or just about anyone to the right […]
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Attorney General William Barr made headlines recently for his insistence that consumers come to grips with the government’s need for backdoors in encrypted products and services. To Barr, the existence of encryption that cannot be cracked by government investigators is an obstacle to criminal investigation. But there’s a reason such products are offered to consumers, […]
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With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Iron Curtain, vast amounts of Eastern European military materiel was exported to the US by countries desperate for money. Americans got used to cheap surplus firearms and ammunition from the former Soviet Bloc. Among them were Makarov pistols and various other small pistols […]
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