Month: January 2014

India’s Invincible Love Story With Gold

Despite the government’s ongoing efforts to cut gold imports – aimed at closing a widening current account deficit among other status-quo-questioning factors, the following brief clip from Bloomberg TV sums it all up perfectly – For this country of over one billion, “Gold is, was, and always wlll be… money.” And now, following import bans and higher taxes, the government is considering restrictions on the holiest of holies – wedding gifts, and “legislating against love.”

 

By trying to discourage gold-buying, India’s government is trying to roll-back centuries of tradition (“and an abiding love for the world’s only enduring currency”) and has created a major black-market for the precious metal…

 

 

 


    



via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/_vabOXYY7bg/story01.htm Tyler Durden

How New York's 'Assault Weapon' Ban Passed Constitutional Muster

On Tuesday a federal judge
ruled that New York’s seven-round ammunition limit violates gun
owners’ Second Amendment rights. At the same time, U.S. District
Judge William Skretny rejected a Second Amendment challenge to
another major provision of New York’s SAFE Act: its ban on
so-called assault weapons. The difference is mainly due to
Skretny’s assessment of the distinctions drawn by the “assault
weapon” ban, which he deemed less arbiitrary than the ammunition
rule.

Skretny
concluded that both provisions apply to guns in common use for
lawful purposes—the sort of weapons that the Supreme Court has said
are covered by the Second Amendment. He also concluded that both
provisions “impose a substantial burden on Plaintiffs’ Second
Amendment rights.” Applying “intermediate scrutiny,” he asked
whether the provisions were “substantially related to the
achievement of an important governmental interest.” For reasons
I discussed in
a post earlier today, Skretny ruled that the ammunition limit,
which allows a gun owner to use a 10-round magazine as long as he
puts no more than seven rounds in it, fails this test. But Skretny
took a different view of the “assault weapon” ban, deeming the
“military-style” features on which it focuses potentially useful to
mass murderers but inessential to law-abiding gun owners.

Contrary to popular misconceptions,
the defining characteristics of “assault weapons” have nothing to
do with rate of fire, caliber, or ammunition capacity. Under the
SAFE Act, for example, any one of these features transforms a
semiautomatic rifle with a detachable magazine into an “assault
weapon”: a folding or telescoping stock, a pistol grip, a thumbhole
stock, a second hand grip, a threaded barrel (for attaching a flash
suppressor or muzzle brake), a bayonet mount, or a grenade
launcher. It seems safe to ignore the last two, since mass shooters
rarely deploy bayonets and cannot legally obtain grenades, without
which a grenade launcher is pretty useless. Are the other features
functionally important in attacks on defenseless moviegoers or
schoolchildren?

No matter how you answer that question, the analysis cuts both
ways. If the “military-style” features that define the prohibited
weapons are mainly cosmetic and do not make an important difference
in the context of mass shootings, banning these guns won’t do much
good, but it also won’t have much effect on self-defense and other
legitimate uses of firearms. And to the extent that the politically
disfavored characteristics are functionally significant, they are
useful to law-abiding people as well as criminals. Skretny
highlights the two-edged nature of the arguments used by the
organizations challenging the ban:

Plaintiffs contend that many of the outlawed features do not
make firearms more lethal; instead, according to Plaintiffs,
several of the outlawed features simply make the firearm easier to
use. For instance, they argue that a telescoping stock, which
allows the user to adjust the length of the stock, does not make a
weapon more dangerous, but instead, like finding the right size
shoe, simply allows the shooter to rest the weapon on his or her
shoulder properly and comfortably. Another outlawed feature, the
pistol grip, also increases comfort and stability. The same goes
for the “thumbhole stock,” which, as the name suggests, is a hole
in the stock of the rifle for the user’s thumb. It too increases
comfort, stability, and accuracy according to Plaintiffs.

But Plaintiffs later argue that the banned features increase the
utility for self-defense— which is just another way of saying that
the features increase their lethality. Plaintiffs make this
explicit:”Where it is necessary for a crime victim to shoot the
aggressor, and lethal or incapacitating injury will stop him, the
lethality of the defender’s firearm is a precondition to her
ability end the criminal attack.” The National Rifle Association of
America, as amicus curiae, make a similar argument, describing how
the banned features improve a firearm’s usability.

There thus can be no serious dispute that the very features that
increase a weapon’s utility for self-defense also increase its
dangerousness to the public at large.

The reverse is also true, however, and here is where the level
of scrutiny chosen by Skretny makes a crucial difference:

Pointing to the benefits of these features to those who might
use them defensively, Plaintiffs argue that the SAFE Act ought to
be struck down. But under intermediate scrutiny, this Court must
give “substantial deference to the predictive judgments of the
legislature.”

Still, Skretny is more deferential than he needs to be,
consistently preferring the analysis of gun control supporters to
that of skeptics in reaching the conclusion that New York’s
“assault weapon” ban is “substantially related” to the goal of
protecting public safety. For example, he cites the
Mother Jones tally of mass shootings since 1982,
which has been criticized for misleadingly
suggesting that such incidents are on the rise. But even the
Mother Jones analysis found that handguns were by far
the preferred weapon of mass shooters. “Assault weapons” (as
defined by Dianne Feinstein’s 2013 bill) accounted for just 14
percent of the guns the killers used. Skretny obscures that point
by saying “the study found that assault weapons, high-capacity
magazines, or both were used in over half of all mass
shootings.”

Even if it were true that most mass shooters use “assault
weapons,” that would not necessarily mean banning those guns would
reduce the death toll from mass shootings. It is not reasonable to
expect any measurable effect from such laws as long as equally
lethal alternatives are readily available, and that will be true as
long as people have a constitutional right to armed
self-defense.

from Hit & Run http://reason.com/blog/2014/01/02/how-new-yorks-assault-weapon-ban-passed
via IFTTT

How New York’s ‘Assault Weapon’ Ban Passed Constitutional Muster

On Tuesday a federal judge
ruled that New York’s seven-round ammunition limit violates gun
owners’ Second Amendment rights. At the same time, U.S. District
Judge William Skretny rejected a Second Amendment challenge to
another major provision of New York’s SAFE Act: its ban on
so-called assault weapons. The difference is mainly due to
Skretny’s assessment of the distinctions drawn by the “assault
weapon” ban, which he deemed less arbiitrary than the ammunition
rule.

Skretny
concluded that both provisions apply to guns in common use for
lawful purposes—the sort of weapons that the Supreme Court has said
are covered by the Second Amendment. He also concluded that both
provisions “impose a substantial burden on Plaintiffs’ Second
Amendment rights.” Applying “intermediate scrutiny,” he asked
whether the provisions were “substantially related to the
achievement of an important governmental interest.” For reasons
I discussed in
a post earlier today, Skretny ruled that the ammunition limit,
which allows a gun owner to use a 10-round magazine as long as he
puts no more than seven rounds in it, fails this test. But Skretny
took a different view of the “assault weapon” ban, deeming the
“military-style” features on which it focuses potentially useful to
mass murderers but inessential to law-abiding gun owners.

Contrary to popular misconceptions,
the defining characteristics of “assault weapons” have nothing to
do with rate of fire, caliber, or ammunition capacity. Under the
SAFE Act, for example, any one of these features transforms a
semiautomatic rifle with a detachable magazine into an “assault
weapon”: a folding or telescoping stock, a pistol grip, a thumbhole
stock, a second hand grip, a threaded barrel (for attaching a flash
suppressor or muzzle brake), a bayonet mount, or a grenade
launcher. It seems safe to ignore the last two, since mass shooters
rarely deploy bayonets and cannot legally obtain grenades, without
which a grenade launcher is pretty useless. Are the other features
functionally important in attacks on defenseless moviegoers or
schoolchildren?

No matter how you answer that question, the analysis cuts both
ways. If the “military-style” features that define the prohibited
weapons are mainly cosmetic and do not make an important difference
in the context of mass shootings, banning these guns won’t do much
good, but it also won’t have much effect on self-defense and other
legitimate uses of firearms. And to the extent that the politically
disfavored characteristics are functionally significant, they are
useful to law-abiding people as well as criminals. Skretny
highlights the two-edged nature of the arguments used by the
organizations challenging the ban:

Plaintiffs contend that many of the outlawed features do not
make firearms more lethal; instead, according to Plaintiffs,
several of the outlawed features simply make the firearm easier to
use. For instance, they argue that a telescoping stock, which
allows the user to adjust the length of the stock, does not make a
weapon more dangerous, but instead, like finding the right size
shoe, simply allows the shooter to rest the weapon on his or her
shoulder properly and comfortably. Another outlawed feature, the
pistol grip, also increases comfort and stability. The same goes
for the “thumbhole stock,” which, as the name suggests, is a hole
in the stock of the rifle for the user’s thumb. It too increases
comfort, stability, and accuracy according to Plaintiffs.

But Plaintiffs later argue that the banned features increase the
utility for self-defense— which is just another way of saying that
the features increase their lethality. Plaintiffs make this
explicit:”Where it is necessary for a crime victim to shoot the
aggressor, and lethal or incapacitating injury will stop him, the
lethality of the defender’s firearm is a precondition to her
ability end the criminal attack.” The National Rifle Association of
America, as amicus curiae, make a similar argument, describing how
the banned features improve a firearm’s usability.

There thus can be no serious dispute that the very features that
increase a weapon’s utility for self-defense also increase its
dangerousness to the public at large.

The reverse is also true, however, and here is where the level
of scrutiny chosen by Skretny makes a crucial difference:

Pointing to the benefits of these features to those who might
use them defensively, Plaintiffs argue that the SAFE Act ought to
be struck down. But under intermediate scrutiny, this Court must
give “substantial deference to the predictive judgments of the
legislature.”

Still, Skretny is more deferential than he needs to be,
consistently preferring the analysis of gun control supporters to
that of skeptics in reaching the conclusion that New York’s
“assault weapon” ban is “substantially related” to the goal of
protecting public safety. For example, he cites the
Mother Jones tally of mass shootings since 1982,
which has been criticized for misleadingly
suggesting that such incidents are on the rise. But even the
Mother Jones analysis found that handguns were by far
the preferred weapon of mass shooters. “Assault weapons” (as
defined by Dianne Feinstein’s 2013 bill) accounted for just 14
percent of the guns the killers used. Skretny obscures that point
by saying “the study found that assault weapons, high-capacity
magazines, or both were used in over half of all mass
shootings.”

Even if it were true that most mass shooters use “assault
weapons,” that would not necessarily mean banning those guns would
reduce the death toll from mass shootings. It is not reasonable to
expect any measurable effect from such laws as long as equally
lethal alternatives are readily available, and that will be true as
long as people have a constitutional right to armed
self-defense.

from Hit & Run http://reason.com/blog/2014/01/02/how-new-yorks-assault-weapon-ban-passed
via IFTTT

Italy's Pitchfork Movement Slammed For "Delirious" Nazi-Like Comments

Italy’s anti-austerity Pitchfork movement, who described Italy as being “enslaved by wealthy Jewish bankers,” has come under fire for “shamelessly recall[ing] a historical period characterised by death, violence and denial of the most elementary rights.” The nation’s Jewish community, writing in La Repubblica, said the Pitchfork leader’s remarks demonstrate a “deeper sense of discomfort” fuelled by “the most violent and grimmest anti-Semitic stereotypes”. Despite Italian stock and bond markets surging to multi-year highs, IB Times notes that mass demonstrations continue to rile the company’s economy as Pitchfork followers demand the total removal of the ruling political class.

 

Via IB Times,

Italy’s Jewish communities have hit back at the spokesman of the anti-austerity Pitchfork movement, who described Italy as being “enslaved by wealthy Jewish bankers”.

 

The Pitchfork protestors’ spokesman, Andrea Zunino, who made the anti-Semitic comments, represents thousands of demonstrators who took to the streets in towns and cities across Italy to voice anger at austerity measures.

 

Renzo Gattegna, representing the Jewish community, said the words were “delirious”.

 

“[Those words] shamelessly recall a historical period characterised by death, violence and denial of the most elementary rights,” he told daily La Repubblica.

 

Conspiracy theories regarding Jews and banking were popular during the rise of National Socialism and the Nazis.

 

Earlier, Zunino had claimed: “We want government resignation. We want sovereignty over Italy which is now the slave of bankers, like the Rothschild: it is odd that five or six among the world’s richest people are Jews.”

 

The Pitchfork movement, which started with a loose group of Sicilian farmers concerned about rising taxes and cuts to agricultural state funds, has evolved into a nationwide umbrella grouping of truckers, small businessman, the unemployed, low-paid workers, rightwing extremists and football supporters.

 

Zunino cites Hungary’s controversial premier Viktor Orban, whose government has been accused of being weak in fighting rising anti-Semitism, as his role model.

 

But Gattegna said the Pitchfork leader’s remarks demonstrate a “deeper sense of discomfort” fuelled by “the most violent and grimmest anti-Semitic stereotypes”.

 

…

 

Thousands of Pitchfork demonstrators, riled by the country’s struggling economy, have demanded the total removal of the ruling political class, as well as calling for tax cuts, lowered fuel prices, and dumping the euro.

 

Mass demonstrations threw some Italian cities into chaos on Monday with police officers using teargas on protesters who had been throwing rocks and bottles at the headquarters of Italy’s tax collection agency.

 

Roadblocks, demonstrations and sit-ins continued from Milan to Bari in the south.

 

Shop-owners were reportedly threatened by demonstrators to either close their stores and join the protest, or face violence.

Of course, we have discussed the rise of social unrest and its linkages to austerity in the past but perhaps it is the huge gap between markets and high earner wealth and the struggling-with-record-unemployment working class that has fuelled the problems in Italy to this point.


    



via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/y4HF712PNAk/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Italy’s Pitchfork Movement Slammed For “Delirious” Nazi-Like Comments

Italy’s anti-austerity Pitchfork movement, who described Italy as being “enslaved by wealthy Jewish bankers,” has come under fire for “shamelessly recall[ing] a historical period characterised by death, violence and denial of the most elementary rights.” The nation’s Jewish community, writing in La Repubblica, said the Pitchfork leader’s remarks demonstrate a “deeper sense of discomfort” fuelled by “the most violent and grimmest anti-Semitic stereotypes”. Despite Italian stock and bond markets surging to multi-year highs, IB Times notes that mass demonstrations continue to rile the company’s economy as Pitchfork followers demand the total removal of the ruling political class.

 

Via IB Times,

Italy’s Jewish communities have hit back at the spokesman of the anti-austerity Pitchfork movement, who described Italy as being “enslaved by wealthy Jewish bankers”.

 

The Pitchfork protestors’ spokesman, Andrea Zunino, who made the anti-Semitic comments, represents thousands of demonstrators who took to the streets in towns and cities across Italy to voice anger at austerity measures.

 

Renzo Gattegna, representing the Jewish community, said the words were “delirious”.

 

“[Those words] shamelessly recall a historical period characterised by death, violence and denial of the most elementary rights,” he told daily La Repubblica.

 

Conspiracy theories regarding Jews and banking were popular during the rise of National Socialism and the Nazis.

 

Earlier, Zunino had claimed: “We want government resignation. We want sovereignty over Italy which is now the slave of bankers, like the Rothschild: it is odd that five or six among the world’s richest people are Jews.”

 

The Pitchfork movement, which started with a loose group of Sicilian farmers concerned about rising taxes and cuts to agricultural state funds, has evolved into a nationwide umbrella grouping of truckers, small businessman, the unemployed, low-paid workers, rightwing extremists and football supporters.

 

Zunino cites Hungary’s controversial premier Viktor Orban, whose government has been accused of being weak in fighting rising anti-Semitism, as his role model.

 

But Gattegna said the Pitchfork leader’s remarks demonstrate a “deeper sense of discomfort” fuelled by “the most violent and grimmest anti-Semitic stereotypes”.

 

…

 

Thousands of Pitchfork demonstrators, riled by the country’s struggling economy, have demanded the total removal of the ruling political class, as well as calling for tax cuts, lowered fuel prices, and dumping the euro.

 

Mass demonstrations threw some Italian cities into chaos on Monday with police officers using teargas on protesters who had been throwing rocks and bottles at the headquarters of Italy’s tax collection agency.

 

Roadblocks, demonstrations and sit-ins continued from Milan to Bari in the south.

 

Shop-owners were reportedly threatened by demonstrators to either close their stores and join the protest, or face violence.

Of course, we have discussed the rise of social unrest and its linkages to austerity in the past but perhaps it is the huge gap between markets and high earner wealth and the struggling-with-record-unemployment working class that has fuelled the problems in Italy to this point.


    



via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/y4HF712PNAk/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Guest Post: Local Perceptions And Bitcoin's Future In Singapore

Submitted by Keith Hilden, Squawkonomics

Squawk Walk Singapore: Local Perceptions and Bitcoin’s Future in Singapore

I have just returned from a very enjoyable trip to Singapore, in which our goal was to determine the sentiments and level of knowledge people had about Bitcoin in order to better determine Bitcoin’s future in Singapore. That journey took me to the pulsating central business district of a vibrant Singapore, traditional neighborhoods completely recast in the face of new immigration and rigorous central planning, and the newcomer immigrants and permanent residents where languages like Thai and Japanese punctuate the linguistic air of Singapore accentuated English. What we found out about Bitcoin sharply contrasted with that of what we learned about Bitcoin in Taiwan.

 

Bitcoin has a future here in Singapore, but it is a future that inevitably will be co-opted by central planning and control. The majority of locals who did not have the best sentiments regarding Bitcoin cited the lack of central control, ironically the reason in other countries why Bitcoin enjoyed its meteoric rise. Bitcoin is expected to be pilloried with payment gateways and other payment process implementation mechanisms to streamline the Bitcoin protocol into a fashion that the locals are familiarized to and prefer- a robust payment method with savings applications that is guaranteed by an actual organization against loss. Look no further than this lagging indicator, taken around the Promenade of the central business district overlooking the Marina Bay Sands casino, that Bitcoin’s future in Singapore is a co-opted system run on the familiar rails of global multinational corporations.

Source: Squawkonomics

Bitcoin’s culture in Singapore seems set in the trajectory of government involvement and control, far different than the cryptophile tech savvy liberty proponents calling for a much different future of decentralization, individualism, and confidence through peer-reviewed transaction confirmations. Indeed, it appears that Bitcoin is headed for a schism in how governments and populations in different countries wish to administer and implement Bitcoin in their own countries, resulting in strange family gatherings of statism and libertarianism driving Bitcoin’s future across various countries in the world. The big picture is an unfolding dynamic of converging discordant forces of libertarianism and statism at the crux of a grand showdown, as the battle lines for control of Bitcoin are drawn in places like Singapore, Germany, and China.

Singaporeans we talked to seemed to prefer government control over Bitcoin due to their perception of government being able to control price fluctuations and guarantee against loss. However, when asked if they would accept an independent organization guaranteeing Bitcoin transactions, most of the Singaporeans we talked to would also be fine with that. Almost all Singaporeans we talked to were not satisfied with the current Wild West status quo they perceived as a downfall to Bitcoin’s development.

Singaporeans we talked to as a whole expressed a rock-solid confidence in their government’s ability to guarantee the financial system, banking system, and the stability in the Singapore dollar. Singaporeans also questioned the need for Bitcoin when there was a plentiful array of payment methods around Singapore. Very few Singaporeans saw Bitcoin in the light of an advantageous vehicle in which to store savings, and most cited volatile fluctuations in the Bitcoin price for that reason.

Singaporeans further were not clear what was backing Bitcoin and thus were not clear as to how Bitcoin’s price could be so high. However, when the US came into conversation, the conversation veered many a times to the US money printing by Ben Bernanke, and the inflation and debt arising from that. Some of them had even likened Bitcoin to the US dollar, in the sense they felt nothing was backing either of them, and had no guarantee behind it. However, many Singaporeans spoke of US monetary and economic problems as if from a different part of the world that didn’t impact them in the slightest.

In comparison between what we learned in Singapore and Taiwan:

#1 People in Singapore had a drastically lower concern about cyber security with Bitcoin than did people in Taiwan.

#2 People in Singapore trusted the government to guarantee the financial and monetary system much more than people in Taiwan did. No one in Taiwan explicitly said they didn’t need Bitcoin due to confidence in their government.

#3 People in Singapore were at the same time more willing to try Bitcoin out, while people in Taiwan were much more conservative and cited the need to limit their exposure in Bitcoin and use it from arm’s length.

#4 Knowledge about Bitcoin in Singapore was remarkably higher than it was in Taiwan.

And for a fascinating insight on how people in Taiwan view Bitcoin, check out our Squawk Walk Taipei from last week:


    



via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/ibxUmx9o68Y/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Guest Post: Local Perceptions And Bitcoin’s Future In Singapore

Submitted by Keith Hilden, Squawkonomics

Squawk Walk Singapore: Local Perceptions and Bitcoin’s Future in Singapore

I have just returned from a very enjoyable trip to Singapore, in which our goal was to determine the sentiments and level of knowledge people had about Bitcoin in order to better determine Bitcoin’s future in Singapore. That journey took me to the pulsating central business district of a vibrant Singapore, traditional neighborhoods completely recast in the face of new immigration and rigorous central planning, and the newcomer immigrants and permanent residents where languages like Thai and Japanese punctuate the linguistic air of Singapore accentuated English. What we found out about Bitcoin sharply contrasted with that of what we learned about Bitcoin in Taiwan.

 

Bitcoin has a future here in Singapore, but it is a future that inevitably will be co-opted by central planning and control. The majority of locals who did not have the best sentiments regarding Bitcoin cited the lack of central control, ironically the reason in other countries why Bitcoin enjoyed its meteoric rise. Bitcoin is expected to be pilloried with payment gateways and other payment process implementation mechanisms to streamline the Bitcoin protocol into a fashion that the locals are familiarized to and prefer- a robust payment method with savings applications that is guaranteed by an actual organization against loss. Look no further than this lagging indicator, taken around the Promenade of the central business district overlooking the Marina Bay Sands casino, that Bitcoin’s future in Singapore is a co-opted system run on the familiar rails of global multinational corporations.

Source: Squawkonomics

Bitcoin’s culture in Singapore seems set in the trajectory of government involvement and control, far different than the cryptophile tech savvy liberty proponents calling for a much different future of decentralization, individualism, and confidence through peer-reviewed transaction confirmations. Indeed, it appears that Bitcoin is headed for a schism in how governments and populations in different countries wish to administer and implement Bitcoin in their own countries, resulting in strange family gatherings of statism and libertarianism driving Bitcoin’s future across various countries in the world. The big picture is an unfolding dynamic of converging discordant forces of libertarianism and statism at the crux of a grand showdown, as the battle lines for control of Bitcoin are drawn in places like Singapore, Germany, and China.

Singaporeans we talked to seemed to prefer government control over Bitcoin due to their perception of government being able to control price fluctuations and guarantee against loss. However, when asked if they would accept an independent organization guaranteeing Bitcoin transactions, most of the Singaporeans we talked to would also be fine with that. Almost all Singaporeans we talked to were not satisfied with the current Wild West status quo they perceived as a downfall to Bitcoin’s development.

Singaporeans we talked to as a whole expressed a rock-solid confidence in their government’s ability to guarantee the financial system, banking system, and the stability in the Singapore dollar. Singaporeans also questioned the need for Bitcoin when there was a plentiful array of payment methods around Singapore. Very few Singaporeans saw Bitcoin in the light of an advantageous vehicle in which to store savings, and most cited volatile fluctuations in the Bitcoin price for that reason.

Singaporeans further were not clear what was backing Bitcoin and thus were not clear as to how Bitcoin’s price could be so high. However, when the US came into conversation, the conversation veered many a times to the US money printing by Ben Bernanke, and the inflation and debt arising from that. Some of them had even likened Bitcoin to the US dollar, in the sense they felt nothing was backing either of them, and had no guarantee behind it. However, many Singaporeans spoke of US monetary and economic problems as if from a different part of the world that didn’t impact them in the slightest.

In comparison between what we learned in Singapore and Taiwan:

#1 People in Singapore had a drastically lower concern about cyber security with Bitcoin than did people in Taiwan.

#2 People in Singapore trusted the government to guarantee the financial and monetary system much more than people in Taiwan did. No one in Taiwan explicitly said they didn’t need Bitcoin due to confidence in their government.

#3 People in Singapore were at the same time more willing to try Bitcoin out, while people in Taiwan were much more conservative and cited the need to limit their exposure in Bitcoin and use it from arm’s length.

#4 Knowledge about Bitcoin in Singapore was remarkably higher than it was in Taiwan.

And for a fascinating insight on how people in Taiwan view Bitcoin, check out our Squawk Walk Taipei from last week:


    



via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/ibxUmx9o68Y/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Bombing Kills at Least 4 in Beirut, Over 1,000 Cars Torched in France Over New Year’s, Republican Activist Wants California Legislature To Grow: P.M. Links


  • A bombing     in a Hezbollah-controlled area of Beirut has killed
    at least four people.
  • The
    chaplain     for New York City’s Department of Sanitation (yes,
    really) called the Big Apple a “plantation” during Mayor Bill de
    Blasio’s inauguration ceremony.
  • A Republican activist in California is working on a proposal to
    expand the
    California legislature     to 12,000 members from its current
    120.
  • A Saudi man has been sentenced to
    90 days in jail and 80 lashes     for accusing a Kuwaiti singer of
    adultery on Twitter.
  • According to the French interior minister,
    1,067 cars     were torched over New Year’s.
  • Ford has unveiled a hybrid car that uses
    solar energy     to power its battery pack.

Follow Reason and Reason 24/7 on
Twitter, and like us on Facebook.  You
can also get the top stories mailed to
you—sign
up here. 

from Hit & Run http://reason.com/blog/2014/01/02/bombing-kills-at-least-4-in-beirut-over
via IFTTT

Matthew Feeney on Why British Free Marketeers Should Welcome Romanian and Bulgarian Immigrants

Yesterday, the remaining transitional
controls on the free movement of Romanians
and Bulgarians within the European Union were
lifted. Romanians and Bulgarians are now
free to work anywhere within the economic bloc thanks to
one of its only good policies. Some politicians who are
self-described fans of the free market came out against the free
movement of people. Matthew Feeney explains that the political
rhetoric in the U.K. surrounding Bulgarian and Romanian migration
has highlighted the fact that politicians from political parties
whose members claim to be either pro-markets, anti-E.U., or both
would implement anti-capitalist policies hostile to the free
movement of people if they were given free rein. 

View this article.

from Hit & Run http://reason.com/blog/2014/01/02/matthew-feeney-on-why-british-free-marke
via IFTTT

What Do Ayn Rand, Dr. Seuss, and Buddy Holly Have in Common?

If I go on strike, Whoville will grind to a halt.If you were dreaming that this year an
upstart publisher would mash up Atlas
Shrugged and How
the Grinch Stole Christmas into a book both egoists
and altruists could love, you’re out of luck. There was a time
when American copyrights covered creative efforts for no more than
56 years, allowing both of those books to enter the public domain
yesterday. But the Copyright Act of 1976 brought that saner system
to an end, and since then copyright terms have only grown
longer.

The Center for the Study of the Public Domain has posted a
list
of famous novels, films, and other works that would have come into
the public domain this year if the pre-’76 system were still in
place; they range from Salvador Dali’s Celestial
Ride to Buddy Holly’s “Peggy Sue.” Under the old law, the
site notes, you

would be free to translate [the list’s] books into
other languages, create Braille or audio versions for visually
impaired readers (if you think that publishers wouldn’t object to
this, you would be wrong), or adapt them for film. You could read
them online or buy cheaper print editions, because others were free
to republish them….Imagine a digital Library of Alexandria
containing all of the world’s books from 1957 and earlier, where,
thanks to technology, you can search, link, index, annotate, copy
and paste. (Google Books has brought us closer to this reality, but
for copyrighted books where there is no separate agreement with the
copyright holder, it only shows three short snippets, not the whole
book.) Instead of seeing these literary works enter the public
domain in 2014, we will have to wait until 2053.

We might have to wait even longer. The content industry is
gearing up to extend copyright terms
yet again.

from Hit & Run http://reason.com/blog/2014/01/02/what-do-ayn-rand-dr-seuss-and-buddy-holl
via IFTTT