#exchange rates between dollar and euro was almost one to one when i made it

[bobbinalong]

gonna finally update my commissions post tomorrow

[theculturedmarxist]

By Joseph Joyce. Originally published at Angry Bear

Economists rarely write about “empires,” unless they are referring to historical examples such as the Roman empire. But Thomas Hauner of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis,  Branko Milanovic of the Graduate Center of City University of New York and Suresh Naidu of Columbia University have presented a study of empires using criteria drawn from an economics classic, John Hobson’s Imperialism (1902). The same criteria can be used to examine whether any empires exist today.

Hobson was not a Marxist, but his work greatly influenced later Marxist writers who wrote about imperialism, including Vladimir Lenin, Rudolf Hilferding and Rosa Luxemburg. Hobson believed that there was chronic underconsumption in advanced capitalist countries due to unequal distributions of income. This lowered the return on domestic investment, and as a result the owners of financial capital turned to foreign markets where returns would be higher. These investors relied on their governments to guarantee the safety of their foreign holdings from seizure.

Hauner, Milanvic and Naidu demonstrate that there was a high degree of inequality within the advanced capitalist countries in the late 19th century. The foreign assets held by wealthy investors in Britain and France expanded greatly during this period, and these assets generated rates of return higher than those available from domestic investments. They also present evidence of a linkage between the accumulation of foreign assets and militarization that led to World War I. These results are consistent with Hobson’s work.

Hobson’s empires established positive net international investment positions (NIIP) and received income from these foreign investments. The payments appear in the current account of the balance of payments as “net primary income.” This component of the current account records the difference between payments received by domestic residents for providing productive resources, such as their labor, financial resources or land, to foreigners minus the payments made to foreigners for their productive resources made available to the domestic economy. For most countries, receipts and payments on financial assets are the largest component of their net primary income.

Great Britain was a financial center and the preeminent creditor nation during the zenith of its empire, and a net recipient of foreign income. It earned net income worth 5.4% of GDP in the period 1974-1890, and 6.8% from 1891 to 1913 (Matthews, Feinstein and Odling-Smee 1982). The surpluses were large enough to offset a trade deficit and allow the country to continue to invest abroad and expand their foreign holdings.

What are the largest creditor nations today? Are they also Hobsonian empires? Japan is the leading creditor nation, with a net international investment position of $2.8 trillion in 2015, which represented 67% of its GDP. It earned $165.88 billion in net primary income, worth 3.8% of its GDP. Germany is also a creditor nation, with a NIIP of about $1.5 trillion (45% of GDP) in 2015 and net income of $74.6 billion (2.2% of its GDP).

But Japan and Germany nations do not fulfill the other criteria to be called empires. They do not have the disparities in wealth that the U.S. and many developing countries possess. Their Gini coefficients are almost identical: 32.1 for Japan and 31.4 for Germany. These are similar in magnitude to those of other European countries, higher than those of the Scandinavian nations but below those of Portugal and Spain.

Moreover, the two nations are not militaristic powers. Japan’s constitution forbids the use of force, although the country does have Self-Defense Forces. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is seeking to amend the country’s constitution in order to clarify the rules governing the disposition of these troops. Germany is part of NATO, but the foreign deployment of German forces is strictly supervised by Parliament.

The situation of other large countries is more anomalous. China is a leading creditor nation, with a NIIP in 2015 only slightly lower than Germany’s and equal to 194% of its GDP. But that country registered a deficit of net primary income of $41.8 billion. On the other hand, the country with the largest inflow of income in absolute terms was the U.S., a debtor nation with a NIIP of -$7.8 trillion in 2015, worth about 45% of GDP. Its net income inflow of $204.5 billion represented 1.1% of its GDP.

The explanation for these seemingly inconsistent results lies with the composition of the external assets and liabilities. The U.S. is “long equity, short debt,” with assets largely composed of foreign direct investments (FDI) and portfolio equity, and liabilities primarily in the form of debt (bonds, such as U.S. Treasury securities, or bank loans). In 2015, for example, 60% of its assets were held in the form of FDI or portfolio equity, which earn an equity premium because of their riskier nature. China, on the other hand, is “long debt and short equity,” where the debt includes the central bank’s foreign reserves held in the form of U.S. Treasury bonds. Debt assets and foreign reserves constituted 79% of China’s foreign assets in 2015, and the returns on these have been quite low in recent years. FDI and portfolio equity liabilities, on the other hand, accounted for 74% of the external liabilities.

The unusual nature of these income flows have attracted great attention. Yu Yongding of China’s Academy of Social Sciences, for example, has written about his country’s “irrational IIP structure.” He attributes this to an undervalued exchange rate that has allowed the country to have surpluses in both the current and capital accounts that were balanced by increases in foreign reserves, as well as government policies that favored FDI from abroad.

The positive return that the U.S. receives has been called an “exorbitant privilege” that is due to the status of the dollar as a reserve currency. In 1966 Emile Despres of Stanford University, Charles P. Kindleberger of MIT and Walter S. Salant of the Brookings Institution wrote that the configuration of the U.S. balance of payments was due to its status as the “world’s banker”, issuing short-term liabilities in exchange for long-term assets. More recently, Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas of UC-Berkeley and Hélène Rey of the London Business School updated this description of the U.S. to the “world venture capitalist.”

The global financial crisis might have ended this status of the U.S., but the influence of the U.S. economy and its monetary policies has not diminished. Changes in U.S. interest rates have widespread effects on capital flows and credit creation. Several recent studies, including one by Òscar Jordàof UC-Davis, Moritz Schularick of the University of Bonn and Alan Taylor of UC-Davis, have referred to the existence of a global financial cycle that is very responsive to U.S. monetary policy. Similarly, Matteo Iacoviello and Gaston Navarro  of the Federal Reserve Board have written about the spillover effects of U.S. interest rates on foreign economeis.

It may be time for a new definition of imperialism. If the U.S. possesses an empire, it is based on its ownership of foreign capital that it accumulates in return for the issuance of “safe assets.” It takes advantage of this position to invest in more lucrative equity. In addition, it hosts the largest and most liquid financial markets and networks. Moreover, the U.S. government has shown its willingness to use financial sanctions as a policy tool.

With respect to the other attributes of 19thcentury empires, we no longer send Marines to Central America to safeguard our foreign holdings. But our military spending greatly exceeds that of other nations. Wealth is heavily concentrated; the richest U.S. families—those in the top 1% of the distribution of wealth—own 40% of the wealth in this country. Those assets undoubtedly include direct and indirect ownership in foreign enterprises, which contribute to the returns they receive.

What could end this arrangement? The renminbi and the euro are rival currencies, but it is doubtful that they will attain the global status of the dollar. Under ordinary circumstances, one might expect the U.S. position to continue for the foreseeable future. But these are not ordinary times. The Trump administration seems ready to shred a wide range of international agreements, such as those that established the World Trade Organization and the North American Free Trade Association. Moreover, the tax legislation passed last year that lowered personal and corporate tax rates is pushing up the government’s budget deficit. The Congressional Budget Office’s projection for this fiscal year’s deficit has risen from $563 billion to $804 billion and is projected to reach $1 trillion by 2020. Will U.S. Treasury securities continue to be viewed as safe?

The record of transitions in international monetary regimes does not bode well for the future. The gold standard collapsed in the 1930s as governments sought to escape the world-wide contraction in global economic activity. The Bretton Woods regime began to disintegrate when the Nixon administration ended the conversion of the dollar reserves of foreign central banks into gold in 1971. None of these regime ends were planned and they led to further instability. The end of America’s hegemonic financial position has long been forecasted–and avoided. But the shockwaves of the global financial crisis are still taking place, and eventually may be even more disruptive than we ever imagined.

[sabrinasu1998]

Gold dips as buck enhances

Gold dropped as well as was heading for a weekly dip on Friday as a stronger buck, firmer yields as well as equity markets chipped away at its allure.

 The spot gold price resolve at $1801.33 an ounce, place silver settle at $25.163 an ounce.

 Bullion has dropped 0.7% today after briefly moving toward last week's one-month optimal, as anxieties over climbing Delta variant COVID-19 cases have actually alleviated, prompting financiers to move out of the safe-haven property as danger hunger returned.

 " The spot gold market is seeking out a fresh essential chauffeur and also there actually isn't one," stated Jim Wyckoff, senior expert with Kitco Metals, keeping in mind weak actual returns as well as an enter COVID-19 instances were not enough to relocate costs higher.

 " Technical investors are taking over as a result of the absence of fundamentals as well as gold's near-term technical position has actually turned adverse, inviting some investors to short the market," Wyckoff included.

 Heaping pressure on the metal was a more powerful buck index that held close to a 3-1/2- month peak and firmer benchmark US Treasury yields. Higher returns often tend to weigh on gold, which pays no passion as it converts into a raised opportunity price of holding the steel.

 Market focus now resorts to next week's U.S. Federal Reserve meeting after the European Central Bank on Thursday pledged to maintain rate of interest at record lows for some time.

 " Global gold prices have actually located excellent support from the physical market on the drawback, but have actually battled to gain momentum as speculative positioning continues to be light," stated Suki Cooper, expert at Standard Chartered.

 Holdings in New York's SPDR Gold Trust, the biggest gold-backed exchange-traded fund (ETF), were at their least expensive in greater than two months on Thursday.

 UNITED STATE dollar blog posts second week of gains.

 The U.S. dollar on Friday scratched a 2nd week of gains after an unpredictable few days when currencies moved with shifting danger appetite, with the market's emphasis now on next week's Federal Reserve meeting.

 Some analysts asked yourself, however, whether the dollar's recent rally may be losing momentum.

 The U.S. dollar index, which measures the paper money against a basket of 6 significant money, was somewhat higher on the day at 92.894. For the week, it was up 0.1%, after increasing 0.6% previously.

 Yet that was off a 3-1/2- month high of 93.194 hit on Wednesday, bolstered by solid Wall Street earnings that assisted investors restore some confidence in the midst of concerns that the Delta coronavirus version might derail the worldwide healing.

 Threat cravings continued to be high on Friday, with the rise in U.S. stocks, the sell-off in Treasuries, the gains in the majority of asset currencies, as well as the paper money coming off its peaks.

 " Medium-term oscillators as well as energy are in sync on the benefit suggesting possibility greater highs ahead, such as 94.30-94.72 (on the dollar index)," said Dave Rosenberg, chief financial expert and strategist, at Rosenberg Research.

 He additionally pointed out the possibility of a "Golden Cross" in the buck index, a graph pattern in which the 50-day moving typical crosses above the 200-day relocating standard, a bullish signal.

 " Overall, the buck( index) leans toward more upside which might add to recent stress in global commodity prices as well as various other currencies. Assistance is at 92.00-91.50," claimed Rosenberg.

 Much in July, the buck has actually gained 0.6%, after increasing 2.8% in June.

 Erik Nelson, macro planner, at Wells Fargo Securities in New York, however, was not persuaded the buck can hold its gains in the coming weeks offered the decline in U.S. yields.

 " The dollar looks worn out specifically after the rally of the last couple of weeks," stated "It seems to be running out of steam both from a fundamental and technical perspective.".

 Financiers' following major focus is the Fed's two-day policy meeting following week. Considering that the June 16 meeting, when Fed authorities went down a reference to the coronavirus as a weight on the economic situation, instances have climbed.

 Several economic experts still anticipate the meeting to advancement conversations for a tapering of stimulation.

 Against the safe-harbor yen, the dollar increased 0.3% to 110.53 yen.

 The euro was level at $1.1770, showing little response to the getting supervisor surveys coming out of France, Germany as well as the euro area as a whole.

 Euro area business activity increased at its fastest month-to-month speed in over twenty years in July as the loosening of more COVID-19 constraints supercharged solutions, but concerns of an additional wave of infections struck organization confidence.

 Oil steadies on forecasts for tight materials.

 Crude oil prices were bit transformed on Friday and also Brent got on track to finish the week higher after a solid healing from Monday's steep slide, underpinned by assumptions that supply will stay tight with the year.

 The cost of oil and also other riskier assets toppled at the beginning of the week on problem over the influence on the economic climate as well as unrefined need from surging situations of the COVID-19 Delta version in the United States, Britain, Japan as well as elsewhere.

 Brent crude oil progressed 31 cents, or 0.4%, to clear up at $74.10 after leaping 2.2% on Thursday. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude resolved 16 cents, or 0.2%, higher at $72.07 per barrel, having actually acquired 2.3% on Thursday.

 U.S. crude oil futures were set to finish the week bit altered, having actually decreased in the previous two weeks. Brent is set to gain 0.4% on the week.

 " The demand concerns showed to be exaggerated, which is why oil costs have considering that recovered. In spite of the growth in oil supply, the oil market will certainly stay a little undersupplied until completion of the year," Commerzbank stated in a note.

 Demand growth is expected to surpass supply after Sunday's bargain between the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and allies, collectively referred to as OPEC+, to include back 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) each month from August

.

ANZ Research experts said in a report that the marketplace was starting to pick up the 400,000 bpd increase will not suffice to keep the marketplace well balanced and also stocks in the United States as well as throughout OECD countries would remain to drop.

 U.S. crude oil inventories rose by 2.1 million barrels last week, however supplies at the Cushing, Oklahoma distribution point for U.S. crude struck their most affordable since January 2020.

 " We still believe the OPEC+ driven dip in crude and extract rates is an acquiring opportunity and also project Brent will certainly hit $100/barrel next year, with extracts tagging along for the trip," Bank of America claimed in a note.

 Dow tops 35000 as stocks rise to documents.

 U.S. equities increased Friday with the major averages hitting new records as they got over concerns concerning financial development from earlier in the week.

 The Dow shut above 35,000 for the very first time ever before, increased 238.20 points, or 0.68%, to 35,061.55, obtaining for a 4th straight day..

 The S&P 500 gained 1.01% to 4,411.79 and also the Nasdaq Composite climbed 1.04% to 14,836.99, both brand-new closing highs for the benchmarks.

 Strong profits from technology stocks made investors hopeful ahead of reports next week from the largest names in the market. Twitter as well as Snap each jumped Thursday adhering to better-than-expected second-quarter earnings records. Twitter traded 3% higher, while Snap soared 24%.

 " The Snap as well as Twitter outcomes are just a representation that digital marketing invest is coming back with a revenge," Frelinghuysen stated. "You're seeing that surge via right into Google as well as Facebook.".

 Facebook acquired more than 5% on the arise from its social media sites rivals. Alphabet added 3%. Both report next week together with Apple, Microsoft as well as Amazon.

 All three U.S. supply standards closed the week in the environment-friendly, recoiling from recently's losses and also Monday's sharp sell-off. The Dow went down more than 700 indicate begin the week as yields fell, unnerving equity capitalists regarding the economic situation.

 The S&P 500 climbed 2% for the week and also the Nasdaq Composite included 2.8%. The Dow finished the week up 1%.

 Toughness in technology shares likewise comes with the continued spread of the very contagious delta variation of Covid.

 " We saw throughout the depths of the pandemic that tech supplies and their earnings stood up the best, so I assume a lot of capitalists are going back to the well, given we have a Covid revival," Yung-Yu Ma, chief financial investment planner at BMO Wealth Management, said. "Long term rates of interest coming down as long as they have also makes those stocks a lot more appealing.".

 The U.S. stock market overall has been strengthened by a strong earnings reporting season, with almost a quarter of the S&P 500 having already reported. Of those companies, 88% have reported a favorable shock, according to FactSet. That would mark the highest percentage of reported shocks within the S&P because 2008 if that figure holds throughout the profits season.

 Solid earnings from technology supplies made financiers hopeful in advance of records next week from the greatest names in the sector. Twitter traded 3% higher, while Snap fired up 24%.

 Facebook got more than 5% on the results from its social media rivals. Both record next week along with Apple, Microsoft and Amazon.

 Of those companies, 88% have reported a favorable surprise, according to FactSet.

[cryptocoinguides]

Why is Nigeria Creating its Own Cryptocurrency?

I just read now that 1 dollar is now, 410 Naira officially all the way from 393 and from 485 to 495 on the black market. Almost 500 Naira to a dollar whew. The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria in an article according to Nairametrics is said to have stated that Nigeria will have its own Digital Currency. The statement reads We are committed to the CBN and I can assure everybody that Digital Currency will come to life even in Nigeria Does this mean that Nigeria will have its own coin, NGNT, Nigerian Naira Tetherhmmm I wonder where we’ve heard that one before.

But what do you think, would you use a coin issued by the Central Bank of Nigeria, drop a comment below.

I’m also going to talk about the new Dollar Limit in this video and of course, the new Naira rate as well. How’s it going guys, its Fisayo here and welcome to another Finance Friday episode, that’s coming not on a Friday this time. If you’re new, welcome if you’re returning, welcome back. Please hit that like button so more people can see the analysis were about to share here and of course, if this video is useful to you at all, just tap that like button.

Without further ado, let’s jump right into the video.

Okay, first things first, Is Nigeria going to be issuing a digital currency of its own. That is a huge deal if that goes through. One major country that is testing the waters in China. The idea of the Chinese digital currency is that it’s issued by their Central Bank. The major thing this will create is that China now has the ability to monitor the economy to a tee and, well you guessed it, monitor the people.

This is everything that Bitcoin stands against. It’s however not shocking to many analysts because of what is usually termed the Great Digital Firewall of China. Western Social Media apps like Twitter and many others don’t work there and to reroute it and use is even illegal. They have their own version of most services so it only makes sense that they went this route. Its also fascinating that China has according to unofficial statistics, about 70% of the virtual currency mining space or crypto mining.

This is also why the prices of these currencies shift drastically when something happens in China like bitcoin bans or mining crackdowns and of. Course Elon Musk. This even makes the volatility that cryptocurrencies have even more.

Nigeria famously banned bitcoin, I’ve mentioned it countless times in the series and I made a 2-part video about it which I’ll link below. Now, just slightly over 2 months later, we see that the Central Bank is saying that Nigeria should have a digital currency of its own.

I took to Twitter to ask what you guys thought and the feedback was quite interesting. The majority of the people mentioned that they wouldn’t want that especially considering they could be tracked and some people think that it would help since we can trace nearly all transactions. We can even trace government transactions but while that seems like a good thing, we don’t know for sure that this Digital overhaul is possible especially considering the statistics of people in the country that is banked or the number of active bank accounts in Nigeria being as much as 111 million.

Keep in mind that this isn’t 111 million people but 111 million bank accounts. The estimate from 2019 puts it that 73 million people had bank accounts then but of course, because of the surge in accounts being opened in 2020 due to the pandemic, it’s safe to say that its most likely close to 100 million or according to Guardian, 49% of Nigerians having bank account meaning 1 in every 2 people in Nigeria have a bank account.

The statistics even looks a little more out of place for a digital currency happening in Nigeria when you consider that again, only 40% of the Nigeria population can access the internet via a mobile phone, and let’s not even talk about proper smartphone penetration in Nigeria or how many people have access or would willingly be open up to a system like this. The implications for a digital currency in Nigeria can seriously help the Nigerian economy in a way that there’s transparency but the adverse effect or the disadvantage can come from the very top if it’s heavily centralized and people are penalized for using money.

It will be very easy for the central bank to block a person’s account that it doesn’t like. Also if the central bank is issuing digital currencies or better still if one entity is issuing it and it can go from there directly to the customer, the role of commercial banks might be affected but that’s an extreme case. Speaking of extreme cases, it could also widen the gap between rich and poor, good old inequality and at the same time it could have serious effects on the exchange rate and there would be crazier pump and dump schemes.

But I want to know what your thoughts are about the whole thing guys, let me know just leave a comment below if you think you’d love a Digital Naira and also if it even makes sense to consider.

If you’re finding this video useful so far, alike would really be appreciated as well. Speaking of the exchange rate. The Naira is now officially 410 Naira to $1, it was 393 before, and now, food prices have skyrocketed like crazy in Nigeria, restaurants have added 100 to as much as 500 Naira on almost every single food item. I bought one tiny piece of meat for 500 Naira.

A dollar pretty much. *Face Palm* Hey guys, it’s Fisayo here andOn a much lighter note. One of the leading banks in Nigeria, First Bank has launched its new website. I’m a designer and I thought it would only make sense to share. It actually looks visually appealing both on mobile and even on the web.

I’m on the go a lot, I frequently use my phone and the experience with the website is more modern and super easy on the eyes with different micro-interactions here and there.

You can, of course, log in and do your online banking, and the new website even lets you browse in your own preferred language and you can see a drop-down regardless of the platform. Whether it’s personal banking, business banking, and even private banking, all the functionality is right at your fingertips and easy to access. Do check out the new website displayed right here or with the link in the description of this video. Also, drop a comment below if you’re a first bank user.

I’d love to know what your thought are. Thank you for watching, I’ll see you at the next one. Alright back to the video. If you’ve been following my Finance Friday series, you would see that I’ve covered inflation in Nigeria and how we got to this point where now we’re almost at 500 Naira to 1 dollar. It’s a good watch and I recommend you check out that video, I also talked about some things you can do to stay on top of saving and investing considering how everything seems to be shifting.

One of the things I recommended a lot to people who were considering saving in a currency like a dollar or pounds for instance was to open a domiciliary account. A domiciliary account is basically an account of a foreign currency that exists or is domiciled in your home country. So you can walk into a bank that you have an existing account with, open a dollar, pounds, or euro account. What you’ll need are 2 references who also have current accounts in other banks or better still the same bank? There are many functions of an account like that and one thing it can help you with is if you want to pay school fees for instance, or if you travel and you want to use a card that is dollar-based and not has to worry about the currency rate.

The CBN silently has put out a policy that you cannot deposit more than $5,000 to your own domiciliary bank account in a month over the counter. Why? The main reason according to analysts for this move is that it would help the Naira currency so that people that are speculating on the dollar and putting pressure on the Naira would stop.

You see right now in Nigeria, there are 2 markets for our currency. There’s the bank rate at 410 and the parallel market aka black market rate at 495.

This means there’s a huge 80 Naira gap in between. So for instance, if someone got a dollar, let’s say 1,000 dollars at 410,000 at the bank and they want to change it to Naira at the black market, they sell at 495,000 making a total of 80,000 of course this is next to impossible because banks don’t give ordinary people at that anyway.

It’s reserved for school fees, travelers, and the likes and there’s even a limit to how much you can get for travelers I believe it’s $4,000. Although not many people use Domiciliary accounts, the few who do have complained that it’s hindering a lot and it is because to imagine if you’re a small business and you have to buy somethings abroad. The Naira cards already have little hope because the limit is $100 per month so you can’t do anything, now the limit for your dollar is $5,000 to even deposit to your account to pay and you would have to wait for a whole month before that limit expires.

It would definitely hinder someone like that however, it’s a policy, and in the long run, it’s generally for the benefit of the entire economy. But again Id loves to know your thoughts on this. Do you have a domiciliary account? Are you bothered by the $5,000 limit or do you think it’s a good thing that they’ve done? If you found this video useful so far, do hit that like button and also hit that subscribe button alongside the bell icon beside it to turn on notifications so you’ll be the first to know when we drop a new video.

Read More: Ripple XRP To $10,000 Post SEC Lawsuit!

via Why is Nigeria Creating its Own Cryptocurrency?

[1worldblockchain-blog]

How Bitcoin is Changing the way we make Payments

When we get a product or service from a business we make payment to them. There are different methods to make payments these days. Bitcoin is one of the electronic techniques to make such a settlement. Nevertheless, these are the modes of Crypto Micropayments through which companies perform everyday transactions.

Cash – The payment for the product or service is made using the most prominent method i.e. paper currency.

Bitcoin – It is a new type of loan which is a ground-breaking repayment network.

Net Banking – One selects the bank one has an account with and also makes the repayment.

Credit Card – The credit cards number is entered apart from the card type and expiration date.

Debit Card – The details of the debit card are entered and the money is transferred or credited to the merchant's account.

Amazon Pay - The payment is made using Amazon.

Paypal – It is an online payments system across the globe that supports online money transfers.

Wallets - The payment is made via popular e-wallets like Paytm, Airtel Money, MobiKwik and free charge.

Here are some of the benefits of Cross-Border Retail Payments:

Zero cost volatility: The rate instability of Bitcoin and also Bitcoin Cash money. One can obtain Euro, Yen, Dollars, Dinar or Rupiah of what one charge minus 1%.

Bitcoin Mining: It is the process where the computer confirms that the transaction takes place through the network. It has the capability of turning into a big business.

Easy cross-border Payment: If I am exporting garments to China, I can accept the payment in the type of this money. My client does not need to go with any type of trouble and I would certainly obtain it in a prompt manner. This consequently would allow me to supply my item faster and acquire his trust fund. I would certainly have the ability to provide exceptional solutions and maintain the business connection undamaged.

A firm can send and receive blockchain payments to numerous countries. It takes almost a few minutes to make the transfer.

Low Risk of Fraud: This kind of currency makes it feasible that purchasers do not release any delicate monetary information to the vendor. This consequently decreases the risk of fraudulence. In addition, it can not be obstructed by cyberpunks as it is a digital money. Completion outcome is that avoiding targeted information breaches such as UPS Shop violation.

Cost Effective: It is a cost-efficient method in the cross-border retail payment market. These new arrangements include web links in between companies as well as nationwide repayment facilities that include both payers as well as receivers to hold accounts.

A Safer Ecosystem - Before a bitcoin wallet transaction is sent to a blockchain it is validated through an authentic digital signature. This entire process makes the app a safe place for exchanging as well as storing cryptocurrencies.

Quick payment: One of the most significant benefits of paying or obtaining repayments via Bitcoins is that it is among the quickest modes of making safe monetary transactions. Bitcoin settlements occur within a time span of 48 company hours.

Therefore, Bitcoin for Cross-Border Payments is one of the safest, easiest and fastest ways.

[rickhorrow]

15 to watch 52217

Memorial Day Weekend is upon us, and crossover sponsors are revving their engines in Indianapolis. According to the Indianapolis Star, Pacers guard Jeff Teague is sponsoring driver Buddy Lazier's entry in the 101st Indianapolis 500, which will see Lazier's Chevrolet "sport number 44, a Team Teague sticker and the Factory at D1 Sports decal." D1 is the name of the 33,500-square-foot, state-of-the-art gym Teague is "opening in Indianapolis." Teague's business manager, Jamel Barnes, said "Not many athletes, let alone a hometown kid playing for the hometown team have their own logos and decals on an Indy 500 car." But Teague isn’t the only crossover athlete fronting an IndyCar decal this weekend – Zach Veach will drive the No. 40 Chevrolet IndyCar for AJ Foyt Racing, representing the inaugural LPGA Indy Women in Tech Presented by Guggenheim tournament taking place at the Brickyard Crossing course in September. While estimates vary wildly for what it costs to sponsor a car at the Indianapolis 500, the last study commissioned by Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 2000 pegged the Indy 500 economic impact at $336 million. Just call it Motorsports Econ 101 at 230 mph.

As the French Open begins play at Paris’ Roland Garros this week, two things have dropped significantly since 2016: the number of household name players contending on the red clay, and the euro-dollar exchange rate. The currency drop left the French trailing other grand slams by a wide margin in terms of prize money, so French Open authorities announced another 14% hike in the total prize money pool to remain on par with the other grand slams. This year’s 14% increase sees the French right up there with Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, offering a total prize pool of $39.2 million, $2.29 million apiece to the respective men’s and women’s singles champion, and a respectable $39,145 to first round losers. The tournament, however, will be without marquee players Roger Federer, Maria Sharapova, and Serena Williams, meaning American ratings will likely decline as well. Grand Slam tennis is big business on both sides of the pond, and while the French is the smallest of the bigs, its impact, rich tradition, and place on the annual tennis calendar remains significant, regardless of on-court star power or exchange rate.

Head racquets owner and CEO Johan Eliasch believes that the French Tennis Federation "made the right call" not to hand Maria Sharapova a French Open wild card spot after she finished her doping-related suspension. But Eliasch, according to the London Times, "laid the blame for one of his most prominent clients missing the second grand-slam event of the year at the door" of WADA. Eliasch said, "This issue with Maria and the French Open, that is a consequence of Wada breaching their own rules for a delinquent way of operating." A WADA spokesperson said that the organization had "followed all the required procedures" before including meldonium -- which Sharapova tested positive for -- on their "list of banned substances." WTA CEO Steve Simon told the New York Times he "did not plan on pushing for re-examination of the wild-card rule, but would be open to it." Simon "maintains that the federation went too far." While WADA has no financial stake in a Sharapova-less French Open, the WTA certainly does – especially in a year when fan favorite Serena Williams is on maternity leave. No surprise that Simon is questioning the “letter of the law.”

  Kids, apparently, still like the long ball. According to a just-released Sports & Fitness Industry Association report, baseball and softball "combined to rank as the most participated team sport" in 2016. The report said that casual participation showed an average annual growth of 6.5% over five years, 10.7% over three years, and 18.1% from 2015 to 2016. SFIA President & CEO Tom Cove said that the sport "showed growth in both casual and core participation over one-, three- and five-year periods at a time when the trends in other team sports are less encouraging." MLB Senior VP/Youth Programs Tony Reagins said, "To see the numbers where they are, it’s really exciting…We’re going to keep pushing and try to get more kids playing." The participation increase, according to Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal, "almost certainly stems from MLB’s 'Play Ball' initiative," which launched in June, 2015 in conjunction with the U.S. Conference of Mayors, USA Baseball, and USA Softball. From finding funding to build fields to helping grow sports participation, the U.S. Conference of Mayors actively partners with communities nationwide to ensure our kids are healthy and engaged. I am proud to work with the Mayors Professional Sports Alliance to help see these important goals come to fruition.

The Cleveland Cavaliers and Goodyear have announced a jersey patch partnership beginning next season. The agreement, according to SportsBusiness Journal, will also involve Turner Sports, which the Cavs hired to help “amplify the deal nationally.” Turner’s in-house agency Ignite Sports will create custom Goodyear-branded content to appear on TNT NBA coverage and provide media services for the Cavs. It is the first such deal for Ignite, which is angling to align itself with other NBA jersey patch deals. Sources have noted that the deal makes good sense because Goodyear is headquartered in nearby Akron, hometown of regional favorite son LeBron James. The deal is reportedly worth upwards of $10 million a year, making it the most lucrative of the six jersey patch deals signed to date. Goodyear’s other sports sponsorships include Ohio’s Pro Football Hall of Fame, the Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic, and the College Football Playoff. While the Goodyear deal is reportedly eight figures, none of the jersey patch deals would have been made without the foresight of the 76ers and jersey patch partner StubHub, who pioneered the innovative revenue opportunity for the NBA.

    Maryland Governor Larry Hogan claims he "wants to keep the Preakness Stakes in Baltimore and is willing to talk about investing state money to do so." According to the Baltimore Sun, the governor's office issued a statement after Stronach Group, the owner of Pimlico Race Course, said that the 147-year-old track likely "would have to be rebuilt" at a cost of $300-$500 million to "keep the race there” rather than move it to newer Laurel Park. State House Speaker Michael Busch also "signaled he's open to a state role." Regardless of the top leaders' "willingness to consider a state investment, lawmakers warned that it would be difficult to win General Assembly approval of a sizable investment in a track that survives on the strength of one big day each year." State Senator Edward Kasemeyer "isn't ruling out what he calls a 'three-way partnership' of the state, the city and the company to rebuild Pimlico." Few sports are as tradition-steeped as horse racing, so expect Maryland lawmakers to pull out all the stops to keep the race at Pimlico – especially when this year’s Preakness drew record attendance and race card handle for the third straight year.

The race between Los Angeles and Paris is heating up as both cities are vying to “wow” IOC members before a final decision is made. According to Reuters, LA 2024 “threw down the gauntlet” to its rival Paris with IOC members visiting planned venues and sites. IOC Evaluation Commission Chair Patrick Baumann said that the bid has “no major risks and venues that he described as 'mind-blowing.'" The plan is for sustainability and cost-consciousness to be a center point of the bid, using existing facilities across L.A. and building as few permanent structures as possible. While most cities “shunned the Olympics as too expensive,” L.A. jumped at the opportunity to host the Games again, especially after experiencing a positive economic upswing these past few years. As it wrapped up the Los Angeles tour, the USOC revealed a $78.5 million surplus on $336 million in revenue during the 2016 Rio Games year, including $173 million in broadcast rights fees, benefitting from Games-time boosts in TV and sponsorship revenue, according to its annual IRS filing. The site visits are over, and now Los Angeles and Paris must wait out the IOC’s ultimate decision on who gets the 2024 Games, and likely, who gets the 2028 event. My thinking: look for Paris to prevail in 2024, and L.A. to renegotiate for 2028.

  Disney CEO Bob Iger has been rumored to potentially run for office sometime in the near future, leaving uncertainty how much longer he will “keep his grip on the company.” According to the Wall Street Journal, the 66-year-old Iger “simply doesn’t want to retire yet, despite stating repeatedly that he intents to.” Iger has lead Disney for the past 12 years with "such hands-on attention that he and Disney now seem inseparable to many employees and outside partners." Iger's "ever-extending leadership might be just what Disney needs to keep thriving where it is strong and solve problems looming on the horizon, such as declines in viewership at ESPN and the company’s other television networks." Iger has discussed the possibility of serving in a Democratic presidential administration somewhere down the line or even potentially spending time off on his sailboat. Don’t expect Iger to sail away into the sunset until ESPN’s decline is checked – whether that means installing new top management, an Iger-adjusted business model, or both.

  The fate of two potential future MLS teams will not be decided until December. According to the Sacramento Business Journal, an announcement of two expansion teams was expected by midyear, but MLS officials “indicated an announcement of which cities are chosen” will not come until the end of the year. The Sac Soccer group in Sacramento is confident it will be one of the two cities selected in seven months, especially after purchasing Sacramento Republic FC, “making the USL club part of a bid for inclusion in MLS.” On paper, Sacramento has "checked all three boxes" with an "ownership team, established soccer market and a build-ready stadium plan." The ownership group behind the bid for Northern California is strong, with San Francisco 49ers CEO Jed York and HP Enterprise President & CEO Meg Whitman part of the core. Meanwhile, the David Beckham-Oak View Group- led Miami Beckham United franchise continues to search for a stadium site in Miami, a task that’s proved more difficult than originally anticipated. With a slew of boldface names backing each MLS franchise, it’s only a matter of time before we’ll see MLS matches played in shiny new stadiums in both Sacramento and Miami. Star power usually gets things done.

Vodafone has pulled out of a naming rights deal that would have put its name on London Stadium for the next six years. According to the London Times, the deal was set to be worth $26 million over six years. Sources close to the company note that Vodafone pulled out after reporting an annual loss of $6.7 billion worldwide, “with profits down 31% in the United Kingdom, a downturn blamed largely on the weakness of sterling” amidst Brexit. EPL club West Ham United just finished out its first season at the former Olympic stadium, which was downsized after the 2012 Games. The club is desperate to land a naming rights deal for its home stadium to help cover the costs of annual rent totaling $3.2 million per year. Vodafone has been "noticeably absent" from sports marketing after it ended its seven-year title sponsorship of McLaren’s Formula 1 team in 2013. Even with a solid transition plan, the long term fate of Olympic facilities is never 100% certain because most cities fail to properly estimate ongoing maintenance and other costs. Look for the IOC to reference London Stadium as it chooses between Los Angeles and Paris.

The Tampa Bay Lightning are waiting to receive official confirmation that they will host the 2018 NHL All-Star Game. According to Yahoo Sports, if the game is awarded to Tampa Bay, it would mark the first time it would be hosted by the Lightning since 1999. Owner Jeff Vinik has invested heavily in renovating Amalie Arena instead of building a new facility. Downtown Tampa Bay has also grown considerably, making it a more attractive destination for a mega event. There has been "speculation that the lack of an NHL All-Star Game host announcement meant the NHL was hedging on its vow not to send players" to the 2018 PyeongChang Games. However, holding the All-Star Game was "always part of the contingency plan in case a deal with the IOC couldn’t be struck." As determined as NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and the league’s owners have been to keep their players away from the Olympics, a winter’s trip to Tampa Bay is looking all the more likely.

  Derek Jeter may be retired, but that has not stopped fans from buying his memorabilia. According to SportsBusiness Journal, Topps Now is selling a set of special Jeter baseball cards commemorating the short stop’s retirement ceremony at Yankee Stadium. The cards have become “the top-selling regular-season cards in history of the Topps Now daily on-demand card service.” The company said it sold more than “13,500 cards relating to the Jeter ceremony between two base cards and a limited number of autographed cards and relic cards containing pieces of a base used in the game” on ceremony day. That marker tops the 11,550 cards sold last year for a card commemorating Miami Marlins outfielder Ichiro Suzuki gaining his 3,000th hit. The Jeter set generated more than $150,000 in revenue for Topps since its release. Trading card sales have declined as interest in baseball has waned among younger generations, and Topps and its peers welcome any opportunity to boost revenues tied to MLB special events like the Jeter ceremony.

  U.S. Soccer President Sunil Gulati could have an unexpected challenger next year in his quest to remain in his role. According to the Washington Post, Boston attorney Steven Gans has begun exploring the option of running for the top spot in U.S. domestic soccer, but has not officially decided on doing so yet. "It’s amazing to me that such a big position, no one has ever run against Sunil,” said Gans. “There needs to be a challenger. He hasn’t demonstrated such a great track record. I don’t think the direction at the pro and youth level is so great. There are a lot of disenchanted people out there.” Gulati is officially allowed to run for one more term under current USSF guidelines; he has not confirmed his intent on running for the spot again, though many close to the organization expect him to run again. Gans has openly critiqued moves by Gulati that has demonstrated “poor judgment and leadership.” With corruption-driven leadership shifts at the FIFA level, it’s only natural that the heads of national federations would receive additional scrutiny. Gulati has had a lock on U.S. Soccer for many years, and as in most organizations, an infusion of new blood is usually a positive thing.

  United Airlines is buying the naming rights to L.A. Memorial Coliseum for more than $70 million over 15 years, making it the richest naming-rights deal among college football stadiums. At $4.7 million per year, according to sources, United’s deal will surpass the 10-year, $41 million deal Alaska Airlines signed with the University of Washington for Husky Stadium rights in 2015. The naming-rights revenue is expected to help offset costs of a $270 million Coliseum renovation, slated to be completed in time for the 2019 USC football season. It is thought that “Memorial Coliseum” will be retained in the name. United’s CEO, Oscar Munoz, is a USC grad, and nearby LAX is one of United’s biggest U.S. hubs. Down the road, the Rams' and Chargers' $2.6 billion stadium in Inglewood "will be delayed almost a year" from its originally planned opening in 2019 and is "now scheduled to be ready" for the 2020 NFL season, due to record rainfall during critical construction phases this past winter. The Rams will remain at the Coliseum for 2019, while the Chargers will play at StubHub Center. While the rain was a pain, the delay is definitely a silver lining for naming rights holders United and StubHub, which will both benefit from the additional exposure.

Jordan Spieth is the latest athlete to be featured on the Wheaties box. Spieth told media at the AT&T Byron Nelson that he will be on "about four million Wheaties boxes nationwide." Fittingly, Wheaties was "Byron Nelson’s first endorsement." Other golfers who have "had their own limited-edition boxes" include Ben Hogan, Babe Zaharias, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, and Tiger Woods. Wheaties joins a Spieth endorsement portfolio that already includes "deals with AT&T, Coca-Cola, Titleist, and Under Armour. CNBC estimated the Wheaties deal could increase Spieth's brand value by upwards of $3.1 million, while Under Armour, whose logo appears on the shirt Spieth wears on the cereal box, could garner $171,000 worth of brand exposure. Too bad Spieth started the first weekend of his new deal by skipping breakfast – after a quad bogie on Friday, he failed to make the cut.

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CUBA

This isn’t a normal Cuba guidebook write-up. If you want to know where to sightsee, Google “things to do in Cuba”. My list is at the bottom, but first I’ll tell you some do’s and don'ts.

Traveling there: It’s really easy to get to Cuba now! You don’t need a special tour or to worry about booking your trip through a company or group. As of November 21st, 2016 all you need to do is book your flight and choose one of the 12 sanctions - I chose journalism, but they never check and there’s no follow up or anything so it doesn’t really matter what you choose.. I booked my flight with JetBlue and they took care of everything. The ticket price included the mandatory travel insurance that Cuba requires, as well as most other fees for coming and going from the US. The only additional fee you have to pay is a $50 visa that they seamlessly take care of when you arrive at the airport for your flight.

Food: Do not come to Cuba for the food. Everything you know about Cuban food in America is not the case there (except for all the ham). Not only is good Cuban food hard to find, but sometimes any food you want is hard to find. It is common for restaurants to be completely sold out of many items on the menu by about 4pm. Most meat dishes are made with pork, so if you want beef you need to ask for beef. Breakfasts options are limited - you will eat eggs, toast, and fruit every day. On the plus side, lobster is inexpensive! We really enjoyed our meal at Biky Restaurante in Havana – there’s long line to get in, but it’s worth the wait (or do what we did and have Yeilia get your name on the VIP list).

Shopping: Don’t go to Cuba for shopping! There are souvenir shops around, but they’re mostly selling the same thing over and over - little wooden cars, magic boxes, magnets, and other small handmade items. There is a central market called San Jose, near the cruise ship piers. It’s big and they sell stuff, but again mostly all the same items at each shop.

Money: Credit cards, especially American, don’t work. Cash is king and it’s all you will use. There are two currencies in Cuba, convertible (CUC – sometimes called ‘kook’) and National (CUP aka ‘koop’). It’s super hard to get National, but you may be able to get it as change. The exchange rate is about 1 USD = 1 CUC = 25 CUP, so don’t be alarmed if a local food place charges $25 for a hamburguesa – they list their prices in CUP.

Convert your American money to Euros before coming to Cuba because the exchange is much better. American currency is charged the normal 3% conversion tax, plus an additional 10% fee, so you’re paying 13% on every dollar you exchange. If you use Euros it’s only 3% and you can probably get them from your bank in the States for free. Figure about $100/day per person. Convert your money at the airport when you land – there may be a long line but they’re long at all the Casa de Cambia (Cadeca) and it’s easiest just to get this out of the way. Get small bills whenever you can! Many places can’t make change for even a 20.

Transportation: You will see the notorious old American cars driving around, as well as new European cars and everything in between. Pretty much anyone is a taxi in Havana and the price is always negotiable! You’ll pay more for nicer cars. Paying around $10 to get anywhere is normal. It costs $25 or $30 to get from the airport to downtown Havana. I tried to ride around in the cool old cars as much as possible, but take any car that stops for you.

There are old American cars everywhere! Some look nicer than others but they are all over the place, and the outside doesn’t always match the inside. Take photos - they won’t mind! They’re proud of their cars and want to show them off. The especially nice ones do city tours - for $50 they will drive your group all around the city for an hour showing you sights along the way.

Safety: Cuba is very safe! It’s literary the safest country I’ve ever been to. I never felt nervous to walk down empty streets at night, and neither did any of the girls I was with. Or get into a stranger’s car. Nobody is going to try to harm you. It’s so safe it’s almost weird.

Everyone is nice and helpful! Pretty much anyone will help you and be friendly. If you need anything, they will make it happen for you. It’s very refreshing how helpful and kind every single person is.

Internet: There is no internet. You won’t find restaurants with free wifi or hotel lobbies or anything. Quickly get over the fact that you won’t have internet access. There are a few street corners where you’ll see like 30 people standing with phones and laptops paying by the hour to get online. If you absolutely must get online, the best place to go is the Hotel National. (It’s cool to see this place anyway) They charge 7 CUC for an hour and you type in a code and can go online while you sit in the AC. It’s nice but the wifi will drop every few minutes and it will get annoying. You should really only bother trying to get on wifi if you have no self-control and must get online!

Lodging: You should get an AirBnB. There are plenty of “fancy” hotels that you can book but it’s way more fun to stay in an authentic Cuban home. The hosts are amazing and kind and will bend over backwards to make your stay great. You can find rooms for $20-$30 per night on either AirBnB or Hostelworld – make sure you have the address and your host knows when you’ll be arriving, since you won’t be able to get in touch with them when you land.

Stay here in Havana:

They are so wonderful! The host Yeilla (pronounced “YAY lee”) is amazing! I can’t recommend these guys highly enough! She will call you a taxi to anywhere, make you breakfasts and cocktails on their nice outdoor patio and she will even set you up with a car and lodging to Viñales or any other destination! They only have 4 rooms and book up fast so make a reservation in advance – however she has lots of friends in town so if your group grows she can find you more space.

Sightseeing: Havana is fun, but you don’t need to spend more then 2 or 3 days there. The sightseeing list looks extensive but you can see pretty much everything in that time. Go on day and overnight trips to other parts of Cuba also!

There’s a bunch of stuff to see on the lighthouse side of the water. Go under their famous tunnel (they love this tunnel and every cab driver will get excited about it, but if you’re from NYC, we have 4 of them and it’s nothing more special than the Holland or Lincoln tunnel). On that side of the water is the fort with the lighthouse, another cool fort where they do a ceremonial cannon shoot every night at 9pm (get there by 8:15 for a good spot), and more stuff if you get the taxi to drive you around. Tell him to bring you to the big Jesus statue and you can walk to the Che museum and Missile Crisis Museum in the same area.

Out of town: Go to Viñales. It’s a 2 ½ hour drive from Havana. You can take taxi one way with 4 friends for $25 each. It’s a nice drive. Get a fun car for the trip and see if the driver will show you around when you arrive.

Stay here in Viñales:

Rafael is awesome and speaks perfect English. He has hookups everywhere. Even with the government. He can book you literally any kind of trip or excursion you want. He has one guest house, which his daughter Solange runs, with 3 beds.

Viñales is where the tobacco plantations are. You will see the fields and learn how they roll cigars. You can buy a bunch of cigars cheap out here. They sell them without labels here and there are no factory chemicals in them. You���ll pay the same price for one in Havana with a label that you’ll get 20 for in Viñales.

Go horseback riding in Viñales. It’s awesome! You will go on a 4 hour horseback ride through the Viñales countryside. You will stop along the way every hour at a different spot. You’ll see more tobacco plantations, a coffee plantation, some beautiful viewpoints and a lake to swim. The best part is it only costs $25 per person.

Beaches: Don’t go to Cuba for the beaches. They aren’t anything special. There are better countries for beaches. It’s a fun day trip but not a reason to come. We took a ‘57 impala taxi for the one hour drive to Jibacoa. It’s nice, you can go to an all-inclusive resort and go scuba diving and stuff but there’s not much else there.

Playa del Este are the beaches near Havana, about 30 minutes away. They’re nice if you can’t make it all the way to Jibacoa or Varadero.

Tips: Carry toilet paper! The bathrooms don’t have toilet seats and most don’t have TP either. You may also have to pay a few coins to use the restroom at some places (the importance of having small bills and change!).

Take a nap if you plan to go clubbing. Cuban nightlife starts at about 1:30am so after dinner take a nap and rest up because when it’s time to go out, you’ll wait in line to get in some clubs and the live music won’t start until well after midnight.

You’ll need to meet you friends the old-fashioned way, since you won’t have phones or internet. Pick a meeting place and a time and be there.

Most people run businesses out of their homes, so check out some local places to eat, it’s literally just a person cooking you dinner in their home kitchen – these are called paladars.

It’s fun to bring gifts for locals and kids. Anything from matchbox cars to bouncy balls are perfect little gifts. The kids went crazy for a ¢25 bouncy ball. It’s a nice thing to do and requires little cost/effort and makes a difference since decent toys are hard to come by.

Bring all of the toiletries you need and leave them behind when you go – there are basically NO stores and people have a hard time accessing even basic supplies.  

SIGHTSEEING:

• Old Havana (Habana Vieja)

• Plaza Vieja (popular public square)

• The Malecón (seafont boulevard)

• Castio de los Tres Reyes del Morro (also known as El Morro Fortaleza de San Carlos de la Cabana (sits atop La Cabana hill)

• Ceremonia del Cañonazo (actors in 19th-century costumes perform a cannon-firing ceremony at 9pm each evening

• El Capitolio (National Capitol Building)

• Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (National Museum of Fine Arts)

• Paseo del Prado (beautiful street in Havana)

• Gran Teatro de La Habana (one of the world’s largest opera houses)

• Plaza de la Revolucion (Jose Marti Memorial)

• Museo de la Revolucion  (must see)

• Hotel Nacional de Cuba (World Heritage Site and a National Monument)

• Central Commercial (San Jose shopping market)

• Catedral de San Cristobal (Cuban Baroque style)

• Castio de la Real Fuerza (an impressive military fortress)

• Plaza de Armas (popular public square)

• Palacio de los Capitanes (home to the Museo de la Ciudad or City Museum)

• Camera obscura (35-meter tower)

• La Bodeguita del Medio (a former Hemingway hangout)

• Museo de Comandancia del Che (with the office of Che Guevara preserved)

• Fusterlandia (small artist village on the outskirts of Havana)

• Maqueta de La Havana  (with a scale model of the city) (in Miramar)

• Playas del Este (a long stretch of palm-fringed beach that runs for miles)(20 mins east of Havana)

• Finca La Vigia, San Francisco de Paula, Cuba  (residence of Ernest Hemingway)

• National Botanical Garden of Cuba

Viñales

• views (hills that are rounded in shape)

• traditional tobacco plantations

• caves

• tranquil little town

• horseback riding

[coin-river-blog]

Central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) featured prominently when global financial leaders met for this year’s World Bank Group and International Monetary Fund (IMF) joint Spring Meetings in the United States. Faced with emerging disruptive technologies like Bitcoin, their discussions also focused on how money and payments are taking on new forms throughout the world. There wasn’t any determined conclusion to the debates, but the IMF’s Christine Lagarde admitted that cryptocurrencies have shaken the established global financial order.

Also read: The Struggle to Buy Bitcoin in Crypto-Starved Botswana

50% Chance Sweden Will Issue CBDC in Next 10 Years

It is not surprising that CBDCs continue to be a topic of interest at the Spring Meetings, held this year in Washington D.C. from April 8-12. Lagarde, the managing director of the IMF, has in the past urged central banks to consider issuing digital currency to make transactions more secure. She argues that state-backed cryptocurrencies could satisfy public policy goals related to financial inclusion, consumer protection, privacy and fraud prevention.

At the latest round of meetings, central bank officials experimenting with CBDCs, including those from Canada, Sweden, and Uruguay, provided updates on their work while debating the potential features and technological design of such currencies. In one of the panel discussions, titled “CBDC: Should central banks issue digital currencies?,” Swedish central bank deputy governor Cecilia Skingsley revealed that there was a greater than 50% chance the Risbank would issue its own digital currency, e-krona, within the next decade.

“The discussion around CBDCs is very important because of the notion of money and how we organise societies around money,” Skingsley stated. In Sweden, the value of bank notes and coins in circulation now accounts for just 1% of GDP, she revealed. That compares with about 10% in the Eurozone and 20% in Japan. Skingsley said just 1 in 10 people use cash for payments in Sweden, a development which has made the e-krona a possible alternative. She explained:

People now find that digital payments and keeping their money in digital form is much more suitable to their needs. It means that within a couple of years, given current trends, Swedes will no longer have access to central bank money, because notes are the central bank money.

Non-Cash Transactions Soar

Cashless transactions or various kinds have soared around the world in recent years. Bitcoin, for example, was created to challenge the conventional financial system and return the ownership of money to the people, beyond the reach of the state. But this vision has not endeared it to global financial gurus who are steeped in tradition. Unsurprisingly, many national governments have raised concerns about cryptocurrencies and have called for tighter regulation.

To counter these threats, a number of central banks have started to ponder whether and how to adapt CBDCs. About 25% of central banks around the world are now actively exploring the possibility of issuing state-backed cryptocurrencies, even though only a handful of trials have been reported. The Eastern Caribbean Central Bank and the Central Bank of the Bahamas have both announced advanced plans to conduct blockchain-based CBDC pilots.

The Case for Central Bank Digital Currencies

In Canada, a central bank digital currency is steadily and carefully taking shape. Speaking at the IMF Spring Meetings, Bank of Canada deputy governor Timothy Lane illustrated the costs and benefits, risks and opportunities of issuing CBDCs. One of his key contributions centered on the relationship between interest rates and a central bank digital currency. Lane elaborated:

Some people have suggested that CBDC should be interest-bearing, including that it should allow the possibility of negative interest. Partly, that also would be the reason for introducing it, which is the idea that if you want to provide more money for policy stimulus you could breakthrough the zero lower bound.

However, Lane added that “for this whole thing to be viable the public would actually have to be convinced that this is something they want to hold. I suppose this is part of the primary motivation [for issuing CBDCs].”

Both the World Bank and IMF appear resolute on virtual money. The Bretton Wood institutions announced an in-house experimental blockchain token of their own, aptly named Learning Coin. The idea is for staffers to have a hands-on approach to learning about blockchain technology. Through a purpose-built mobile phone app, employees can read curated content and watch videos related to blockchain in exchange for earning the valueless Learning Coin, which can only be redeemed in-house.

Special Drawing Rights

But the concept of a unique unit of exchange isn’t exactly new to the IMF. In 1969, the organization created what it called Special Drawing Rights (SDR) – an asset that almost functions as a currency. SDR is used for transactions between central banks and the IMF; more or less what some countries are trying to achieve with large value, blockchain-based interbank payment experiments, for example, Jasper I & II in Canada, Khokha in South Africa, and Stella I in Europe. Similarly, at least six international banks have revealed plans to issue stablecoins backed by fiat currency, on IBM’s World Wire, to allow for faster and cheaper cross-border remittances and payments.

There are some similarities in both systems. The value of the SDR is based on a basket of five currencies – the U.S. dollar, the euro, the Chinese renminbi, the Japanese yen, and the British pound sterling. Stablecoins derive their value from fiat currency. Canada’s Timothy Lane indicated that it will take a little more time for central bank digital currencies to become useful for cross-border payments as that requires greater regulatory collaboration. Others are simply encouraged that the CBDC discussion has remained open and topical at the IMF conferences.

“It’s clear that the government and private sector are both very interested in learning more about CBDC and what the future of digital payments might look like,” Ashley Lannquist of the World Economic Forum told news.Bitcoin.com. “It’s commendable that the IMF and World Bank Group have decided to embrace and feature dialogues on central bank digital currency, setting an important example for other international organizations.”

What do you think about the IMF’s position on central bank digital currencies? Let us know in the comments section below.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock..

Express yourself freely at Bitcoin.com’s user forums. We don’t censor on political grounds. Check forum.Bitcoin.com

Tags in this story

Bitcoin, Canada, CBDCs, Cecilia Skingsley, central bank digital currency, Christine Lagarde, Cryptocurrency, e-krona, IMF, Payments, remittances, Special drawing rights, Sweden, Timothy Lane, Uruguay, World Bank Group

Jeffrey Gogo

Jeffrey Gogo is an award winning financial journalist based in Harare, Zimbabwe. A former deputy business editor with the Zimbabwe Herald, the country's biggest daily, Gogo has more than 15 years of wide-ranging experience covering Zimbabwe's financial markets, economy and company news. He first encountered bitcoin in 2014, and began covering cryptocurrency markets in 2017

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[outletcheapggdb-blog]

Golden Goose Sneakers Outlet Online Effective website Systems

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[shopggdb-blog]

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[boyversusworldblog]

As mentioned in a prior post about my first day in Havana Cuba, I visited the country of Cuba for the very first time. Travel to Cuba had been somewhat off-limits to Americans for some time, so that might explain the huge influx of U.S. travelers to Cuba to see what the country has to offer. The majority of my time in Cuba was spent in Havana.

We arrived in the port of Havana by cruise ship and headed out to explore the city of Havana. Let me first say that we almost didn’t make it to Cuba due to a very intense hurricane season in the Caribbean. Luckily, all three of the major hurricanes that hit Cuba died out and finally left us in the clear to travel. We had been watching our cruise line’s website by the hour in the event they canceled our cruise or would divert us to other islands. The problem was that a larger majority of the islands that the cruise line usually diverted to were also badly hit.

We were also slightly aggravated by the talk by the Trump administration of rolling back Obama era regulations regarding travel to Cuba. The main concern was whether we would be allowed to book our excursions ourselves and travel as individuals or if we have to book a group tour. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Tip: If you’re a U.S. citizen, I would highly advise that you check the US travel website for any recent changes for travel to Cuba before you book your tickets to anything. The regulation changes were actually pending after we had booked our cruise and our excursions, so needless to say we were kind of on edge. As far as tours go, we decided to not book our tour through the cruise line as it was actually more expensive than picking a local tour company on our own. If you are worried about getting back to the cruise ship on time or have a tight schedule and/or don’t feel comfortable booking tours outside of cruise line, then you may want to consider the excursions through the cruise line.

Usually, my sister and I can figure out an itinerary on our own and just make an experience in line with what we like to see. This time we decided to be a bit lazy and let someone else navigate and do all the talking as we did all the walking. You may still be okay to navigate on your own if just get a detailed map of Havana. Be aware though that you most likely will not have cell or internet service in Cuba as it’s regulated and pretty spotty in most areas, so print your maps prior to coming or buy one when you get there. There are certain spots that have Wi-Fi and there have been talks that due to increased tourism there may be changes to allow more Wi-Fi access. I will say that all of the key sites are reasonably close to each other so you won’t have to travel far. If you’re trying to get out of the city a little further, you might need a lot more than just a map.

After a bit of searching on the internet to find a credible tour company, we settled on Havana Tour Company which is a sister company to Locally Sourced Cuba Tours. We didn’t want to be in the midst of all the people rushing off the cruise ship for the earlier tours provided by the cruise ship or other tour companies. Also, it was easier to get through customs later in the day since it wasn’t packed with all the cruise ship tourist. So, we slept in a bit and eased into the day and then ventured out for the Havana Afternoon Delight Tour.

There are a lot of tours to choose from but we picked this tour since it offered a little bit of everything. It’s part walking tour, part classic car ride, and lastly an interactive authentic mojito making. The tour is noted on the website to be four hours long and for groups of two to twelve, so you might be mixed in with a group that is less than twelve. We headed off the cruise ship, exchanged our U.S. dollars (USD) into the Cuban Convertible currency (CUC) and headed our the terminal. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

TIP: Exchange your USD for another currency like Canadian Dollars, Mexican Pesos, or Euros to possibly get a better exchange when you exchange in Cuba. You are automatically charged 10% just for exchanging in USD and then an additional 3% for a financial transaction charge. So you may be able to avoid the large 10% fee if you exchange in a different currency. This is only if you get a good exchange rate to begin with on the currency you originally exchange your USD from.

We didn’t know this before we went but we weren’t worried about the 13% fees since most things are pretty cheap to purchase anyway in Cuba and you may not need a huge amount of money if you’re traveling on a budget.

Anyway, we met up with our guide at the location that was noted on our confirmation email. We found out that we were the only people on our tour, so we basically got a private tour! We also learned throughout the tour that our guide was very educated about Cuban history as well as international current events. He spoke about the degrees he received in university in teaching and in history. We also talked about how many people think that Cuba is completely cut off from the world but they aren’t completely cut off. They know quite a bit about what’s going on in the U.S and U.K and worldwide. As we crossed the Paseo de Marti toward the statue of Jose Marti, our guide was stopped by the police in military clothes. He showed them his tour guide license/identification card and answered a few questions and we kept on truckin’. He advised us that this is a regular occurrence as there are tour guides that aren’t licensed to be actual guides that solicit tourists for tours and they aren’t actually valid tours and may not charge a fair price or provide a comprehensive tour. This is why it’s important to do your research and pick a company that is official.

  We walked past the restaurant bar El Floridita which was frequented by Ernest Hemingway and down the beautiful cobblestone streets of Havana. He explained the historical significance of certain structure around town and talked about the times of revolution. He also drew similarities between the history of the U.S. regarding the slave trade and the history of Cuba. It was intriguing to find out that even Cuba was built on the backs of slaves from Africa, among others. We discussed general opinions about the Obama administration and the Trump administration. He let my sister and I know that it was astounding and extremely motivating when Obama visited Cuba. He said that people were in awe of the fact that an African American, someone like themselves, was the leader of the United States and would choose to visit Cuba. He said that it was a very humbling experience and something that he would never forget. We also talked about the changes that were pending implementation from the Trump administration. It was interesting to understand the impact of actions taken by the president of the nation in which you reside and how it affects other people from the perspective of the people that actually reside in that country. The conversation wasn’t heated politically and I never got a feeling from our guide of any animosity or hatred toward one side or the other. It’s not common nowadays to just have an honest and open discussion about issues that affect the world without interjecting one’s own bias. It was a very comprehensive and eye-opening discussion.

We walked into Havana’s Old Town with it’s wonderfully laid out public squares and market areas. We stopped by a building were local artists were busy at work creating beautiful works of art and were able to chat with some of the locals about their craft. We stepped in briefly to the La Catedral and marveled at the intricacy of the ceiling and other fixtures as well as the facade of the outside of the church. La Catedral charges a small fee to walk around the inside of the church. It’s a nominal fee but just be prepared. It was around $5 CUC as of the date of this blog post. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

What I loved about this tour is that it didn’t feel rushed at all. The guide let us ask all the questions on our mind and it almost appeared that his explanations were finished just as we came upon one of the main areas of focus for the tour. I don’t know if this was strategically planned but it was really awesome to not feel rushed and really get a chance to digest the information that was being provided. There was plenty of time for photos as well. Once we made it to the Plaza San Francisco de Asis, the walking portion of the tour was over and we went to a local bar to have an adult beverage while we waited for the classic car to arrive.

When the car arrived, I chuckled a little because it looked like a short pink Cadillac. I’m not sure how much of the car was actually classic as our guide let us know that they haven’t imported any cars for several years so they have to re-use parts to keep all the classic cars running. We winded through the streets of Havana, past the El Capitolio and away from the city toward the Plaza del Revolucion.

  This seemed to be a stopping point for many of the classic cars but our guide advised us not to venture too far as there is a strong military presence within the Plaza as well as by the Monument to Jose Marti.

The military personnel aren’t to be feared, but you have to just be cautious and mind your manners. So, be respectful and don’t take any photos of military personnel without permission.

After stopping at the Plaza del Revolucion we drove back into the city as the sun started to set for the mojito making. The mojito demonstration was on the rooftop of a local house which appears to be turned into a bar once the sun goes down. The friend of our guide showed us how to make two drinks, a mojito, and a caipirinha. Let’s just say, they’re not light on the liquor and after walking all day I was ready to experience the power of alcohol other than cruise ship drinks if you know what I’m sayin’. Since we were a party of two, let’s just say the drinks were….flowing. It was such a chill vibe and our conversations continued through at least two packs of cigarettes between our guide and my sister. I don’t smoke, so don’t get it twisted.

They do have non-alcoholic options if you want to take this tour so don’t let the alcohol scare you off. I asked our guide what made him most proud to be Cuban and he said that he knows that wherever he goes on the island if he’s ever in need, people will help out as a community even if they don’t know him personally. He said he enjoys the sense of community as a nation and that in a way, he is his brother’s keeper. He said this after I answered that what I like most about being American is that we can be whatever we what and have a sense of self and individualism like no other. This was another point where I really had to stop and think because one thing that I do think is missing in the U.S. is a sense of community. We all try so hard to make it on our own that we forget to stop and ask for help from time to time or don’t try to help each other toward a common goal.

Needless to say, the sun was almost completely set by the time we left the mojito making and our guide took us to a little cafe/bar as a drop off point. My sister and I had a beer as we processed our day and talked about the entire experience. I can say that this was one of the best experiences of my life! I say this not because of the tourist attractions and the key sights but more because of the conversation and the interaction with true locals. That is the experience I yearn for. This was an experience that will leave a lasting impression and give me stories to tell to start a conversation with people who may never get the chance to do the same. I’m also happy that my sister felt the same way. I’m glad that she and I were able to share the experience together as siblings because it’s something I’ll always remember. Pardon the blurry photo with a front-facing camera on an iPhone 5.

As of the date of this blog post, the fee for the tour was $75 per person. As you can tell, it was well worth it. As I mentioned in my previous post, our tour ended up being nine hours even though it was supposed to be four. Don’t let this scare you because the guides are very mindful of your time so if you need to stick to the four-hour timeline, they will make sure you meet your time goals just in case you have other excursions planned or need to get back to the cruise ship terminal or airport. We didn’t have anything planned and I’m glad we were able to make a full day of it.

On a side note, there is also a Free Walking Tour company that operates if you’re on a budget and just want to get a taste of the city to bookmark places to go back to.

If you want to read more about My 36 Hours in Havana Cuba Day One, click on the link. I had to break it up in two parts so you can read about My 36 Hours in Havana Day Two by clicking here.

Happy Travels!

Don’t forget to save this post to your Pinterest for later reference

Review: Havana Tour Company – Havana Afternoon Delight Tour As mentioned in a prior post about my first day in Havana Cuba, I visited the country of Cuba for the very first time.

[abigailswager]

The basics of trading that one should know

New Post has been published on https://ethereumbrokerreview.com/the-basics-of-trading/

The basics of trading that one should know

The basics of trading that one should know

Things you should be aware of before you start

The currency trading industry and now also the cryptocurrency trading industry have gone through enormous volatile times the last couple of years. Now with trump and its trade wars. The fast rise and somewhat recline of the cryptocurrencies and the fast pace of international politics and economies that create high rises and steep fall of the currencies.

So what does it all mean and what can you do before start to trade on these news headlines.

Good brokers like LegacyFX and UBCFX provide the traders with the latest market news and updates on a continuous basis but if you are new to trading you still have no idea what to do with this.

You start by understanding that the involves a high degree of risk, including the risk of losing you hard earned money. Besides the ones that were lucky enough to have bought Bitcoin a couple of years back and cashed in in the end of 2017, most people don’t get rich overnight.

You have to understand that you only trade with money that you are able to lose, going hungry because you want to open a trade is not the right wy to go about it.

So, What is Forex?

You should by now understand that the value of currencies goes up and down every day.

This in general becomes apparent the moment you go on vacation and what you bought last year with your money now is not the same amount you get today at the exchange.

This is on a large scale, what a lot of people do not know is that there is a foreign exchange market – or ‘Forex’ for short – or “FX” for even shorter, where you can potentially make a profit from the movement of these currencies.

The most known Trader is George Soros who made a billion dollars in a day by trading currencies. This is of course on a scale that we are not able to reach and you need a huge amount of money to begin with. Still he made a billion in one day!!

The internet has played a huge part in making trading in currencies accessible for the masses. You also do not need huge amounts of money to actually do this. Now keep in mind that if you make 10% profit on your investment but the investment was just $50 you basically just end up with $55. still no bank will give you 10% interest on your money.

Many people and I am talking millions are now trading every day, most do this on the side and don’t do this as a full-time job, but there are today enough people that are full time traders and making enough money to live comfortably.

Retail forex market needed Brokers

The Forex market for the retail market was born, it started around 15 years ago to become more serious as technologies advanced and the stream of information became almost instant, this is important for trading as one second can make the difference between profit or loss.

So, the moment the technology was there the people that wanted to trade were there all that was needed were the Forex brokers that offered the platform for trading.

There are latterly hundreds of companies of not thousands that offer this service and there are good ones like LegacyFX and there are scams (these tend to not last long)

Forex explained in short

The Forex market is the largest financial market on the planet and has been for many years now.

Its average daily trading volume is more than $4 trillion. (just let that number sink in for a second). Of this total amount around 5% is the retail market meaning traders like you and me. Still 5% of 4 Trillion is still a number with a lot of zeros behind it.

If you compare that with the New York Stock Exchange, which only has an average daily trading volume of $55 billion. You truly see the size.

To give you another example:

if you were to put ALL of the world’s equity and futures markets together, their combined trading volume would still only equal a 25% of the daily Forex market. Insane right?

Why does this even matter?

It matters because there are so many buyers and sellers that transaction prices are kept low. To explain how trading the Forex market is different than trading stocks, here are a few major benefits.

Most Brokers don’t charge commissions – you pay only the bid/ask spreads.

There’s 24hour trading – you decide when to trade and how to trade.

You can focus on your currencies and become experts in only those pairs that you follow instead of following and selecting out of 5000 stocks

You can trade on leverage, (something to be very aware of as it can magnify potential gains but also your losses).

Forex is accessible for almost everyone– you don’t need a lot of money to get started

In the Forex market you can trade on Demo accounts to learn before you commit your money

How is Forex traded?

The mechanics of a trade are virtually identical to those in other markets. The only difference is that you’re buying one currency and selling another at the same time.

This is also the reason as to why the currencies are quoted in pairs, like EUR/USD or USD/GBP.

The exchange rate represents the purchase price between the two currencies.

Example:

The EUR/GBP rate represents the number of GBP one EUR can buy (relevant now with all the Brexit issues going on) . If you think the Euro will increase in value against the British Pound, you buy Euros with British Pounds. If the exchange rate rises, you sell the Euros back, and you cash in your profit.

Now the same works for strading Bitcoin, ethereum, Litecoin or other cryptocurrencies. this has become an entire new market and has introduced many people to Forex . you should here be also aware that trading cryptocurrencies is like regular trading so you will be able to lose great sums of money.

the Best thing i found about trading cryptocurrencies is that the Leverage by default tends to be very low which makes the risk of losing it all much smaller.

Sounds simply enough?

Why does not everyone Trade.

The same could be asked as to why not everyone plays poker, you can make money. The comparison between the 2 is actually closer than you might think.

All traders that are successful will tell you that 80% of successful trading is psychology and the other 20% is research. It takes time to get the research down, but it can take a lifetime to master the psychology.

People tend to do things differently when real money is on the line and are accepting losses in the hope that the trend will reverse or taking out profit too early because they don’t want to lose what they just have gained. In short, the psychology is the hard part.

One should be aware that you can loose real money and a lot of it very fast if you don’t know what you are doing.

Now most Good Forex brokers offer some educational tools, some more than others that will teach you how to trade. There is also something that is called social trading that will allow you to follow other traders and see what they are doing in order for you to learn and make money at the same time.

So here are some ground rules for those that look to start trading

Get involved in the market, watch read and listen to the news to understand what is happening

Go through a trading course ( a good one is here)

Open a demo account and trade at least a month (my advice to do this even longer)only on this before you even think about trading with real money.

Check out social trading, there are some options for this, this broker offers this also.

Try with an amount that you are able to afford losing. See this as your tuition money.

Take it slow, don’t become greedy and follow the basic rules

Basic Rules (there are many more but start with these)

The trend is your friend

Don’t add money to a losing position

Don’t trade on too many different currency pairs

Trade only with a good broker

Don’t open to many positions (no one needs 100 positions a day)

Develop your strategy and stick to it.

Know that NO ONE is 100% of the times right, everyone loses some.

Last but not least, don’t trade with money you cannot afford to lose.

Now all that I want to say is good luck.  😊

[the-connection]

The true story of how the City of London invented offshore banking and set the rich free

Every January, to coincide with the World Economic Forum in Davos, Oxfam tells us how much richer the worlds richest people have got. In 2016, their report showed that the wealthiest 62 individuals owned the same amount as the bottom half of the worlds population. This year, that number had dropped to 42: three-and-half-dozen people with as much stuff as three-and-a-half billion.

This yearly ritual has become part of the news cycle, and the inequality it exposes has ceased to shock us. The very rich getting very much richer is now part of life, like the procession of the seasons. But we should be extremely concerned: their increased wealth gives them ever-greater control of our politics and of our media. Countries that were once democracies are becoming plutocracies; plutocracies are becoming oligarchies; oligarchies are becoming kleptocracies.

Things were not always this way. In the years after the second world war, the trend was in the opposite direction: the poor were getting richer; we were all getting more equal. To understand how and why that changed, we need to go back to the dying days of the conflict, to a resort in New Hampshire, where a group of economists set out to secure humanitys future.

This is the story of how their dream failed and how a London bankers bright idea broke the world.

In the years after the first world war, money flowed between countries pretty much however its owners wished, destabilising currencies and economies in pursuit of profit. Many of the wealthy grew wealthier even while economies fell apart. The chaos led to the election of extremist governments in Germany and elsewhere, to competitive devaluations and beggar-my-neighbour tariffs, to trade wars and, ultimately, to the horrors of the second world war.

The allies wanted to prevent this ever happening again. So, at a meeting at the Bretton Woods resort in New Hampshire in 1944, they negotiated the details of an economic architecture that would in perpetuity stop uncontrolled money flows. This, they hoped, would keep governments from using trade as a weapon with which to bully neighbours, and create a stable system that would help secure peace and prosperity.

Under the new system, all currencies would be pegged to the dollar, which would in turn be pegged to gold. An ounce of gold cost $35 (thats about $500/394 today). In other words, the US Treasury pledged that, if a foreign government turned up with $35, it could always buy an ounce of gold. The United States was promising to keep everyone supplied with enough dollars to fund international trade, as well as to maintain sufficient gold reserves for those dollars to be inherently valuable.

To prevent speculators trying to attack these fixed currencies, cross-border money flows were severely constrained. Money could move overseas, but only in the form of long-term investments, not to speculate short term against currencies or bonds.

To understand how this system worked, imagine an oil tanker. If it has just one huge tank, then the oil can slosh backwards and forwards in ever greater waves, until it destabilises the vessel, which overturns and sinks. At the Bretton Woods conference, the oil was divided between smaller tanks, one for each country. The liquid could slosh back and forth within its little compartments, but would be unable to achieve enough momentum to damage the integrity of the vessel.

Strangely, one of the best evocations of this long-gone system is Goldfinger, the James Bond book. The film of the same name has a slightly different plot, but they both feature an attempt to undermine the wests financial system by interfering with its gold reserves. Gold and currencies backed by gold are the foundations of our international credit, a Bank of England official named Colonel Smithers explains to 007.

Sean Connery as James Bond and Harold Sakata as Oddjob in Goldfinger (1964). Photograph: Getty

The trouble is, the colonel continues, that the Bank is only prepared to pay 1,000 for a gold bar, which is the equivalent of the $35 per ounce price paid in America, whereas the same gold is worth 70% more in India, where there is a high demand for gold jewellery. It is thus highly profitable to smuggle gold out of the country and sell it overseas.

The villain Auric Goldfingers cunning scheme is to own pawnbrokers all over Britain, buy up gold jewellery and trinkets from ordinary Brits in need of a bit of cash, then melt them down into plates, attach the plates to his Rolls-Royce, drive them to Switzerland, reprocess them and fly them to India. By doing so, Goldfinger will not only undermine the British currency and economy, but also earn profits he could use to fund communists and other miscreants. Hundreds of Bank of England employees are engaged in trying to stop this kind of scam from happening, Smithers tells 007, but Goldfinger is too clever for them. He has secretly become Britains richest man, and has 5m-worth of gold bars sitting in the vaults of a bank in the Bahamas.

We are asking you to bring Mr Goldfinger to book, Mr Bond, and get that gold back, says Smithers. You know about the currency crisis and the high Bank rate? Of course. Well, England needs that gold, badly and the quicker the better.

By modern standards, Goldfinger wasnt doing anything wrong, apart perhaps from dodging some taxes. He was buying up gold at a price people were prepared to pay for it, then selling it in another market, where people were prepared to pay more. It was his money. It was his gold. So what was the problem? He was oiling the wheels of commerce, efficiently allocating capital where it could best be used, no?

No, because that wasnt how Bretton Woods worked. Colonel Smithers considered the gold to belong not only to Goldfinger, but also to Great Britain. The system didnt consider the owner of money to be the only person with a say in what happened to it. According to the carefully crafted rules, the nations that created and guaranteed the value of money had rights to that money, too. They restricted the rights of money-owners in the interests of everybody else. At Bretton Woods, the allies desperate to avoid a repeat of the horrors of the inter-war depression and the second world war decided that, when it came to international trade, societys rights trumped those of money-owners.

All this is hard to imagine for anyone who has only experienced the world since the 1980s, because the system now is so different. Money flows ceaselessly between countries, nosing out investment opportunities in China, Brazil, Russia or wherever. If a currency is overvalued, investors sense the weakness and gang up on it like sharks around a sickly whale. In times of global crisis, the money retreats into the safety of gold or US government bonds. In boom times, it pumps up share prices elsewhere in its restless quest for a good return. These waves of liquid capital have such power that they can wash away all but the strongest governments. The prolonged speculative attacks on the euro, the rouble or the pound, which have been such a feature of the past few decades, would have been impossible under the Bretton Woods system, which was specifically designed to stop them happening.

And the system was remarkably successful: economic growth in most western countries was almost uninterrupted throughout the 1950s and 1960s, societies became more equal, while governments made massive improvements in public health and infrastructure. All of this did not come cheap, however. Taxes had to be high to pay for it, and rich people struggled to move their money out of the taxmans reach thanks to the separate compartments in the oil tanker. Fans of the Beatles will remember George Harrison singing on Taxman about the government taking 19 shillings for every one he could keep; that was an accurate reflection of the amount of his earnings that was going to the Treasury, a 95% marginal tax rate.

It wasnt only the Beatles who hated this system. So did the Rolling Stones, who relocated to France to record Exile on Main St. And so, too, did Rowland Baring, scion of the Barings bank dynasty, third earl of Cromer and between 1961 and 1966 the governor of the Bank of England. Exchange control is an infringement on the rights of the citizen, he wrote in a note to the government in 1963. I therefore regard [it] ethically as wrong.

One reason Baring hated the restrictions was that they were killing the City of London. It was like driving a powerful car at 20 miles an hour, lamented one banker, of his spell in charge of a major British bank. The banks were anaesthetised. It was a kind of dream life. In those days, bankers arrived at work late, left early and frittered away much of the time in between having boozy lunches. No one particularly cared, because there wasnt much to do anyway.

Today, looking over its glass-and-steel skyline, it is hard to imagine that the City of London once almost died as a financial centre. In the 1950s and 1960s, the City played little part in the national conversation. Yet, although few books about the swinging 60s even mention the City, something very significant was brewing there something that would change the world far more than the Beatles or Mary Quant or David Hockney ever did, something that would shatter the high-minded strictures of the Bretton Woods system.

Bankers dining at Pimms snack bar in the City of London, 1951. Photograph: Getty

By the time Ian Fleming published Goldfinger in 1959, there were already some leaks in the compartments of the oil tanker. The problem was that not all foreign governments trusted the US to honour its commitment to use the dollar as an impartial international currency; and they were not unreasonable in doing so, since Washington did not always act as a fair umpire. In the immediate post-second-world-war years, the US government had sequestered communist Yugoslavias gold reserves. The rattled eastern bloc countries then made a habit of keeping their dollars in European banks rather than in New York.

Similarly, when Britain and France attempted to regain control of the Suez canal in 1956, a disapproving Washington froze their access to dollars and doomed the venture. These were not the actions of a neutral arbiter. Britain at the time was staggering from one crisis to another. In 1957, it raised interest rates and stopped banks using sterling to finance trade in an attempt to keep the pound strong (this was the currency crisis and the high bank rate that Smithers told Bond about).

City banks, which could no longer use sterling in the way they were accustomed, began to use dollars instead, and they obtained those dollars from the Soviet Union, which was keeping them in London and Paris so as to avoid becoming vulnerable to American pressure. This turned out to be a profitable thing to do. In the US, there were limits on how much interest banks could charge on dollar loans but not so in London.

This market the bankers called the dollars eurodollars gave a bit of life to the City of London in the late 1950s, but not much. The big bond issues were still taking place in New York, a fact which annoyed many bankers in London. After all, many of the companies borrowing the money were European, yet it was American banks that were earning the fat commissions.

One banker in particular was not prepared to tolerate this: Siegmund Warburg. Warburg was an outsider in the cosy world of the City. For one thing, he was German. For another, he hadnt given up on the idea that a City bankers job was to hustle for business. In 1962, Warburg learned from a friend at the World Bank that some $3bn was circulating outside the US sloshing around and ready to be put to use. Warburg had been a banker in Germany in the 1920s and remembered arranging bond deals in foreign currencies. Why couldnt his bankers do something similar again?

Up to this point, if a company wanted to borrow dollars, it would have to do so in New York. Warburg, however, was pretty confident he knew where he could find a significant chunk of that $3bn Switzerland. Since at least the 1920s, the Swiss had been in the business of hoarding cash and assets on behalf of foreigners who wanted to avoid scrutiny. By the 1960s, perhaps 5% of all the money in Europe lay under Switzerlands steel mattresses.

For the Citys most ambitious financiers, this was tantalising: there was all this money squirrelled away, doing nothing much, and it was exactly what they needed in their quest to start selling bonds again. As Warburg saw it, if he could somehow access the money, package it up and lend it, he would be in business. Surely, Warburg thought, he could persuade the people who were paying Swiss bankers to look after their money that they would rather earn an income from it by buying his bonds? And surely he could persuade European companies that they would rather borrow this money from him and avoid paying the steep fees demanded in New York?

It was a great idea, but there was a problem: the compartments of the oil tanker were in the way. It was impossible for Warburg to move that money from Switzerland via London to clients who wanted to borrow it. But he took two of his best men and told them to get it done anyway.

They began their efforts in October 1962, the same month that the Beatles released Love Me Do. The bankers finalised their deal on 1 July the following year, the same day that the Fab Four recorded She Loves You, the song that sparked global Beatlemania. That extraordinary nine months not only revolutionised pop music, but also geopolitics, since they included the Cuban missile crisis and John F Kennedys Ich bin ein Berliner speech. Under the circumstances, it is understandable that a simultaneous revolution in global finance passed little remarked.

Warburgs new bond issue these bonds became known as eurobonds, after the example set by eurodollars was led by Ian Fraser, a Scottish war hero turned journalist turned banker. He and his colleague Peter Spira had to find ways to defang the taxes and controls designed to prevent hot money flowing across borders, and to find ways to pick and choose different aspects of different countries regulations for the various elements of their creation.

If the bonds had been issued in Britain, there would have been a 4% tax on them, so Fraser formally issued them at Schiphol airport in the Netherlands. If the interest were to be paid in Britain, it would have attracted another tax, so Fraser arranged for it to be paid in Luxembourg. He managed to persuade the London Stock Exchange to list the bonds, despite their not being issued or redeemed in Britain, and talked around the central banks of France, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and Britain, all of which were rightly concerned about the eurobonds impact on currency controls. The final trick was to pretend that the borrower was Autostrade the Italian state motorway company when really it was IRI, a state holding company. If IRI had been the borrower, it would have had to deduct tax at source, while Autostrade did not have to.

The cumulative effect of this game of jurisdictional Twister was that Fraser created a bond paying a good rate of interest, on which no one had to pay tax of any kind, and which could be turned back into cash anywhere. These were what are known as bearer bonds. Whoever possessed the bond owned them; there was no register of ownership or any obligation to record your holding, which was not written down anywhere.

Frasers eurobonds were like magic. Before eurobonds, hidden wealth in Switzerland couldnt really do much; but now it could buy these fantastic pieces of paper, which could be carried anywhere, redeemed anywhere and all the while paid interest to their owners, tax free. Dodge taxes and make a profit, worldwide.

Gold deposits at the Federal Reserve in New York, 1968. Photograph: Rolls Press/Popperfoto/Getty

So, who was buying Frasers magical invention? Who was providing the money he was lending to IRI, via Autostrade? The main buyers of these bonds were individuals, usually from eastern Europe but often also from Latin America, who wanted to have part of their fortune in mobile form so that if they had to leave they could leave quickly with their bonds in a small suitcase, Fraser wrote in his autobiography. There was still a mass migration of the surviving Jewish populations of central Europe heading for Israel and the west. To this was added the normal migration of fallen South American dictators heading east. Switzerland was where all this money was stashed away.

Later, historians tried to downplay Frasers account a little, and to claim that corrupt politicians those fallen South American dictators made up just a fifth or so of the demand for these early bond issues. As for the remaining four-fifths of the money that bought up the bonds, this came from standard tax dodgers Belgian dentists, the bankers called them high-earning professionals who steered a chunk of their earnings to Luxembourg or Geneva, and who welcomed this lovely new investment.

The eurobonds set wealth free and were the first step towards creating the virtual country of the rich that I call Moneyland. Moneyland includes offshore finance, but is much broader than that, since it protects every aspect of a rich persons life from scrutiny, not just their money. The same money-making dynamic that enticed Fraser to defang capital controls on behalf of his clients, entices his modern-day counterparts to find ways for the worlds richest people to avoid visa controls, journalistic scrutiny, legal liability and much more. Moneyland is a place where, if you are rich enough, whoever you are, wherever your money comes from, the laws do not apply to you.

This is the dirty secret at the heart of the Citys rebirth, the beginning of the process that eventually led to todays stratospheric inequality. It was all made possible by modern communications the telegram, the phone, the telex, the fax, the email and it allowed the worlds richest people to avoid the responsibilities of citizenship

That first deal was for $15m. But once the way to sidestep the obstacles that stopped cash flowing offshore had been identified, there was nothing to stop more money following behind. In the second half of 1963, $35m of eurobonds were sold. In 1964, the market was $510m. In 1967, the total passed $1bn for the first time, and it is now one of the biggest markets in the world.

The result was that, over time, the system created at Bretton Woods fell apart. More and more dollars were escaping offshore, where they avoided the regulations and taxes imposed upon them by the US government. But they were still dollars, and thus 35 of them were still worth an ounce of gold.

The trouble that followed stemmed from the fact that dollars dont just sit around doing nothing. They multiply. If you put a dollar in a bank, the bank uses it as security for the money it lends to someone else, meaning there are more dollars your dollar, and the dollars someone else has borrowed. And if that person puts the money in another bank, and that bank lends it, there are now even more dollars, and so on.

And since every one of those dollars was nominally worth a fixed amount of gold, the US would have needed to keep buying ever more gold to satisfy the potential demand. If the US did that, however, it would have to have bought that gold with dollars, meaning yet more dollars would exist, which would multiply in turn, meaning more gold purchases, and more dollars, until the system would eventually collapse under the weight of the fact that it didnt make sense; it couldnt cope with offshore.

Banker Siegmund Warburg, 1968. Photograph: Getty

The US government tried to defend the dollar/gold price, but every restriction it put on dollar movements just made it more profitable to keep your dollars in London, leading more money to leak offshore, and thus more pressure to build on the dollar/gold price. And where the dollars went, the bankers followed. The City had looser regulations and more accommodating politicians than Wall Street, and the banks loved it. In 1964, 11 US banks had branches in the City of London. In 1975, 58 did.

The US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, who administered the federal banking system, opened a permanent office in London to inspect what the British branches of American banks were up to. But the Americans had no power in the UK and got no help from the locals. It doesnt matter to me, said Jim Keogh, the Bank of England official responsible for monitoring these banks, whether Citibank is evading American regulations in London.

By that time, however, Washington had bowed to the inevitable and stopped promising to redeem dollars for gold at $35 an ounce. It was the first step in a steady dismantling of all the safeguards created at Bretton Woods. The philosophical question over who really owned money the person who earned it, or the country that created it had been answered.

If you had money, thanks to the accommodating bankers of London and Switzerland, you could now do what you wanted with it and governments could not stop you. As long as one country tolerated offshore, as Britain did, then the efforts of all the others came to nothing. If regulations stop at a countrys borders, but the money can flow wherever it wishes, its owners can outwit any regulators they choose.

The developments that began with Warburg did not stop with simple eurobonds. The basic pattern was endlessly replicable. Identify a line of business that might make you and your clients money. Look around the world for a jurisdiction with the right rules for that business Liechtenstein, the Cook Islands, Jersey and use it as a nominal base.

If you couldnt find a jurisdiction with the right kind of rules, then you threatened or flattered one until it changed its rules to accommodate you. Warburg himself started this off, by explaining to the Bank of England that if Britain did not make its rules competitive and its taxes lower, then he would take his bank elsewhere, perhaps to Luxembourg.

Hey presto, the rules were changed, and the tax in this case, stamp duty on bearer bonds was abolished. The worlds response to these developments has been entirely predictable as well. Time after time, countries have chased after the business they have lost offshore (as the US did by abolishing the regulations the banks were dodging when they moved to London), thus making the onshore world ever more similar to the offshore piratical world that Warburgs bankers created.

Taxes have fallen, regulations have relaxed, politicians have become friendlier, all in an effort to entice the restless money to settle in one jurisdiction rather than another. The reason for this is simple. Once one jurisdiction lets you do what you want, the business flows there and other jurisdictions have to rush to change, too. It is the Moneyland ratchet, always loosening regulations for the benefit of those with money to move around, and never tightening them.

Different nations are affected by Moneyland in different ways. Wealthy citizens of the rich countries of Europe and North America own the largest total amount of cash offshore, but it is a relatively small proportion of their national wealth, thanks to the large size of their economies. The economist Gabriel Zucman estimates it to be just 4% for the US. For Russia, however, 52% of household wealth is offshore, outside the reach of the government. In the Gulf countries, it is an astonishing 57%.

Its very easy for oligarchs of developing countries, non-democratic countries, to hide their wealth. That provides them with huge incentives to loot their countries, and theres no oversight, says Zucman.

Come January, we will get another update of how much more of the worlds wealth these oligarchs have taken for themselves: the only surprise will be the precise volume of their new acquisition, and how little they have left for the rest of us. But we shouldnt wait until then to grasp the urgency of the situation.

We need to act now to shine a light on their wealth, on the dark matter whose gravitational power is bending the fabric of our societies. We may have been ignoring Moneyland, but its nomad citizens have not been ignoring us. If we wish to take back control of our economies, and our democracies, we need to act now. Every day that we wait, more money is stacked against us.

Adapted from Moneyland: Why Thieves & Crooks Now Rule The World & How to Take It Back by Oliver Bullough, published by Profile Books

Follow the Long Read on Twitter at @gdnlongread, or sign up to the long read weekly email here.

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/us

[clubofinfo]

Expert: Sanctions left and sanctions right. Financial mostly, taxes, tariffs, visas, travel bans, confiscation of foreign assets, import and export prohibitions and limitations; and also punishing those who do not respect sanctions dished out by Trump, alias the US of A, against friends of their enemies. The absurdity seems endless and escalating exponentially, as if there was a deadline to collapse the world. Looks like a last-ditch effort to bring down international trade in favor of — what?  Make America Great Again? – Prepare for US mid-term elections? Rally the people behind an illusion? – Or what? All looks arbitrary and destructive. All is, of course, totally illegal by any international law or, forget law, which is not respected anyway by the empire and its vassals, but not even by human moral standards. Sanctions are destructive. They are interfering in other countries sovereignty. They are made to punish countries, nations, that refuse to bend to a world dictatorship. Looks like everybody accepts this new economic warfare as the new normal. Nobody objects. And the United Nations, the body created to maintain Peace, to protect our globe from other wars, to uphold human rights, this very body is silent. Out of fear? Out of fear that it might be ‘sanctioned’ into oblivion by the dying empire?  Why cannot the vast majority of countries – often it is a ratio of 191 to 2 (Israel and the US) – reign-in the criminals? Imagine Turkey – sudden massive tariffs on aluminum (20%) and steel (50%) imposed by Trump, plus central bank currency interference had the Turkish Lira drop by 40%, and that ‘only’ because Erdogan is not freeing US pastor Andrew Brunson, who faces in Turkey a jail sentence of 35 years for “terror and espionage”. An Izmir court has just turned down another US request for clemency, however, converting his jail sentence to house arrest for health reasons. It is widely believed that Mr. Brunson’s alleged 23 years of ‘missionary work’ is but a smoke screen for spying. President Erdogan has just declared he would look out for new friends, including new trading partners in the east – Russia, China, Iran, Ukraine, even the unviable EU, and that his country is planning on issuing Yuan-denominated bonds to diversify Turkey’s economy, foremost the country’s reserves and gradually moving away from the dollar hegemony. Looking out for new friends, may also include new military alliances. Is Turkey planning to exit NATO? Would turkey be ‘allowed’ to exit NATO given its strategic maritime and land position between east and west?  Turkey knows that having military allies that dish out punishments for acting sovereignly in internal affair spells disaster for the future. Why continue offering your country to NATO, whose only objective it is to destroy the east, the very east which is not only Turkey’s but the world’s future? Turkey is already approaching the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) and may actually accede to it within the foreseeable future. That might be the end of Turkey’s NATO alliance. What if Iran, Venezuela, Russia, China and many more countries not ready to bow to the empire, would jail all those spies embedded in the US Embassies or camouflaged in these countries’ national (financial) institutions, acting as Fifth Columns, undermining their host countries’ national and economic policies? Entire cities of new jails would have to be built to accommodate the empire’s army of criminals. Imagine Russia – more sanctions were just imposed for alleged and totally unproven (to the contrary: disproven) Russian poisoning of four UK citizens with the deadly nerve agent, Novichok – and for not admitting it. This is a total farce, a flagrant lie, that has become so ridiculous, most thinking people, even in the UK, just laugh about it. Yet, Trump and his minions in Europe and many parts of the world succumb to this lie and out of fear of being sanctioned, they also sanction Russia. What has the world become?  Hitler’s Propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels, would be proud for having taught the important lesson to the liars of the universe: “Let me control the media, and I will turn any nation into a herd of Pigs”. That’s what we have become – a herd of pigs. Fortunately, Russia too has moved away so far already from the western dollar-controlled economy that such sanctions do no longer hurt. They serve Trump and his cronies as mere propaganda tools – show-offs, “we are still the greatest!”. Venezuela is being sanctioned into the ground, literally, by from-abroad (Miami and Bogota) Twitter-induced manipulations of her national currency, the Bolívar, causing astronomical inflation – constant ups and downs of the value of the local currency, bringing the national economy to a virtual halt. Imported food, pharmaceuticals and other goods are being deviated at the borders and other entry points, so they will never end up on supermarket shelves, but become smuggle ware in Colombia, where these goods are being sold at manipulated dollar-exchange rates to better-off Venezuelan and Columbian citizens. These mafia type gangs are being funded by NED and other similar nefarious State Department financed “NGOs”, trained by US secret services, either within or outside Venezuela. Once infiltrated into Venezuela – overtly or covertly – they tend to boycott the local economy from within, spread violence and become part of the Fifth Column, primarily sabotaging the financial system. Venezuela is struggling to get out of this dilemma, which has people suffering, by de-dollarizing her economy, partly through a newly created cryptocurrency, the Petro, based on Venezuela’s huge oil reserves and also through a new Bolivar, in the hope of putting the brakes on the spiraling bursts of inflation. This scenario reminds so much of Chile in 1973, when Henry Kissinger was Foreign Secretary (1973-1977), and inspired the CIA coup, by “disappearing” food and other goods from Chilean markets, killing legitimately elected President Allende, bringing Augusto Pinochet, a horrendous murderer and despot, to power. The military dictatorship brought the death and disappearance of tens of thousands of people and lasted until 1990. Subjugating Venezuela might, however, not be so easy. After all, Venezuela has 19 years of revolutionary Chavista experience and a solid sense of resistance. Iran is being plunged into a similar fate. For no reason at all, Trump reneged on the five-plus-one pronged so-called Nuclear Deal, signed in Vienna on 14 July 2015, after almost ten years of negotiations. Now, of course, driven by the star-Zionist Netanyahu – new and ‘the most severe ever’ sanctions are being imposed on Iran, also decimating the value of their local currency, the Rial. Iran, under the Ayatollah, has already embarked on a course of “Resistance Economy”, meaning de-dollarization of their economy and moving towards food and industrial self-sufficiency, as well as increased trading with eastern countries, China, Russia, the SCO and other friendly and culturally aligned nations, like Pakistan. However, Iran too has a strong Fifth Column, engrained in the financial sector, that does not let go of forcing and propagating trading with the enemy; i.e., the west, the European Union, whose euro-monetary system is part of the dollar hegemony, hence posing similar vulnerability of sanctions as does the dollar. China – the stellar prize of the Big Chess Game – is being ‘sanctioned’ with tariffs no end, for having become the world’s strongest economy, surpassing in real output and measured by people’s purchasing power, by far the United States of America. China also has a solid economy and gold-based currency, the Yuan which is on a fast track to overtake the US-dollar as the number one world reserve currency. China retaliates, of course, with similar ‘sanctions’, but by and large, her dominance of Asian markets and growing economic influence in Europe, Africa and Latin America, is such that Trump’s tariff war means hardly more for China than a drop on a hot stone. North Korea – the much-touted Trump-Kim mid-June Singapore summit – has long since become a tiny spot in the past. Alleged agreements reached then are being breached by the US, as could have been expected. All under the false and purely invented pretext of DPRK not adhering to her disarmament commitment; a reason to impose new strangulating sanctions. The world looks on. It’s normal. Nobody dares questioning the self-styled Masters of the Universe. Misery keeps being dished out left and right, accepted by the brainwashed to-the-core masses around the globe. War is peace and peace is war. Literally. The west is living in a “peaceful” comfort zone. Why disturb it?  If people die from starvation or bombs, it happens far away and allows us to live in peace. Why bother?  Especially since we are continuously, drip-by-steady drip, being told it’s right. In a recent interview with PressTV I was asked why does the US not adhere to any of their internationally or bilaterally concluded treaties or agreements? Good question. Washington is breaking all the rules, agreements, accords, treaties, is not adhering to any international law or even moral standard, simply because following such standards would mean giving up world supremacy. Being on equal keel is not in Washington’s or Tel Aviv’s interest. Yes, this symbiotic and sick relationship between the US and Zionist Israel is becoming progressively more visible; the alliance of the brute military force and the slick and treacherous financial dominion, together striving for world hegemony, for full spectrum dominance.  This trend is accelerating under Trump and those who give him orders, simply because “they can”. Nobody objects. This tends to portray an image of peerless power, instilling fear and is expected to incite obedience. Will it? What is really transpiring is that Washington is isolating itself, that the one-polar world is moving towards a multipolar world, one that increasingly disregards and disrespects the United States, despises her bullying and warmongering, killing and shedding misery over hundreds of millions of people, most of them defenseless children, women and elderly, by direct military force or by proxy-led conflicts – Yemen is just one recent example – causing endless human suffering to people who have never done any harm to their neighbors, let alone to Americans. Who could have any respect left for such a nation, called the United States of America, for the people behind such lying monsters? This behavior by the dying empire is driving allies and friends into the opposite camp – to the east, where the future lays, away from a globalized One-World-Order, towards a healthy and more equal multi-polar world. – It would be good, if our world body, the members of the United Nations, created in the name of Peace, would finally gather the courage and stand up against the two destroyer nations for the good of humanity, of the globe, and of Mother Earth. http://clubof.info/

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Check out New Post published on Ọmọ Oòduà

New Post has been published on https://ooduarere.com/news-from-nigeria/world-news/demise-dollar-hegemony/

Sanctions, Sanctions, Sanctions – the Final Demise of the Dollar Hegemony?

by Peter Koenig

Sanctions left and sanctions right. Financial mostly, taxes, tariffs, visas, travel bans – confiscation of foreign assets, import and export prohibitions and limitations; and also punishing those who do not respect sanctions dished out by Trump, alias the US of A, against friends of their enemies. The absurdity seems endless and escalating – exponentially, as if there was a deadline to collapse the world. Looks like a last-ditch effort to bring down international trade in favor of — what? – Make America Great Again? – Prepare for US mid-term elections? – Rally the people behind an illusion? – Or what?

All looks arbitrary and destructive. All is of course totally illegal by any international law or, forget law, which is not respected anyway by the empire and its vassals, but not even by human moral standards. Sanctions are destructive. They are interfering in other countries sovereignty. They are made to punish countries, nations, that refuse to bend to a world dictatorship.

Looks like everybody accepts this new economic warfare as the new normal. Nobody objects. And the United Nations, the body created to maintain Peace, to protect our globe from other wars, to uphold human rights – this very body is silent – out of fear? Out of fear that it might be ‘sanctioned’ into oblivion by the dying empire? – Why cannot the vast majority of countries – often it is a ratio of 191 to 2 (Israel and the US) – reign-in the criminals?

Imagine Turkey – sudden massive tariffs on aluminum (20%) and steel (50%) imposed by Trump, plus central bank currency interference had the Turkish Lira drop by 40%, and that ‘only’ because Erdogan is not freeing US pastor Andrew Brunson, who faces in Turkey a jail sentence of 35 years for “terror and espionage”. An Izmir court has just turned down another US request for clemency, however, converting his jail sentence to house arrest for health reason. It is widely believed that Mr. Brunson’s alleged 23 years of ‘missionary work��� is but a smoke screen for spying.

President Erdogan has just declared he would look out for new friends, including new trading partners in the east – Russia, China, Iran, Ukraine, even the unviable EU, and that his country is planning issuing Yuan-denominated bonds to diversify Turkey’s economy, foremost the country’s reserves and gradually moving away from the dollar hegemony.

Looking out for new friends, may also include new military alliances. Is Turkey planning to exit NATO? Would turkey be ‘allowed’ to exit NATO – given its strategic position maritime and land position between east and west? – Turkey knows that having military allies that dish out punishments for acting sovereignly in internal affair – spells disaster for the future. Why continue offering your country to NATO, whose only objective it is to destroy the east – the very east which is not only Turkey’s but the world’s future? Turkey is already approaching the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) and may actually accede to it within the foreseeable future. That might be the end of Turkey’s NATO alliance.

What if Iran, Venezuela, Russia, China – and many more countries not ready to bow to the empire, would jail all those spies embedded in the US Embassies or camouflaged in these countries’ national (financial) institutions, acting as Fifth Columns, undermining their host countries’ national and economic policies? – Entire cities of new jails would have to be built to accommodate the empire’s army of criminals.

Imagine Russia – more sanctions were just imposed for alleged and totally unproven (to the contrary: disproven) Russian poisoning of four UK citizens with the deadly nerve agent, Novichok – and for not admitting it. This is a total farce, a flagrant lie, that has become so ridiculous, most thinking people, even in the UK, just laugh about it. Yet, Trump and his minions in Europe and many parts of the world succumb to this lie – and out of fear of being sanctions, they also sanction Russia. What has the world become? – Hitler’s Propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels, would be proud for having taught the important lesson to the liars of the universe: “Let me control the media, and I will turn any nation into a herd of Pigs”. That’s what we have become – a herd of pigs.

Fortunately, Russia too has moved away so far already from the western dollar-controlled economy that such sanctions do no longer hurt. They serve Trump and his cronies as mere propaganda tools – show-offs, “we are still the greatest!”.

Venezuela is being sanctioned into the ground, literally, by from-abroad (Miami and Bogota) Twitter-induced manipulations of her national currency, the Bolívar, causing astronomical inflations – constant ups and downs of the value of the local currency, bringing the national economy to a virtual halt. Imported food, pharmaceuticals and other goods are being deviated at the borders and other entry points, so they will never end up on supermarket shelves, but become smuggle ware in Colombia, where these goods are being sold at manipulated dollar-exchange rates to better-off Venezuelan and Columbian citizens. These mafia type gangs are being funded by NED and other similar nefarious State Department financed “NGOs”, trained by US secret services, either within or outside Venezuela. Once infiltrated into Venezuela – overtly or covertly – they tend to boycott the local economy from within, spread violence and become part of the Fifth Column, primarily sabotaging the financial system.

Venezuela is struggling to get out of this dilemma which has people suffering, by de-dollarizing her economy, partly through a newly created cryptocurrency, the Petro, based on Venezuela’s huge oil reserves and also through a new Bolivar – in the hope of putting the breaks on the spiraling bursts of inflation. This scenario reminds so much of Chile in 1973, when Henry Kissinger was Foreign Secretary (1973-1977), and inspired the CIA coup, by “disappearing” food and other goods from Chilean markets, killing legitimately elected President Allende, bringing Augusto Pinochet, a horrendous murderer and despot to power. The military dictatorship regime brought the death and disappearance of tens of thousands of people and lasted until 1990. Subjugating Venezuela might, however, not be so easy. After all, Venezuela has 19 years of revolutionary Chavista experience – and a solid sense of resistance.

Iran – is being plunged into a similar fate. For no reason at all, Trump reneged on the five-plus-one pronged so-called Nuclear Deal, signed in Vienna on 14 July 2015, after almost ten years of negotiations. Now – of course driven by the star-Zionist Netanyahu – new and ‘the most severe ever’ sanctions are being imposed on Iran, also decimating the value of their local currency, the Rial. Iran, under the Ayatollah, has already embarked on a course of “Resistance Economy”, meaning de-dollarization of their economy and moving towards food and industrial self-sufficiency, as well as increased trading with eastern countries, China, Russia, the SCO and other friendly and culturally aligned nations, like Pakistan. However, Iran too has a strong Fifth Column, engrained in the financial sector, that does not let go of forcing and propagating trading with the enemy, i.e. the west, the European Union, whose euro-monetary system is part of the dollar hegemony, hence posing similar vulnerability of sanctions as does the dollar.

China – the stellar prize of the Big Chess Game – is being ‘sanctioned’ with tariffs no end, for having become the world’s strongest economy, surpassing in real output and measured by people’s purchasing power, by far the United States of America. China also has a solid economy and gold-based currency, the Yuan – which is on a fast track to overtake the US-dollar as the number one world reserve currency. China retaliates, of course, with similar ‘sanctions’, but by and large, her dominance of Asian markets and growing economic influence in Europe, Africa and Latin America, is such that Trump’s tariff war means hardly more for China than a drop on a hot stone.

North Korea – the much-touted Trump-Kim mid-June Singapore summit – has long since become a tiny spot in the past. Alleged agreements reached then are being breached by the US, as could have been expected. All under the false and purely invented pretext of DPRK not adhering to her disarmament commitment; a reason to impose new strangulating sanctions. The world looks on. Its normal. Nobody dares questioning the self-styled Masters of the Universe. Misery keeps being dished out left and right – accepted by the brainwashed to-the-core masses around the globe. War is peace and peace is war. Literally. The west is living in a “peaceful” comfort zone. Why disturb it? – If people die from starvation or bombs – it happens far away and allows us to live in peace. Why bother? – Especially since we are continuously, drip-by-steady drip being told its right.

In a recent interview with PressTV I was asked, why does the US not adhere to any of their internationally or bilaterally concluded treaties or agreements? – Good question. – Washington is breaking all the rules, agreements, accords, treaties, is not adhering to any international law or even moral standard, simply because following such standards would mean giving up world supremacy. Being on equal keel is not in Washington’s or Tel Aviv’s interest. Yes, this symbiotic and sick relationship between the US and Zionist Israel is becoming progressively more visible; the alliance of the brute military force and the slick and treacherous financial dominion – together striving for world hegemony, for full spectrum dominance. This trend is accelerating under Trump and those who give him orders, simply because “they can”. Nobody objects. This tends to portray an image of peerless power, instilling fear and is expected to incite obedience. Will it?

What is really transpiring is that Washington is isolating itself, that the one-polar world is moving towards a multipolar world, one that increasingly disregards and disrespects the United States, despises her bullying and warmongering – killing and shedding misery over hundreds of millions of people, most of them defenseless children, women and elderly, by direct military force or by proxy-led conflicts – Yemen is just one recent examples, causing endless human suffering to people who have never done any harm to their neighbors, let alone to Americans. Who could have any respect left for such a nation, called the United States of America, for the people behind such lying monsters?

This behavior by the dying empire is driving allies and friends into the opposite camp – to the east, where the future lays, away from a globalized One-World-Order, towards a healthy and more equal multi-polar world. – It would be good, if our world body, the members of the United Nations, created in the name of Peace, would finally gather the courage and stand up against the two destroyer nations for the good of humanity, of the globe, and of Mother Earth.

Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a water resources and environmental specialist. He worked for over 30 years with the World Bank and the World Health Organization around the world in the fields of environment and water. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for Global Research; ICH; RT; Sputnik; PressTV; The 21st Century; TeleSUR; The Vineyard of The Saker Blog; and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance.

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TransferWise Review

It wasn't simple to find a good option for send money abroad to my family. I can pick a bank or one of various exchange services, but most of them will charge you a lot in fees. I was extremely delighted to find out about TransferWise. It utilizes the mid-market exchange rate for currency conversion. I additionally intended to avoid high costs that financial institutions will certainly charge me. I picked TransferWise as my service provider, and it was the right choice for me. Are you prepared to learn why I choose TransferWise? Keep reading my TransferWise review and find out how to save money on your next transfer.

What is TransferWise?

TransferWise is a relatively new online service which will assist you in sending out your cash to anyone who lives in another country. The company was found in London, in 2011. Its owners are Kristo Kaaramann and Taavet Hinrikus. They had a strategy to improve economic services and money transfers in particular. They were inspired by their individual experience, and made a decision to fix an issue about transferring funds abroad. We must be thankful for these guys as they made sending out cash with higher fees is the past. How did they start creating TransferWise platform? They both are Estonians but who had to work between the UK and their country. They needed to transform from Euros to Pounds with a bank, however it had not been low-cost. Hinrikus was paid in Euros due to the fact that he had UK account. Kaaramann was paid in Pounds since and he had a bank account in Estonia. They end up with an excellent plan. Hinrikus was putting his Euros right into Kaaramann's Estonian account while Kaaramann was doing the contrary. They desired to develop more affordable solution compared to traditional financial institutions. It was actually TransferWise. This solution becomes really popular at present. Its customers were sending ₤ 1 billion each month utilizing this service in 2017. Are you captivated?

Are you wondering how does TransferWise work?

This solution is based on A peer-to-peer system (P2P) that boosted money exchange economy. Did you know that? Thanks to P2P, individuals can exchange money directly but same time without knowing each other. TransferWise is a peer-to-peer money transfer solution. Imagine you have to transfer Dollars to Euros. TransferWise will discover a person that wishes to perform an opposite transfer Euros to Dollars. It will just transfer his Euros to you, and your Dollars to him directly without crossing any border. It works perfectly well as both parties benefit from it. There is no requirement for an interaction between you two. TransferWise will do it. Same time you don't even have to make an effort to understand P2P

TransferWise fees

You probably know that some banks claim their international transfers are free (or almost free). Did you know that they will still charge you for the transfer? They do it differently, through a hidden margin that they add on top of the exchange rate. I chose TransferWise for sending out money to people who do not reside in my country and this is why: Transferring cash with financial institutions is up to 8 times more expensive compared to TransferWise. With TransferWise you will pay a small, fixed fee of only 0.5%, while banks will certainly charge you approximately 5% in hidden charges. So if you decide to use TransferWise instead of the banks or another exchange solution, you will definitely save some money for your next transfer. There is no more shedding money on high charges! I hope this information will make your day. I did a research to figure out how much you can actually save when sending money abroad. We will assume that you will certainly send 1000 GBP to EUR. Provider Transfer charge (GBP) Exchange rate Reciever gets (Euro) TransferWise 4.29 1.1476 1142.68 Nationwide 9.00 1.1238 1113.69 NatWest 10.00 1.1238 1106.81 Moneygram 6.49 1.114 1106.46 TransferWise charges 4.29 GBP for this operation, as well as its exchange rate is 1.1476. The recipient should get 1.142.68 EUR. Nationwide transfer cost is 9.00 GBP, and its exchange rate 1.1238. An amount received as the outcome of this transaction is 1113.69 EUR. As a conclusion, TransferWise is the least expensive company for sending money abroad.

TransferWise exchange rate

We already spoke about hidden fees that banks typically add to currency exchange rate. If you choose TransferWise you can be assured they will do the exchange with the real rate. But what if the exchange rate goes into not favourable direction? The rate gets frozen and warrantied for up to 48 hours for most of the currency pairs. So there is nothing to worry about in most cases. Otherwise, there is a mechanism that allows you to set a certain threshold when the operation will be cancelled and you get a full refund. Even if you forget to set one it will default to 5% change from the original exchange rate. TransferWise's web site has the currency converter that allows you to get a quote instantly. They also offer you to compare the real exchange rate to exchange rate of some popular banks and money transfer providers to see the difference. You do not have to pay bank's hidden charges any longer.

Is it safe to use TransferWise?

The first step of each transfer is the deposit to TransferWise's bank account. The obvious question that comes up is - "Should I trust them and send my money?". The should answer is - yes. TransferWise is safe, so you can use it with no worries. If you intend to find why TransferWise is completely secure, check this TransferWise review. There are my general recommendations for verification of a payment provider: Check out various other reviews in order to see what other people say about it. What was their experience? Did they have any problem? Check if the company operates legally. For example TransferWise is registered with UK Financial Conduct Authority. FCA will certainly provide a reasonable coverage for your money transfers. Check how they operate with customer's funds. Do they keep them in separate segregated accounts?

TransferWise online account

TransferWise is now not only money transfer company but also a virtual bank. They launched this innovative service in 2017. A TransferWise borderless account is an online account but you can use it almost the same way as a real account. The only thing is that you can't get a debit card assigned to it, but I believe this feature should appear sooner or later. These are key features of Borderless account: It's easy to get and to use. All you should do is to signup for a TransferWise's account. Or activate your online bank account if you are already their customer. You can send funds to lots of countries, and receive it from many countries. You can get bank accounts in different currencies There are no costs for transfer and receiving cash in your local currency. You can make transfers to other countries directly from your online bank account This account is especially good for freelancers or cross-border workers. It's easy to get, it's multicurrency and there are no high costs associated with it. If you have a firm, this account will certainly be a good choice. I wrote this TransferWise review to help you discover the finest service for sending your funds abroad. I did my best and also I wish it sufficed. The choice is yours but I believe you will likely pick TransferWise as your next service provider. You can also find even more reviews concerning this provider to make the final decision. It is clear that TransferWise has many advantages. I'm one of their loyal clients and I can't imagine my routine international transfers without them. I think this company deserves your trie, especially that you can get the first transfer absolutely free of charge. Read the full article