Bitcoin outshines gold, hitting new high, but can it last?

Abolaji Odunjo, a gadget vendor who trades with bitcoin, poses with his mobile phone at his store in Lagos, Nigeria, in August. Is bitcoin in the era of COVID-19 a global universal currency taking its rightful place or a pandemic buying frenzy that will end in tears? (Temilade Adelaja/Reuters)

 

Cryptocurrency crashes through previous US dollar highs, but skeptics say it’s best to beware

A return of bitcoin to its stratospheric highs has top financial experts scratching their heads and cryptocurrency boosters saying I told you so.

On Wednesday, bitcoin crashed through its previous record high of $19,458 US set in December 2017. Bitcoin does not trade on a single centralized market, so quotes can vary based on who assembles the data.

But while supporters insist that things are different this time and a sharp rise won’t lead to a sharp decline, many fear that inexperienced speculators are again going to get their fingers badly burned.

2021 Would Be a Great Time to Audit the Fed

 Gone are the days of the Federal Reserve hiding in the shadows. Now it’s a woke central bank fighting for climate and racial justice. Progressives must not fall for this but instead team up with the populist right to audit the Fed and demand transparency.

Let the healing begin! If it is going to be President Joe Biden a couple months from now, then there will be all the more incentive for antiestablishment Democrats to join forces with populist Republicans. What better issue than auditing the Federal Reserve System?

There is strong precedent for progressives and the populist right to unite around an “Audit the Fed” movement. In early 2009, Congressman Ron Paul introduced the Federal Reserve Transparency Act, which garnered 320 House cosponsors by the summer of 2010.

With bitcoin near all-time high, this is where Visa's CEO sees crypto going

 KEY POINTS

• Visa estimates that $18 trillion is still spent using cash and checks and health concerns due to Covid-19 will push more transactions to a cashless society.
• The payments network company also sees 1.7 billion people around the world who are unbanked or underbanked as targets for growth.
• One way in which Visa expects more people to pay in the future is with cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, which has soared in value this year back near its all-time high as more financial institutions and investors buy in.

Every day, in every corner of the Earth, people have a choice of how to spend, whether it is cash, checks, or using Visa, Mastercard or a local card in their market, and new fintech platforms. The post-Covid world does not look great for cash and checks — just look at the stock price of a payments fintech Square this year versus that of a cash security company like Brink’s.

Exclusive: JPMorgan dominates gold market with record $1 billion precious metals revenue

FILE PHOTO: An employee holds gold bars before the refining process at AGR (African Gold Refinery) in Entebbe, Uganda, October 4, 2018. REUTERS/Baz Ratner/File Photo

LONDON (Reuters) — JPMorgan has earned record revenue of around $1 billion so far this year from trading, storing and financing precious metals, vastly outperforming rival banks, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

The coronavirus has created a bonanza for investment banks dealing in gold, silver and other precious metals by triggering massive investor purchases and rupturing the normal workings of the market.

But JPMorgan has dominated, growing its share of the market.

Argentine Congress moves toward implementing wealth tax to fund COVID-19 aid

Read original article…

BUENOS AIRES, Nov 18 (Reuters) — The lower house of Argentina’s Congress on Wednesday approved a bill seeking to raise 300 billion pesos ($3.75 billion) through a tax on large fortunes to finance programs aimed at helping families hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Senate was expected to consider the government-backed legislation before the end of the month. The lower house vote was 133 to 115 with two abstentions.

People with more than $2.5 million — about 12,000 individuals — would get hit by the 2% flat tax. The levy would increase progressively as equity increases, under the proposal.

‘There will be shocks’: Yngve Slyngstad, Norway’s $1tn man

Yngve Slyngstad is the CEO of Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM) which is the part of the Norwegian Central Bank that is responsible for managing The Government Pension Fund — Global. Notably, Slyngstad was listed in fifth place on aiCIO’s 2012 list of the 100 most influential institutional investors in the world. Additionally, in July 2013 it was ranked third on the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute’s 100 Public Investor List. Likewise, in 2013 and 2014, Slyngstad was on the Forbes list of the most powerful people in the world at # 70 and # 72, respectively.

Without a doubt, the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund is considered a fairy tale of global finance. In less than 25 years investing the energy riches of the North Sea, it has become a giant of 1.2 trillion dollars and also owns 1.5 percent of the world’s publicly traded companies.

It is certainly not obvious how a young Heidegger reader hermit ended up running one of the world’s largest investment funds.

Slyngstad’s point of view

Barbara Kay: The case for deep-sixing Bill C-6

Justice Minister David Lametti hold a press conference on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Oct. 1. PHOTO BY SEAN KILPATRICK/THE CANADIAN PRESS

In reference to this, it is appropriate to bring up that at the end of last month, 306 members of Parliament approved in principle the bill C-6 of “conversion therapy”, with only seven votes of the conservative party against it. The House of Commons justice committee is reviewing the public’s responses.

Likewise, it is well known that C-6 defines “conversion therapy” as any “practice, treatment or service designed to change a person’s sexual orientation to heterosexual or gender identity to cisgender, or to repress or reduce non-heterosexual attraction or sexual behavior”. Certainly, the bill is deeply problematic, starting with the preamble, which states that it is a “myth” that gender identity “can or should change”. And it is not a myth that gender identity can change.

Flaws since the preamble

Conrad Black: Trudeau's 'reset' aims to revisit the failed policies of yesteryear

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

 Given this, it is clear that questions arise such as Why is Trudeau putting us to sleep with the second-year litter about regressing towards lobotomous socialism and pseudo-environmental self-impoverishment?

Notably, for more than 25 years, the Canadian federal government has endured a deepening creative policy drought. From 1963 to 1993, fueled in large part by the Quebec crisis, the federal government was admirably innovative. Likewise, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau (1968–1979, 1980–1984) entered public life with the main objective of having the federalists defeat the separatists in the contest for the political affections of Quebec. To this end, he introduced a vast series of changes covering almost all policy areas, including major increases in transfer payments, and finally patrolled the Canadian Constitution from Great Britain.

Period of high cliché and pretexts

Why We Need a Free Market in Money

 What is fiat money and what does it do?

This is essential to understand since today’s worldwide unbacked paper, or “fiat,” money regime is an economically and socially destructive scheme — with far-reaching and seriously harmful consequences. There is an answer, though, and this lies in ending the money production monopoly of states.

The Problem of Fiat Money

The US dollar, the Chinese renminbi, the euro, the Japanese yen, the British pound, and the Swiss franc represent fiat money.

Fiat money has three characteristics:

1. Fiat money is money monopolized by the state’s central bank. It is created by central banks and commercial banks licensed by the state.
2. Fiat money is mostly produced through bank credit expansion; it is created out of thin air.
3. Fiat money is dematerialized money, consisting of colorful paper tickets and bits and bytes on computer hard drives.

Fiat money is by no means “harmless.”

Jack M. Mintz: The least-cost path to net zero needs oil and gas

For an energy-producing country that thrives on robust energy production, the key issue is whether decarbonization will shut down our oil and gas industry by 2050, writes Jack Mintz.

Note to Trudeau government: In the middle of a deep recession, we need a low-cost carbon plan that will have the least impact on growth

The Trudeau government on Thursday announced legislation, Bill C-12, committing Canada to “binding” five-year targets to achieve net zero GHG emissions by 2050. As the target is to be legislated without an enforcement mechanism, however, it’s not exactly clear what “binding” means. The real danger underlying Bill C-12 is that it gives considerable latitude to the government to bring forward regulations to adjust the target, thereby avoiding further legislation.

These targets are developed without knowing the economic or budgetary costs. Nor do we know the technologies required to achieve those targets. And if other countries fail to achieve the same objective despite their “commitments,” we could incur considerable economic loss with little benefit in terms of reducing climate change threats.

Terence Corcoran: The Great Reset and the COVID pandemic

 

The main driving force behind The Great Reset is the World Economic Forum and its founder, Klaus Schwab. PHOTO BY FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Trudeau’s net-zero carbon legislation sounds like Klaus Schwab’s global plan to remake the world economy

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau lit up some of the highly flammable sections of social media the other day after excerpts from a two-month-old virtual speech he gave to a United Nations’ event made their way onto computer screens. The Twitter/Facebook fires were set by these words:

“The pandemic has provided an opportunity for a reset. This is our chance to accelerate our pre-pandemic efforts to reimagine economic systems that actually address global challenges, like extreme poverty, inequality, and climate change.” He also used the trending global powercrats’ slogan for post-COVID-19 recovery: “Building back better,” said Trudeau, “means getting support for the most vulnerable while maintaining our momentum on reaching the 2030 agenda for sustainable development.”

Audit demanded after more than 800,000 ineligible people get CERB

Part of a cheque for the $2,000 Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB), a taxable award from the Canadian government made every four weeks for up to 16 weeks to eligible workers who have lost their income due to COVID-19, is seen in Toronto, April 16, 2020. PHOTO BY CHRIS HELGREN /REUTERS

A Conservative MP says Canada Revenue Agency has some explaining to do after more than 800,000 ineligible people got Canada emergency response benefit cheques.

CRA’s own records — filed in an inquiry of ministry tabled in the House of Commons — show 823,850 people who didn’t file a tax return in the past year received $2,000 monthly CERB cheques at a cost to taxpayers of nearly $1.7 billion, according to Blacklock’s Reporter.

“I find it remarkable,” Conservative MP Kelly McCauley said.

Time for a more balanced approach, say Ontario doctors concerned with restrictions

Dr. Robert Sargeant, outside of St. Michael's Hospital on Tuesday October 20, 2020. PHOTO BY VERONICA HENRI /Veronica Henri/Toronto Sun

Several Ontario doctors are speaking out to call for a more balanced approach to managing the pandemic, now that more potentially harmful restrictions are being introduced during the second wave of COVID-19.

“We’ve already seen the impact of lockdowns on people’s lives,” says Dr. Neil Rau. “Everybody came to an agreement that we would seek a balanced approach. But now we are falling back.”

Rau, an infectious diseases specialist and assistant professor at the University of Toronto, also laments that some doctors and public health officials are now advocating for an approach known as “COVID zero”, where more aggressive measures are introduced to entirely eliminate the virus.

7 Misconceptions About Bitcoin

 

I initially covered Bitcoin in an article in autumn 2017, and was neutral-to-mildly-bearish for the intermediate term, and took no position.

The technology was well-conceived, but I had concerns about euphoric sentiment and market dilution. I neither claimed that it had to go lower, nor viewed it bullishly, and merely stepped aside to keep watching.

However, I turned bullish on Bitcoin in April 2020 in my research service at about $6,900/BTC and went long. It had indeed underperformed many other asset classes from autumn 2017 into spring 2020, but from that point, a variety of factors turned strongly in its favor. I then wrote a public article about it in July when it was at $9,200/BTC, further elaborating on why I am bullish on Bitcoin.

#MacroView: The Rescues Are Ruining Capitalism

 

I want to discuss a recent WallStreet Journal article by Ruchir Sharma entitled “The Rescues Ruining Capitalism.”

We talk much about the bailouts and stimulus programs related to the economic shutdown and pandemic. However, the bailouts began back in 2008 when the Federal Reserve intervened with the insolvency of Bear Stearns.

To date, the Federal Reserve, and the Government, have pumped more than $36 Trillion into the economy to keep it “afloat.”

I say “afloat” rather than “growing” because, during the last decade, economic “growth” was a function of population growth. Monetary interventions were successful in creating inflation in financial assets. However, during the same period, the economy grew by only $2.92 Trillion.

Canadian Muslim Voting Guide breached federal law: Elections commissioner

Canadian Muslim Voting Guide

A voting guide intended for Muslim people living in Canada breaches federal law, says the country’s Elections commissioner.

In 2019, Wilfrid Laurier University published the taxpayer-funded Canadian Muslim Voting Guide, which apparently broke federal law, says Elections Commissioner Yves Cote, as reported by Blacklock’s Reporter.

The guide — which was financially backed by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council — reportedly criticized opposition MPs for activities that “foment the kind of fear and moral panic that leads to violence and hate.”

John Robson: Time for Americans to face the facts about Donald Trump (and his supporters)

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during election night in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, early on Nov. 4, 2020. PHOTO BY MANDEL NGAN/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

It is clear that it would be really constructive if the people who hate Trump could admit that their voters weren’t all evolutionary errors, and on top of that, if the people who love Trump could admit that, if he himself was not an Evolution error, it was not for not trying.

Now, it is time to face the facts about the American elections. If you do, you could leave behind four years of hallucinatory division and abuse and go, as they say, to four more years. But if we still do not know who won, or why in the home of Google, Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, and Apple it is difficult to count the votes by mail quickly, we can say that there is more to this phenomenon than “Orange Man Bad”.

In search of obtaining something useful regarding this election, leaving aside “President Joe Biden” that is, he does not count, here is a fact that without a doubt it is necessary to face, Donald Trump did not elect himself.

Time to dare and face things

Chris Selley: Trudeau's 'watch your tongues' advice is offensive on many levels

 

In this file photo taken Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks during a news conference on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Canada. PHOTO BY DAVE CHAN/AFP

Disturbing news and one that is in fact causing a stir has been the beheading of a teacher for some cartoons. In reference to this, you could say that it seems, on many levels, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s advice is really offensive.

Apparently, Trudeau didn’t need to go any further during his press conference on Friday. And it is that nobody does if that is his answer to a question about fundamental freedom.

Notably, a French-speaking journalist had asked Trudeau what he thought about the October 16 public beheading of high school teacher Samuel Paty near Paris, an act of revenge by an angry Islamist fanatic. Paty had shown his class some of the Charlie Hebdo cartoons that inspired the 2015 Massacre of much of the satirical magazine staff, as well as a fatal attack on a kosher supermarket two days later. The theme of the class had been in freedom of expression. Related to this, it is known that fourteen people were recently tried for these attacks. Meanwhile, Charlie Hebdo republished the controversial cartoons in his honor.

A wrong answer that seeks to deceive the public

A Contagion of Hatred and Hysteria

 

Lockdown is a blunt, indiscriminate policy that forces the poorest and most vulnerable people to bear the brunt of the fight against coronavirus. As an infectious diseases epidemiologist, I believe there has to be a better way.

That is why, earlier this month, with two other international scientists, I co-authored a proposal for an alternative approach — one that shields those most at risk while enabling the rest of the population to resume their ordinary lives to some extent.

I expected debate and disagreement about our ideas, published as the Great Barrington Declaration.

As a scientist, I would welcome that. After all, science progresses through its ideas and counter-ideas.

Banks, QE, and Money-Printing

 

Lately, it has become fashionable to debate what is, or is not, “money-printing” by central banks.

This debate is natural, due to the extreme policy nature of 2020, with massive fiscal expenditures, huge increases in central bank balance sheets, and changes in central bank inflation targets. It’s important to know what is inflationary, and what isn’t, and to what extent.

Because people have very different understandings of how central bank policy and fiscal policy work, there have been analyst calls this year ranging from hyperinflation to deep deflation, and everything in between.

The outcome has of course been somewhere in the middle as measured by CPI or PCE, with inflation that rebounded from March lows in response to policy, but neither much of an overshoot or undershoot, and still generally below long-term central bank inflation targets.

Free speech has limits, Canada's Trudeau says

 

© Dave Chan Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, seen here in August 2020, defended free speech on Friday, while qualifying that it was "not without limits" and should not "arbitrarily and needlessly hurt" certain communities

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau defended free speech on Friday, but added that it was “not without limits” and should not “arbitrarily and needlessly hurt” certain communities.

“We will always defend freedom of expression,” Trudeau said in response to a question about the right to show a caricature of the Prophet Mohammed, as France’s Charlie Hebdo magazine did.

“But freedom of expression is not without limits,” he added. “We owe it to ourselves to act with respect for others and to seek not to arbitrarily or unnecessarily injure those with whom we are sharing a society and a planet.”

SARS-CoV-2-specific T cell immunity in cases of COVID-19 and SARS, and uninfected controls

 

Abstract

Memory T cells induced by previous pathogens can shape susceptibility to, and the clinical severity of, subsequent infections. Little is known about the presence in humans of pre-existing memory T cells that have the potential to recognize severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Here we studied T cell responses against the structural (nucleocapsid (N) protein) and non-structural (NSP7 and NSP13 of ORF1) regions of SARS-CoV-2 in individuals convalescing from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) (n = 36). In all of these individuals, we found CD4 and CD8 T cells that recognized multiple regions of the N protein. Next, we showed that patients (n = 23) who recovered from SARS (the disease associated with SARS-CoV infection) possess long-lasting memory T cells that are reactive to the N protein of SARS-CoV 17 years after the outbreak of SARS in 2003; these T cells displayed robust cross-reactivity to the N protein of SARS-CoV-2. We also detected SARS-CoV-2-specific T cells in individuals with no history of SARS, COVID-19 or contact with individuals who had SARS and/or COVID-19 (n = 37). SARS-CoV-2-specific T cells in uninfected donors exhibited a different pattern of immunodominance, and frequently targeted NSP7 and NSP13 as well as the N protein. Epitope characterization of NSP7-specific T cells showed the recognition of protein fragments that are conserved among animal betacoronaviruses but have low homology to ‘common cold’ human-associated coronaviruses. Thus, infection with betacoronaviruses induces multi-specific and long-lasting T cell immunity against the structural N protein. Understanding how pre-existing N- and ORF1-specific T cells that are present in the general population affect the susceptibility to and pathogenesis of SARS-CoV-2 infection is important for the management of the current COVID-19 pandemic.