Ridesharing company Car2Go experienced a significant theft of its high end cars, including dozens of Mercedes CLA sedans and GLA sport utility vehicles, on what should have otherwise been a dull Monday in April in Chicago, according to Bloomberg.
Demand for Car2Go’s high end vehicles mysteriously spiked one Monday and, instead of these Benz’ being returned, they wound up congregated together on several blocks in West Chicago. When the company’s employees went to retrieve the vehicles, they found a group of thieves had claimed them as their own. Some blocked the vehicles in to prevent repossession while others threatened the company’s employees.
And while Car2Go has the ability to remotely disable vehicles, the situation made it difficult for them to figure out which ones to disable. After the theft, Facebook videos begin showing up of Mercedes’ around Chicago being joyridden, totaled and stripped of parts. Kendell Kelton, a Car2Go spokeswoman said:
“This was a unicorn incident for us as a company. We’ve never seen this type of fraudulent activity at this scale ever, ever.”
Once Car2Go was unable to retrieve the cars on their own, they asked the Chicago Police Department for help. By the middle of the week, the company had suspended service in Chicago altogether, tacitly acknowledging that they couldn’t figure out the difference between legitimate customers from theives. A total of 75 cars were compromised and all were eventually recovered, despite the fact that some of them have been destroyed.
Although rare, this incident highlights one of the major risks inherent to shared internet-connected vehicles. As scooter sharing services are also finding out, lending out a bunch of luxury vehicles to almost anybody that wants them is a great way to wind up with them vandalized or stolen.
Ride sharing networks have struggled in general of late, especially with the rise of Uber and Lyft. Car2Go recently merged with BMWs car sharing network, ReachNow, in hopes of strengthening their operations and broadening their appeal. Together, they operate in a total of nine cities. Car2Go had traditionally subjected all of its users to background checks conducted by humans, but quicker sign ups became a “must have” for ride sharing companies that wanted to bring on more new members faster.
“You see Uber or Lyft, or Airbnb, or all the scooters—they all have instant verification,” Kelton said.
The executive team in Europe, where fraud is much less prevalent, was also eager to lower barriers to entry. So in April, the company stopped conducting manual background checks in favor of automated ones – and almost immediately, about 20 people orchestrated the Mercedes theft by setting up 80 phony accounts using fake or stolen credit cards as payment methods. It’s still unclear whether the theft was a direct result of the policy change or not.
And oddly, the thieves didn’t seem to have much more than joyriding in mind. Many of the vehicles still had their Car2Go stickers on them, functional GPS trackers and license plates. Officers patrolling the area had little trouble spotting the vehicles, because nothing had been modified on them. On one day, police arrested almost 2 dozen joyriders. Only one person was charged with a felony: a 19-year-old who was found with a pocket full of fake credit cards.
This type of attack was unprecedented, but there has been an ongoing stream of smaller incidents in years past. Enterprise, for instance, stopped operating its car sharing service in Chicago in 2017 due to high rates of fraud and vandalism. ReachNow had to wrap up service in Brooklyn in 2018 after many vehicles begin disappearing after the company implemented an automated approval process.
Also, for Car2Go, it hasn’t been unusual for people to sublease vehicles after they order them from the service. The practice is in violation of Car2Go’s rules and has been an issue in Chicago since the company started operating there. Car2Go has since reverted back to manually reviewing new accounts in Chicago and says it hasn’t had any serious issues since then.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2NQaOD8 Tyler Durden
The extent of Israeli spying directed against the United States is a huge story that is only rarely addressed in the mainstream media.
The Jewish state regularly tops the list for ostensibly friendly countries that aggressively conduct espionage against the U.S. and Jewish American Jonathan Pollard, who was imprisoned in 1987 for spying for Israel, is now regarded as the most damaging spy in the history of the United States.
Last week I wrote about how Israeli spies operating more-or-less freely in the U.S. are rarely interfered with, much less arrested and prosecuted, because there is an unwillingness on the part of upper echelons of government to do so. I cited the case of Arnon Milchan, a billionaire Hollywood movie producer who had a secret life that included stealing restricted technology in the United States to enable development of Israel’s nuclear weapons program, something that was very much against U.S. interests. Milchan was involved in a number of other thefts as well as arms sales on behalf of the Jewish state, so much so that his work as a movie producer was actually reported to be less lucrative than his work as a spy and black-market arms merchant, for which he operated on a commission basis.
That Milchan has never been arrested by the United States government or even questioned about his illegal activity, which was well known to the authorities, is just one more manifestation of the effectiveness of Jewish power in Washington, but a far more compelling case involving possible espionage with major political manifestations has just re-surfaced.
I am referring to Jeffrey Epstein, the billionaire Wall Street “financier” who has been arrested and charged with operating a “vast” network of underage girls for sex, operating out of his mansions in New York City and Florida as well as his private island in the Caribbean, referred to by visitors as “Orgy Island.” Among other high-value associates, it is claimed that Epstein was particularly close to Bill Clinton, who flew dozens of times on Epstein’s private 727.
*(Alex Acosta (L) Jeffrey Epstein (R))
Epstein was arrested on July 8th after indictment by a federal grand jury in New York. It was more than a decade after Alexander Acosta, the top federal prosecutor in Miami, who is now President Trump’s secretary of labor, accepted a plea bargain involving similar allegations regarding pedophilia that was not shared with the accusers prior to being finalized in court. There were reportedly hundreds of victims, some 35 of whom were identified, but Acosta deliberately denied the two actual plaintiffs their day in court to testify before sentencing.
Acosta’s intervention meant that Epstein avoided both a public trial and a possible federal prison sentence, instead serving only 13 months of an 18-month sentence in the almost-no-security Palm Beach County Jail on charges of soliciting prostitution in Florida. While in custody, he was permitted to leave jail for sixteen hours six days a week to work in his office.
Epstein’s crimes were carried out in his $56 million Manhattan mansion and in his oceanside villa in Palm Beach Florida. Both residences were equipped with hidden cameras and microphones in the bedrooms, which Epstein reportedly used to record sexual encounters between his high-profile guests and his underage girls, many of whom came from poor backgrounds, who were recruited by procurers to engage in what was euphemistically described as “massages” for money. Epstein apparently hardly made any effort to conceal what he was up to: his airplane was called the “Lolita Express.”
The Democrats are calling for an investigation of the Epstein affair, as well as the resignation of Acosta, but they might well wind up regretting their demands. Trump, the real target of the Acosta fury, apparently did not know about the details of the plea bargain that ended the Epstein court case. Bill and Hillary Clinton were, however, very close associates of Epstein. Bill, who flew on the “Lolita Express” at least 26 times, could plausibly be implicated in the pedophilia given his track record and relative lack of conventional morals. On many of the trips, Bill refused Secret Service escorts, who would have been witnesses of any misbehavior. On one lengthy trip to Africa in 2002, Bill and Jeffrey were accompanied by accused pedophile actor Kevin Spacey and a number of young girls, scantily clad “employees” identified only as “massage.” Epstein was also a major contributor to the Clinton Foundation and was present at the wedding of Chelsea Clinton in 2010.
With an election year coming up, the Democrats would hardly want the public to be reminded of Bill’s exploits, but one has to wonder where and how deep the investigation might go. There is also a possible Donald Trump angle. Though Donald may not have been a frequent flyer on the “Lolita Express,” he certainly moved in the same circles as the Clintons and Epstein in New York and Palm Beach, plus he is by his own words roughly as amoral as Bill Clinton. In June 2016, one Katie Johnson filed lawsuit in New York claiming she had been repeatedly raped by Trump at an Epstein gathering in 1993 when she was 13 years old. In a 2002 New York Magazineinterview Trump said “I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy… he’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it – Jeffrey enjoys his social life.”
Selective inquiries into wrongdoing to include intense finger pointing are the name of the game in Washington, and the affaire Epstein also has all the hallmarks of a major espionage case, possibly tied to Israel. Unless Epstein is an extremely sick pedophile who enjoys watching films of other men screwing twelve-year-old girls the whole filming procedure smacks of a sophisticated intelligence service compiling material to blackmail prominent politicians and other public figures. Those blackmailed would undoubtedly in most cases cooperate with the foreign government involved to avoid a major scandal. It is called recruiting “agents of influence.” That is how intelligence agencies work and it is what they do.
That Epstein was perceived as being intelligence-linked was made clear in Acosta’s commentswhen being cleared by the Trump transition team. He was asked “Is the Epstein case going to cause a problem [for confirmation hearings]?” … “Acosta had explained, breezily, apparently, that back in the day he’d had just one meeting on the Epstein case. He’d cut the non-prosecution deal with one of Epstein’s attorneys because he had ‘been told’ to back off, that Epstein was above his pay grade. ‘I was told Epstein belonged to intelligence and to leave it alone.’”
Questions about Epstein’s wealth also suggest a connection with a secretive government agency with deep pockets. The New York Timesreports that “Exactly what his money management operation did was cloaked in secrecy, as were most of the names of whomever he did it for. He claimed to work for a number of billionaires, but the only known major client was Leslie Wexner, the billionaire founder of several retail chains, including The Limited.”
But whose intelligence service? CIA and the Russian FSB services are obvious candidates, but they would have no particular motive to acquire an agent like Epstein. That leaves Israel, which would have been eager to have a stable of high-level agents of influence in Europe and the United States. Epstein’s contact with the Israeli intelligence service may have plausibly come through his associations with Ghislaine Maxwell, who allegedly served as his key procurer of young girls. Ghislaine is the daughter of Robert Maxwell, who died or possibly was assassinated in mysterious circumstances in 1991. Maxwell was an Anglo-Jewish businessman, very cosmopolitan in profile, like Epstein, a multi-millionaire who was very controversial with what were regarded as ongoing ties to Mossad. After his death, he was given a state funeral by Israel in which six serving and former heads of Israeli intelligence listened while Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir eulogized: “He has done more for Israel than can today be said”
*(Trump (left) with Robert Maxwell (right) at an event.)
Epstein kept a black book identifying many of his social contacts, which is now in the hands of investigators. It included fourteen personal phone numbers belonging to Donald Trump, including ex-wife Ivana, daughter Ivanka and current wife Melania. It also included Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia, Tony Blair, Jon Huntsman, Senator Ted Kennedy, Henry Kissinger, David Koch, Ehud Barak, Alan Dershowitz, John Kerry, George Mitchell, David Rockefeller, Richard Branson, Michael Bloomfield, Dustin Hoffman, Queen Elizabeth, Saudi King Salman and Edward de Rothschild.
Mossad would have exploited Epstein’s contacts, arranging their cooperation by having Epstein wining and dining them while flying them off to exotic locations, providing them with women and entertainment. If they refused to cooperate, it would be time for blackmail, photos and videos of the sex with underage women.
It will be very interesting to see just how far and how deep the investigation into Epstein and his activities goes. One can expect that efforts will be made to protect top politicians like Clinton and Trump and to avoid any examination of a possible Israeli role. That is the normal practice, witness the 9/11 Report and the Mueller investigation, both of which eschewed any inquiry into what Israel might have been up to. But this time, if it was indeed an Israeli operation, it might prove difficult to cover up the story since the pedophile aspect of it has unleashed considerable public anger from all across the political spectrum.
Senator Chuck Schumer, self-described as Israel’s “protector” in the Senate, is loudly calling for the resignation of Acosta. He just might change his tune if it turns out that Israel is a major part of the story.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2Ljgy64 Tyler Durden
The CEO of Volvo warns that the company is considering moving its headquarters out of Sweden in the future, partly due to a rise in violent crime.
Håkan Samuelsson told a conference that the car maker was losing its appeal to foreign experts and engineers and further explained his concerns during an interview with SVD Näringsliv.
“We are building cars, we cannot solve the other problems, someone else must do that,” the CEO said, adding that it is becoming more difficult to attract workers due to Sweden’s worsening reputation.
“It’s definitely not helping when people read about shootings in Gothenburg and wonder if they really dare to move to Gothenburg,” said Samuelsson.
If the situation does not improve, the CEO warned that the company may even have to consider leaving Sweden in the future.
“Often people believe that decisions like these are taken by senior management or in China. But the fact is that we will only place our headquarters in a country where things work. At the moment, we are not close to such a discussion. But yes, it is something that might happen in the future,” said Samuelsson.
However, Chief of Police in Gothenburg County Erik Nord denied there was a problem, accusing Samuelsson of getting misinformation from social media.
As we have previously highlighted, surveys show that migrants are vastly overrepresented in violent crime and rapes in Sweden, but the government stopped gathering official statistics back in 2005.
This was long before the problem was exacerbated by the arrival of over 150,000 new “refugees” mainly from Islamic countries from 2015 onwards.
Swedish author Björn Ranelid recently warned that the level of crime and violence the previously sedate country is experiencing amounts to a “small scale war”.
The word “retirement” used to describe the well-deserved free time that one earned after a long and productive work life. Not anymore. Today, 23 percent of Americans say they will never retiredespite the grim realities of aging, according to a new poll from the Associated Press – NORC Center from Public Affairs Research.
The poll, conducted among 1,423 adults using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel designed to be representative of the U.S. population, shows a disconnect between individuals’ retirement plans and the realities of aging in the workforce, suggesting that 23 percent of workers, including nearly two in ten of those over 50, don’t expect to stop working.
(Click to enlarge)
Source: AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research
Money was the primary reason for the delayed retirement; the poll shows that only 14 percent of Americans under the age of 50 and 29% over 50 say they feel extremely or very prepared. Also, 56 percent of younger adults say they don’t feel prepared for retirement.
Of those who had already retired, 38 percent said they felt they had been very or extremely prepared when they retired, while 25 percent said they had felt not very or not at all prepared.
“The average retirement age that we see in the data has gone up a little bit, but it hasn’t gone up that much,” says Anqi Chen, assistant director of savings research at the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College.
“So people have to live in retirement much longer, and they may not have enough assets to support themselves in retirement.”
A survey from Northwestern Mutual shows similar figures. Nearly half of Americans say they expect to work past age 65 and 18 percent of baby boomers and generation X say they plan to work until age 75 and beyond. The background of these figures once again shows that Americans are short on savings–56 percent of the respondents don’t even know how much money they should be saving, the Northwestern Mutual survey found.
Those who still think they know how much they should be saving, according to Charles Schwab survey, believe they need $1.7 million on average to retire, but most of them are still not even close to that number.
“That’s a pretty good number if you average out age and median salary across the U.S.,” said Nathan Voris, a managing director at Schwab Retirement Plan Services.
However, “the bulk of folks do not get there,” he said.
The estimate for 2016 from the U.S. Government Accountability Office released this March shows that 48 percent of those 55 and older had nothing put away in a 401(k)-style defined contribution plan or an individual retirement account, which is an improvement from the 52 percent without retirement money in 2013.
The Employee Benefit Research Institute found that Americans from households headed by someone age 35 to 64 face a combined retirement deficit of $3.83 trillion. EBRI estimates that 41 percent of these Americans are likely to run out of money in retirement, which is down 1.7 percentage points since 2014.
But what is really the average retirement age in the U.S.?
Using microdata on labor force participation from the U.S. Census Bureau, Smartasset data from 2017 found that national retirement age hasn’t changed and that by age 63 nearly half of the population is no longer working.
Many retirements are unexpected due to unforeseen circumstances such as health problems, disability or layoffs. Rare are those who are able to retire early because of an inheritance or diligent saving.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2Ga5FQ9 Tyler Durden
According to a report by Channel News Asia (CNA), a new robot chef can prepare 80 bowls of laksa in an hour, therefore eliminating the need for human cooks, an ominous sign that robots will displace foodservice jobs in the next decade.
Last Friday, the Singapore catering group Neo Group unveiled the robot chef, called Sophie, at a catering event held at the Singapore Management University School of Law.
CNA published a video of the event, shows guest selecting their noodles and toppings, such as vegetables and seafood. Sophie then fries the noddles, adds shrimp, and at the end, pours in the laksa sauce. The entire cooking process takes about 45 seconds.
Sophie is available for corporate events. However, Neo Group didn’t provide any pricing details to CNA. The catering group will add more dishes and recipes for the robot chef station, could even integrate more robots for complicated dishes.
“The noodle station is generally the most popular live-station for hire at our catering events, therefore we have decided to develop and create an automatic noodle-cooking station. The station ensures consistency in the delivery of our recipe, and management of food waste as customers can decide their preferred portion,” said Sally Liew, Neo Group’s executive director.
“Of course, this is also an innovative launch. We believe that live cooking automatic stations stand to be the future of Singapore’s catering industry due to our labor-intensive nature and that this is just the beginning.”
Out of the kitchen and onto the front of a restaurant, less-dexterous robots are currently being used as hotel attendants escorting guests to their rooms, as robot carts shuttle food to tables and even deliver food to a customer’s doorstep.
These robots could significantly lower the operating costs for the foodservice industry, would result in the displacement of millions of jobs. For example, chefs, preppers, waiters, and waitresses in a restaurant could be eliminated.
Mark our words, by the mid-2020s – there will be completely automated restaurants.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2JFSIhA Tyler Durden
Around 5 pm Thur. afternoon, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) issued a new hurricane warning for parts of Louisiana coast ahead of Tropical Storm Barry’s expected landfall this weekend.
Barry transformed into a tropical storm earlier in the day on Thursday, is currently gaining momentum in the Gulf of Mexico about 85-90 miles south of the mouth of the Mississippi River, with sustained wind above 40 mph late Thursday evening. Hurricane models expected the tropical storm to traverse the northern Gulf of Mexico towards the Louisiana coast where it could make a direct hit as a Category 1 hurricane Friday night or Saturday between New Iberia and New Orleans.
“Barry formed in the northern Gulf of Mexico Thursday and will continue to slowly move toward the central Gulf Coast into the weekend. Excessive wind shear has kept the system ragged and weak so far, but as atmospheric conditions improve into the weekend, the storm may take advantage of anomalously warm ocean waters and strengthen before making landfall in Louisiana. Rainfall and flooding will be the biggest risk with this system, with some data suggesting up to two feet of rain locally in southeastern Louisiana through the weekend,” said Ed Vallee, meteorologist and owner of Empire Weather LLC.
The storm is moving to the west at 5 mph and has maximum sustained winds of 40 mph – will make a hard right hook towards landfall in the next 12 to 18 hours. The minimum central pressure is now 1003 MB…29.62 inches.
“Winds can be strong near where the system makes landfall which continues to be uncertain – most data suggests a landfall point along the central Louisiana coast, continuing northward into the Mississippi Delta. Wind speeds will depend on how much the storm can strengthen before landfall, but a strong tropical storm or category one hurricane with sustained wind of 70-80mph are possible. This can lead to damage to structures, downed limbs, and power outages,” Vallee said.
Vallee said weather models indicate the tropical storm could make landfall Saturday on the southeastern coast of Louisiana. He noted that Barry lacks the classic hurricane structure, but as it hooks right towards land on Friday – the storm could develop the traditional spin of a cyclonic storm.
WOFL Orlando meteorologist Jayme King – said “Barry is going to produce a tremendous amount of rain. So, there’s a lot of concern about flooding in New Orleans,” King added, “The French quarter is notorious for having awful drainage. The city is already saturated, and the Mississippi River is already high… We’re hoping they get through this okay.”
Biblical rains could undoubtedly be the biggest story of the weekend with total rain accumulations of 10 to 15 inches near and inland of the central Gulf Coast through the weekend.
New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell told the Sun Sentinal that the upcoming storm would be an enormous test for the flood-control infrastructure built in New Orleans since 2005′s Hurricane Katrina. Local officials are concerned about the tropical storm making landfall with dangerously high water levels on the Mississippi River.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2Y0kMWf Tyler Durden
If so, I have a quick question I was hoping I might run by you. (Your answer might well be, “I don’t know, but you can talk to this coworker of mine,” which would be just fine by me.) If you’re willing to chat, please e-mail me at volokh at law.ucla.edu.
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Back in March, I wrote about the City of Baltimore’s lawsuit attempting to use eminent domain to take the Preakness Stakes Triple Crown horse race, in order to prevent the owners from moving it to a different location. As explained in the previous post, the case raised several important legal issues. This post is a brief update on developments since then.
In mid-June, the City dropped its lawsuit, apparently as part of an agreement with the owners to continue negotiating on possible ways to ensure that the race will stay in its current location in Baltimore, instead of moving elsewhere in Maryland (as the owners previously hoped to do). Later that same month, the owners and the City entered into a “new phase of negotiations” intended to keep the race at the deteriorating Pimlico Race Course, which is badly in need of repair.
At least for the moment, the City is no longer trying to condemn either the Pimlico Race Course, or the Preakness Stakes horse race. The legal community may therefore miss out on a case that raises multiple thorny issues, such as whether the intellectual property and trade marks associated with the race are within Baltimore’s jurisdiction, and whether condemning a horse race to keep it from moving to a new location violates the Dormant Commerce Clause. Had the lawsuit gone forward, it would have been a virtual full-employment act for eminent domain experts!
However, the dismissal of the case of was “without prejudice.” That means the city could potential refile it, if negotiations go badly. Moreover, it is hard to say to what extent the threat of condemnation might have been a factor in forcing the owners to reconsider their apparent plan to move. If the business community is left with the impression that the owners gave in under the threat of eminent domain, it could incentivize other enterprises to flee before they suffer the same fate.
The (for now) abortive effort to condemn the Preakness Stakes is just part of a long history of Maryland efforts to try to keep businesses from leaving by threatening them with the use of eminent domain. I summarized it in my earlier post about this case:
Hopefully, the city and state governments have finally figured out that the better way to grow their economies is to create an environment where people will want to locate of their own free will. The threat of eminent domain might force some businesses to stay when they might otherwise have left. But such shenanigans are also likely to scare away other entrepreneurs and investors, who are not likely to do business in the state if doing so risks having their property condemned if things go badly.
While these kinds of cases are a bonanza for takings lawyers, Baltimore is unlikely to succeed in condemning its way to prosperity.When it comes to using eminent domain to keep horse races and other enterprises from moving, I remain a “neighsayer.”
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Drivers down I-285 outside of Atlanta on Tuesday night saw $175,000 in cash sprayed across the highway after an armored truck’s side door broke open, according to WSB-TV 2 Atlanta.
It was around 8PM when the door flew open, causing cash to fly out into the Westbound lanes of the highway. The loss was estimated by police to be around $175,000.
More than 15 cars pulled off in the middle of the interstate so people could “frantically” collect the cash.
But now, after police warnings and “reality setting in”, some are returning it.
Police have been urging people to turn the cash in or face potential changes.
“Those people who do not return the money, we have video, we have tag numbers. We have footage of people on the interstate. What we’re asking the public to do is bring the money back. Don’t make us come looking for you, because if we do that, you probably will be charged,” a police official said.
Channel 2’s Dave Huddelson spoke to one good Samaritan, Randall Lewis, who returned $2000 because he said his parents raised him right.
Lewis said:
“Shout out to my mom and dad. They trained me really well. It looked like piles of leaves blowing in the wind. I could not believe my eyes that this was legit money. It doesn’t matter if it’s finders-keepers. Once you know it belongs to someone, you really can’t keep it.”
The drivers of the armored car didn’t know their door had swung open until someone pulled up next to them and told them.
A local police officer said: “We certainly understand the temptation of [keeping the money]. You certainly see the money falling from the sky. We hate to be the Grinch who stole Christmas in July, but at the same time, it’s pretty reasonable to suspect this money belongs to somebody.”
Moments ago, amid his early evening tweetstorm (which so far is tiny compared to the furious tweeting he unleashed this morning), Trump who earlier in the day conquered the stock market, tweeting “Dow just hit 27,000 for first time EVER!” (once again not realizing that by owning the Fed’s biggest asset bubble in history, he will also own the coming crash), the stock market president decided to shift his focus to currencies, and not just any currencies, but cryptos (and, well, Libra which only pretends to be), saying on twitter that “I am not a fan of Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies, which are not money, and whose value is highly volatile and based on thin air”, seemingly unaware that the value of any currency is based on precisely the very same thing.
I am not a fan of Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies, which are not money, and whose value is highly volatile and based on thin air. Unregulated Crypto Assets can facilitate unlawful behavior, including drug trade and other illegal activity….
Trump went on, explaining that ” Unregulated Crypto Assets can facilitate unlawful behavior, including drug trade and other illegal activity”, which coming from a former real estate developer means a lot.
….Similarly, Facebook Libra’s “virtual currency” will have little standing or dependability. If Facebook and other companies want to become a bank, they must seek a new Banking Charter and become subject to all Banking Regulations, just like other Banks, both National…
Picking up where Congress left off its Libracoin hearings with the Fed Chair over the past two days, Trump then decided to slam the latest entrant in the digital (because it isn’t crypto) currency world: “Similarly, Facebook Libra’s “virtual currency” will have little standing or dependability.”
Gradually, the object of Trump’s evening ire emerged: not so much Cryptos, as Facebook’s audacious attempt to become a central bank without a sovereign, when Trump slammed Zuckerberg’s company: “If Facebook and other companies want to become a bank, they must seek a new Banking Charter and become subject to all Banking Regulations, just like other Banks, both National and International.”
…and International. We have only one real currency in the USA, and it is stronger than ever, both dependable and reliable. It is by far the most dominant currency anywhere in the World, and it will always stay that way. It is called the United States Dollar!
Trump then concluded by directly contradicting all his recent efforts that have been geared at devaluing the dollar – after all, just today, Goldman, BofA and SocGen all predicted that the US would intervene to devalue the dollar- by imposing the greenback as the “most dominant currency in the world”, which apparently is more important when one is engaged in a pissing match over who has the “biggest” currency, than Trump’s ongoing demands that the Fed cut rates so that said dominant currency can lose much of its value: “We have only one real currency in the USA, and it is stronger than ever, both dependable and reliable. It is by far the most dominant currency anywhere in the World, and it will always stay that way. It is called the United States Dollar!”
We wonder how long it will take for the Trump advisors who wrote the actual tweet, to figure out that if Trump wants a new Plaza Accord – and he does – he should be praising, not slamming both cryptos and Libra…
… and that if Trump really wants to cripple China, he should be encouraging the development, distribution and growth of the one mechanism that will allow $30 trillion in Chinese deposits to escape the country’s capital controls firewall, resulting in China’s prompt reserve depletion and financial meltdown.
For those wondering, the price of cryptos following Trump’s tweet is unchanged.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/32mCoLr Tyler Durden
