Juggling Dynamite

Last week we had the Mt Gox loss and closure, today we have news of a second Bitcoin bank going bankrupt. This time after misplacing £365,000 in credits. See: Bitcoin bank Flexcoin closes after hack attack.

Jon Stewart sheds some humor on the Bitcoin phenomenon: “It is the Tamagotchi of currency…It’s a proud moment when a little baby currency takes its first steps…towards full-on corruption”.

But Stewart also correctly points out that Bitcoin has nothing on some of the frauds perpetrated by the big banks the past few years. Here is a direct video link available on The Comedy Network in Canada.

Just because we’ve had a system of central banking for 100 years doesn’t mean we ought to. In fact, it’s starting to look like central banks do more harm than good. From obscuring the true cost of credit to causing confusion about good investments, central bankers end up papering over economic problems. And when they send the wrong messages to savers and consumers trying to coordinate their plans, boom and bust cycles lengthen and worsen. Here is the direct video link.

Corruption in developing and newly industrialized countries has been greatly aided the past many years by the financialization of the global economy which has funded an unethical, extractive, destructive spending addiction in the west.

“Those who spend more than they earn need to maintain excellent relations with their bankers. Over the past few decades, North American governments have become increasingly dependent on the kindness of lenders. Such support now forms the bedrock of our incredibly indebted nations. Spend-thrift leaders are repeatedly elected to help the masses spend our way to prosperity. The majority is evidently not keen on electing fiscal restraint. A leader who suggests a life of restraint and paying down debt is, so far, unlikely to win the popular vote. The financial machine provides the products and the funding to support the vision of the have-mores. And so the vested interests favor the continued borrowing and spending today without worrying about tomorrow.” – Juggling Dynamite (2007) p. 70.

“The center of Russian corruption is in British tax havens, London property, Swiss banks, Austrian banks accounts and property all over the European Union…Russian corruption works like this, huge amounts of money, billions and billions are extracted out of the Russian budget and Russian State companies and brought to the west to be “secured.” Over the past 10 years, Putin has watched how western Europe elites desperate for money in an era of low growth have been willing to launder this money and this has convinced him that Europe will do absolutely nothing to kill the Oligarch golden goose that feeds them…Putin sees that today the west has the morality of a Hedge Fund, make money and move it off shore.”

“Fragile Empire” Author Ben Judah and Bloomberg Contributing Editor Richard Falkenrath discuss the Russian and Ukrainian standoff.”Here is a direct video link.