Bitcoin implodes and the banking crisis

The easiest way to invest in the growth of Bitcoin & the Crypto Currency Sector. — BitCoin Capital

Max Keiser lost all credibility when a few weeks ago he claimed rouble a strong currency. You could almost see Vladimir Putin pulling the strings.

Ностальжи / Nostalgia

This latest Keiser Report is another example of nonsense being peddled, this time on bitcoin.

Skirting over in this discussion that bitcoin has run into technical problems, mere hints of the intercine warfare between core bitcoin developers. And that is only the tip of the iceberg of the problems facing bitcoin.

Bitcoin has failed miserably as a currency.  It fails to meet the basic criteria of a currency:

• store of value
• unit of exchange

Bitcoin is highly volatile, it lacks utility. Where is the baker where I can use bitcoin to buy a loaf of bread?

Bitcoin has been hijacked by spivs and parasites, all out to make a fast buck. One of who was a guest on the programme.  And who was this guest? Why none other than Simon Dixon, a vulture capitalist, who co-manages a vulture  capital fund trying to make  a fast buck out of bitcoin, co-manages with none other than Max Keiser himself. If, and a very big if, the investment goes well, investors are paid, please do not laugh, in bitcoin.

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Max Keiser remarkably coy about the fact he is a bitcoin millionaire, indeed a deafening silence.

And where is BitCoin Capital based? Er, the tax dodging Cayman Islands.

Invest in a Ponzi scheme, attract more investors to inflate the price, and then you get a return, only the return is in the very thing you are investing.

You could not make this up if you tried.

Someone exposing that bitcoin is heading towards a brick wall due to technical problems, is not going to go down too well with a vulture capital fund where two of the people on the programme, including one of the presenters, have  a direct vested interest.

Yes, we should be very concerned by the activity of all these players, especially the criminal banks trying to grab a piece of the action.

The New York Times article  ridiculed, was actually quite a good article on the current problems with bitcoin. That Mike Kearn working for R3, irrelevant other than it indirectly highlights one of the problems with everyone associated with bitcoin, all out to line their own pockets.

This is not the mindset to be expected of people working on an Open Source, Open Protocol project located in the collaborative commons.

This is not the mindset of Open Software, Open Protocols, where you freely contribute your time to the collaborative commons, in order that all can benefit and in turn draw from the collaborative commons.

The mindset of the bitcoin developers is the opposite to that in The GNU Manifesto.

Software illustrates the dichotomy of the free flow of information. In one corner of the ring Bill Gates, who argues:

most of you steal your software. Hardware must be paid for, but software is something to share. Who cares if the people who worked on it get paid?

In the opposing corner of the ring Richard Stallman, who argues:

If anything deserves a reward, it is social contribution. Creativity can be a social contribution, but only in so far as society is free to use the results. If programmers deserve to be rewarded for creating innovative programs, by the same token they deserve to be punished if they restrict the use of these programs. … Extracting money from users of a program by restricting their use of it is destructive because the restrictions reduce the amount and the ways that the program can be used. This reduces the amount of wealth that humanity derives from the program. When there is a deliberate choice to restrict, the harmful consequences are deliberate destruction.

Bill Gates was arguing for commercial software, Richard Stallman Open Source software.

What Richard Stallman saw, was if knowledge freely flows, we all benefit. We contributive freely to the collaborative commons, and in turn draw from the collaborative commons.

Opens Source software, for example Apache, runs the internet, powerful supercomputers run on Open Source software Linux.

Bitcoin was developed as Open Source, Open Protocol. It has failed as a currency, but it has also failed because the Bitcoin developers have failed to comprehend the basic premise that Richard Stallman outlined in The GNU Manifesto. They are funded by vulture capitalists, parasitic start ups, all who are looking for means to profit from Bitcoin.

Bitcoin was an interesting proof of concept, nothing more. Coherent noise.

The only use of bitcoin is as a quick and dirty means to transfer out of a currency, across a border.

There has been no re-branding of bitcoin as the blockchain. The blockchain is seen as useful in its own right as a means of recording transactions in digital assets, open, secure and transparent.

Mycelia to track music uses the blockchain.

What relevance the number of transactions of bitcoin, best performing currency? All this tells us is that it attracts the interests of a lot of spivs and speculators out to make a fast buck.

How many of these transactions were using bitcoin as a currency to buy goods and services?

Bitcoin may work as a vehicle for the nefarious activities of spivs and speculators, as a currency it has been a complete and utter failure.

 

As a currency, the Brixton Pound is more of a success story than bitcoin. But then the Brixton Pound has not attracted the activities of spivs and speculators out to make a fast buck. It is used as a local currency, to buy goods and services within the local Brixton economy.

Bitcoin fails the basic requirements of a  currency:

• store of value
• unit of exchange

Yes, there is a problem with the banks, lax regulation, they should have been broken up, casino banking split from retail banking, but that is an entirely separate issue, a side show and a distraction from the problems facing bitcoin.

In PostCapitalism, Paul Mason exposes the criminal activities of the bankers. He also shows that all the conditions are in place for yet another banking crisis, only this time there is no money to bail out the banks, and if there was there would be riots in the streets.

It is a moot point, that with the exception of Iceland, no bankers have gone to prison.

Clearly the banks have woken up to the fact that a functioning Bitcoin 2.0 would pose a real threat.  The nearest we have to Bitcoin 2.0 is faircoin.

• Sacred Economics
• An alternative Greek currency
• Why has Bitcoin failed?
• Is Bitcoin dead?
• Bitcoin: The Emperor’s New Clothes
• Bitcoin Dead? Not the Part that Matters

Selling RBS off on the cheap

This evening George Osborne announced what has been an open secret for some time, that he intends to sell off Royal Bank of Scotland on the cheap. The sale will be at a loss of £10 billion pounds.

• RBS government stake to be sold, chancellor announces

The advice on the sale price has come from investment bankers.

And who will make a killing on the sale?

Er, none other than investment bankers.

Scroll back a couple of years and we see the RBS sell off is a re-run of the Post Office sell off.

The Post Office was sold on the cheap at a massive loss to the taxpayer. And who advised on the sale price? Investment bankers. And who profited from the sell off on the cheap? Er, investment bankers.

George Osborne during the Election announced a £12 billion cut to benefits. This on top of the cuts already made.

As usual under the Tories, the poor suffer the rich profit.

Iceland which refused to bail out the banks, indeed they gaoled the bankers and the people took direct action to force the government out and constitutional changes, had a few tough years, is now the only economy in Europe that is recovering.

• Iceland put bankers in jail rather than bailing them out — and it worked
• Three charts that show Iceland’s economy recovered after it imprisoned bankers and let banks go bust – instead of bailing them out

The UK could have let the banks go bust, but instead bailed out the banks, and used the consequential economic crisis as an excuse for austerity, Shock Doctrine, cuts to public services, library closures, cuts to welfare benefits.

Instead of this cosy relationship with the banks (who fund the Tory Party), we should be breaking up the banks, spitting casino banking from retail banking, and throwing a few banksters into prison.

So far not a single bankster has had so much as a slap on the wrist, let alone had to serve time in prison.

Please sign the petition calling for a halt to the sell off of RBS on the cheap.

Banks money launder for Fifa

Is anyone suprised HSBC and Barclays caught money laundering for Fifa?

One bunch of criminals aiding and abetting another bunch of criminals.

• UK banks named in football bribery scandal: Barclays and HSBC ‘handled millions in suspect transactions’

Time to bang up the banksters

Barclays

Is it not time we banged up a few banksters?

Each time there is a new banking scandal, more evidence emerges of their criminal activities, it is put down to a few rogue traders. Rogue traders who are not rogues until they get caught.

No they are not rogue traders, they are are criminals working for criminal organisations.

Criminal organisations like HSBC, Barclays, RBS make the mafia look like a little old lady at a  garden party.

Banksters rigged the Libor rate. Not a single bankster in gaol.

Banksters rigged the currency exchange. Not a single bankster in gaol.

Banksters engaged in numerous mis-selling scams. Not a single bankster in gaol.

HSBC banksters money laundered for terrorists, Mexican drug cartels, carried out tax evasion on an industrial scale. Not a single HSBC bankster in gaol.

Banksters crashed the UK economy. Not a single bankster in gaol. Not only UK, Greece, Cyprus, Spain, Ireland.

Why does the British government not bang up the banksters? Because Tories are funded by the banksters.

When Ed Miliband was interviewed by Russell Brand he was asked would he bang up the banksters. His answer was cagey.

Ironically I write this at a meeting with banksters. Had I known beforehand, I may have been tempted to organise a rather different reception than the one they had.  But then I would have blown my cover.

• Iceland Begin To Jail Bankers
• Crooked bankers are STILL laughing at the law: Barclays and RBS are hit by new £2BILLION fine for rigging markets – but guilty men are protected by cloak of anonymity

Banksy on Banks

Give a man a gun and he can rob a bank. Give a man a bank and he can rob the world. — Banksy

Give a man a gun and he can rob a bank. Give a man a bank and he can rob the world. — Banksy

Today HSBC threatened to pull out of the UK, well actually pull their head office. Apparently for HSBC, the lax regulations of banks and bankers is not lax enough.

• HSBC considers moving HQ out of UK

HSBC is the bank that money laundered for Mexican drug cartels and terrorists, that aided and abetted tax evasion on an industrial scale.

HSBC has rigged foreign exchange markets, has mis-sold worthless financial products.

HSBC is one of several banks that helped destroy the British economy.

Not a single banker is rotting in jail.

Bankers are still awarding themselves obscene salaries and bonuses.

The banker who was in charge of HSBC at the time, David Cameron gave a seat in the House of Lords and appointed as a government minister.

Yes, we are all in it together Dave.

Why do we not give HSBC the boot? A coordinated worldwide attack on HSBC, a coordinated withdrawal of funds.

• HSBC the crooked bank
• The Emperor’s New Clothes Premier
• On the Lam with Bank Robber Enric Duran

The Terror Of How Banks Use Our Money

Jo the Disgruntled Banker, was more than a little peeved when he was locked out of RBS and his hot paella got a little cold.

The money laundering for Mexican Drug Cartels, financing of Tar Sands in Canada, Libor and many other scams and scandals seems of little concern to Jo the Banker, all that mattered was his cold lunch.

And why was he locked out? Because Russell Brand was trying to illicit a little information direct from the horse’s mouth, only to be met by over zealous security who put the building in lock down.

Max Keiser in conversation with Russell Brand breaks down how the banking system works and what happens to your money – you’ll be shocked.

When is a bonus not a bonus? When it is a crooked banker calling it an allowance to get around the cap on bonuses.

We own RBS aka Rotten Bank of Scotland. We should have let it go bust. Then instead of bonuses, the bankers would have been on the Dole.

We should have followed the example of Iceland, they refused to bail out the banks, put the bankers in prison, and sacked their parliament.

We own RBS, is it not time they were accountable to us?

When two RBS banker were found guilty of a £3 million fraud, the judge let them walk free, saying he felt sorry for them. The judge said they had already “suffered” as they were “embarrassed” by the incident. Presumably they were not embarrassed until they were caught.

The banks are not too big to fail. They should be broken up into smaller banks. They should be broken up, casino banking from retail banking.

The crooked banks take our money, gamble with it, finance dirty energy, then when it goes wrong, blame a few rogue bankers and go cap in hand to the government.

When banks threaten to bring the financial system down, is that no different to a terrorist with hostages, threatening to execute them and blow up the building?

We should all minimise our dealing with the banks. Use cash. Use crowd funding to raise money for projects. Use peer to peer. Use crypto-currency.

• RBS banker spared jail for £3m property fraud was behind controversial KC stadium deal
• Judge Takes Pity on ‘Embarrassed’ RBS Bankers who Committed £3m Fraud
• Climate Camp vs RBS – We’ve arrived
• Bonus to RBS boss obscene
• Toxic RBS and Power2Contact
• Behaviour of toxic RBS beggars belief
• Toxic RBS serves formal notice
• RBS: Stop defrauding us, manipulating us, lying to us and trashing our climate
• Paul Mason: The banks, how am I here again?

Paul Mason: The banks, how am I here again?

If you think I was angry at RBS and the other transgressive banks…this was only made after I'd calmed down! http://t.co/QFpKrvqSJw

— Paul Mason (@paulmasonnews) November 13, 2014

Paul Mason’s raw thoughts on the news – and why he’s sick of the corner of the City of London next to RBS’s headquarters.

We spent billions on bailing out the banks, billions more on quantitative easing, and still the banks are corrupt and rotten to the core.

When each new scandal emerges, the banks say it was a few rogue traders, a few bad apples, and a few token scapegoats get hung out to dry.

And yet not a murmur before the got caught, these self same bad apples and corrupt bankers and rogue traders are being paid massive bonuses.

And still no bankers in prison.

It was different in Iceland.

They refused to bail out the banks, even tossed a few bankers in prison, those that they caught before they fled the country.

When I say they, they was the people, not the corrupt government and politicians.

They the people kicked out the parliament, formed a People’s Assembly.

• Iceland did it … so can we

Arrested and facing a year in gaol for singing in a bank

Reverend Billy Talen and the music director of the Stop Shopping Choir, Nehemiah Luckett, were arrested minutes later on a subway platform. The two were charged with riot in the second degree, menacing in the third degree, unlawful assembly, and two counts of disorderly conduct.

Rev Billy in JPMorgan Chase

On a Thursday afternoon last month, a dozen singing activists from the Church of Stop Shopping in NYC performed in the role of extinct Golden Toads in a “wealth management bank” of JPMorgan Chase at 56th and 6th in Manhattan. The dancing, singing toads offered bank workers and customers information sheets about the impact of Chase investments on the environment.

SOS! The very wonderful Reverend Billy, a friend of Dark Mountain and foe of ecocidal corporations everywhere, is… http://t.co/TleYBrAQdd

— DarkMountainProject (@darkmtn) December 7, 2013

Reverend Billy Talen and the music director of the Stop Shopping Choir, Nehemiah Luckett, were arrested minutes later on a subway platform. The two were charged with riot in the second degree, menacing in the third degree, unlawful assembly, and two counts of disorderly conduct. The DA’s office requested one year in prison for “this criminal stunt.” But Atty. Wylie Stecklow, defending the two activists, insisted that the “15 minutes of performance art about the Earth’s crisis” was well within “expressive political activity” protected by the 1st Amendment of the United States Constitution. The lawyers went back and forth: “Art!” “Crime!” “Art!” “Crime!” “Art!”

The Church of Stop Shopping, — a activist collective of musicians and other artists uses the research from BankTrack.Org of the Netherlands and the World Development Movement based in London to show that Chase Bank is a top financier of extractive fossil projects, responsible for more CO2 emissions release than any other institution, with the possible exception of the Chinese Communist Party. The church believes that we must reach out to the workers within the fossil fuel cartel if change is to come.

The Stop Shopping Choir, with (hopefully) Reverend Billy preaching and Nehemiah at the piano — opens a series of performances Nov. 24 through Dec 22 at Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater in New York.

Please show support for the Rev and Nehemiah by signing this petition, which will be presented to the court on 9 December 2013.

In 2008 the 8 big banks received $1251 billion in taxpayer bailout funds, enough to wipe out world poverty for a decade.

— Injustice Facts (@InjusticeFacts) December 8, 2013

Cyprus the EU vassal state

The EU jackboot with Made In Germany written on the sole is stamped on the face of every Cypriot.

Cyprus is now suffering worse as a consequence of EU occupation than it did under the Ottoman Empire and later under the British.

The EU action towards towards Cyprus is that of a Mafia thug, it is economic warfare, little short of an Act of War. This is how the EU treats small states. Were the EU to have an army, there would be an invasion and occupation, with boots on the ground.

A lot of myths are being peddled by the EU, and more specifically by the Germans.

The Cypriots are lazy. This is a variant of the Italians, Spanish, Greeks are lazy.

This has not been my impression, I have found Greeks and Cypriots to be hard working.

At a press conference last week, Paulo Coelho said he was holding his St Joseph’s Day Party in Athens for people to see for themselves and to dispel the myths peddled about Greece.

Cyprus has a rotten banking system. The same could be said of London where the banks are little more than criminal organisations who rob their customers, and yet the weak government has not had the courage to break them up.

Lax banking rules in Cyprus.

Cyprus is a former British colony, the banking rules are London banking rules.

Russian dirty money flows through Cyprus.

More Russian dirty money flows through London.

The problem is less the problems with the Cypriot banking sector per se, and more that the Cyprus banks are heavily exposed to the Greek Banks.

When Greece ran into financial problems, Cyprus as part of the Euro Zone Solidarity Fund to prop up the ailing euro, had to chip in over 4 billion euros, a huge sum for a small economy.

Cyprus was encouraged by London, US and the EU to establish an offshore banking sector to tap into the flow of dollars from Russia as everything was privatised and the Russian economy collapsed.

10% as it was last week, over 25% on deposits over 100,000 euros as it appears to be this week is theft.

We now know no deposit in euros is safe. Such deposits are not protected by the collective action of all euro zone countries as was previously thought. This will cause a mass flow of money out of euros, into London and Moscow.

Cyprus was told it had no choice. It is not a choice when the EU jackboot is stamping on your face.

Cyprus had a choice. Cyprus could have followed the example of Iceland and Argentina, defaulted, brought down the euro. A few tough years, and Cyprus would have been on the road to recovery as has happened in Iceland and Argentina.

Democracy? Unlike last week, the parliament is being allowed no say.

If the banks open next week, and it is a big if, Cypriots should invoke the Greek ideal of democracy, follow the example of UK Uncut, and Occupy the Banks.

It will be very easy to recover the money stolen from bank deposits in Cyprus. Russia slap a levy on gas exports to Germany.

RBS: Stop defrauding us, manipulating us, lying to us and trashing our climate

Oily bankers RBS AGM 2011

The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) reported a £5.2 billion loss as it announced its annual results today The bank’s boss Stephen Hester is four years into his original five-year plan to bring RBS back on track – yet things don’t seem to be getting much better for the publicly owned bank. RBS blames a year of heavy fines. But let’s just remind ourselves of what these fines were:

• PPI: The bank knowingly mis-sold its customers insurance which they neither needed nor could use, over a period of years. Fine: £2.2 billion
• Libor: The bank illegally manipulated a crucial interest rate to benefit itself whilst negatively affecting mortgage payers in the UK (and elsewhere). Fine: £391 million

Bankers this year have been rewarded for doing a ‘good job’. Bonus pot: £600,000 million.

Some pretty significant figures that the bank should never have been in a position to pay.

If the RBS was really making headway to being sustainable and acting in the interest of us and its shareholders, we would surely expect a much stronger annual report, and a move towards investments only in sustainable projects.

Hester is quoted on the BBC website this morning as saying “…my job is [to] deliver an RBS that other investors want to own shares in…” This is true, but he must also remember that RBS is still owned by UK taxpayers and it is also his job to ensure that the bank is cleaned up and takes good care of our investment. Stopping defrauding us, manipulating us, lying to us and trashing our climate and environment would certainly be a good place to start. Hester has a lot of ground to cover in the final year of his plan.

— Paul Daly

Originally published by WDM.