Free Republic

Jeff Berwick November 17, 2016 We are living in a world where paper fiat money is becoming a novelty. In Australia, Citibank has just become the first to declare that it no longer will accept notes or coins. Only digital transactions. This follows on the heels of India banning large cash denominations. The cash-oriented changes of these two countries are especially troubling in light of the eventual plans to phase out large denomination euro notes and the US 100 dollar bill by 2018. Just as the Economist predicted nearly 30 years ago, the world is going cashless. A few days...

S&P 500 futures jumped Sunday after FBI Director James Comey said in a letter to Congress that the agency continues to believe that Hillary Clinton should not be prosecuted for her handling of emails. Futures for the S&P 500, Dow and Nasdaq 100 rose more than 1% Sunday evening. The S&P 500 has fallen for nine straight sessions, its longest losing streak since 1980s. The Nasdaq's nine-day decline is its longest since 1984. On Oct. 28, the FBI's Comey said that he was investigating new emails related to Clinton's private email server while secretary of state. That news up-ended the...

In Zimbabwe, a strange black market where the American dollar trades against itself

(CNSNews.com) – The Unites States should phase-out all denominations of the U.S. dollar larger than a $10 bill to thwart money launderers and tax evaders, Harvard economist Kenneth Rogoff told attendees at a Council on Foreign Relations event this week in Washington, D.C.“Cash is not used in ordinary retail transactions. It’s used by tax evaders and in a lot of crime of all types, including drug trafficking, human trafficking, extortion, racketeering, you name it,” said Rogoff, a member of the economic advisory panel of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and author of The Curse of Cash.“Cash is being used...

An eighth grader in Houston, TX tried to pay for lunch with a $2 bill. Danesiah Neal told ABC News, ”I went to the lunch line, and they said my $2 bill was fake. They gave it to the police. Then they sent me to the police office. A police officer said I could be in big trouble.” The officer told Danesiah she could be charged with a third-degree felony. After investigating the incident, police discovered that the bill was real. Just very old and rare.

Fourteen years after the introduction of the Euro in cash, Germans are still holding onto their Deutschmarks (DM), mainly for the sentimental value attached to them. The DM, which was introduced in West Germany in 1948 under Allied rule and adopted in East Germany in 1990, was replaced by the Euro in 2002. On the 31st of December 2001, DM banknotes to the value of €76.57 billion were in circulation. Since then, “more than 95% of DM banknotes in circulation have been exchanged” for Euros, Dorit Feldbrügge from the Bundesbank (German Central Bank) told The Local. But that means that...

Rachael LevyJuly 1, 2016 "We are facing the largest macro imbalance in global history." That's according to Kyle Bass, founder of hedge fund Hayman Capital Management. Investors better prepare for a Chinese crisis that will mimic what happened in the US mortgage crisis, Bass said in a Friday interview with Real Vision Television. "When I look at what's happening now in China, the amplitude of what's happening is two, three, or four times what happened in the US," he said. Here are Bass' main points: •The Chinese are going to have to accept a devaluation of the yuan. • When...

China’s Foreign Ministry has pretty much had it with Donald Trump. Join the party. Speaking about his trade policies on Tuesday, the presumptive Republican candidate for the US presidency called China the “grand master” of currency devaluation and said if elected he would label Beijing a currency manipulator. Breaking with their strategy of not directly criticizing Trump, the Foreign Ministry responded on Wednesday by saying the yuan’s exchange rate was not the reason for unbalanced trade ties with the US and more to the point it said Trump’s trade policies are irrational. For much of his campaign, Trump has focused...

After a modestly stronger open, which saw sterling rebound to just under 1.35, the British currency has taken another sharp leg lower in recent trading tumbling another 3%, to a low of 1.3224 - taking out Friday's post-vote lows when the currency plunged over 8% - and dropping to fresh 31 year lows, as it remains under heavy selling pressure as of this moment.

WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. Steve King introduced an amendment in Congress that would have prevented Harriet Tubman, an abolitionist and supporter of women's suffrage, from replacing President Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill. However, the House Rules Committee agreed Tuesday night to deny floor consideration of proposal, which would have prevented the Treasury Department from spending money to redesign paper currency or coins. The Iowan Republican's amendment, which was first reported by the Huffington Post, would scrap the federal government's plans to replace Jackson on the $20 bill with a picture of Tubman, a black woman who was born...

Joyce Banda, Malawi's new president, has announced the presidential jet and fleet of 60 Mercedes limousines would be sold in a move applauded by a British cabinet minister as an example to other African leaders. Mrs Banda said she was happy to "offload" the presidential perks, adding: "I can well use private airlines. I am already used to hitchhiking." It means that the 62-year-old head of state – the second woman to hold the position in Africa – will fly to the Queen's Jubilee celebrations in London this weekend with British Airways. Andrew Mitchell, the UK International Development Secretary who...

Plastic banknotes set to be unveiled this week stick together when new meaning that shoppers could find themselves accidentally handing over more than one note at once, it has emerged. England's first polymer banknote, a new £5 featuring the image of Winston Churchill, will be formally revealed by the Bank of England on Thursday. But the Bank itself has warned that the notes might stick together when they are new, raising the prospect of users handing over more money than they intend.

Leading members of Congress are calling on President Barack Obama to fire one of his top advisers amid a deepening scandal over accusations the White House intentionally misled lawmakers and the American public about the contents of last summer’s comprehensive nuclear agreement with Iran, according to a letter sent Monday to Obama and obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. The lawmakers are pressing Obama to fire deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes following revelations he and other officials “spearheaded the charge to mislead elected lawmakers and the American people about the Iran nuclear deal and the negotiations that led to...

Donald Trump assailed the media on Monday for what he said was a misrepresentation of his comments on debt, rejecting the notion that he would have the United States default on his debt. "I said if we can buy back government debt as a discount. In other words, if interest rates go up and we can buy bonds back as a discount, if we are liquid enough as a country we should do that. In other words, we can buy back debt as a discount," the presumptive Republican nominee said in a telephone interview on CNN's "New Day." Those who...

Putting Harriet Tubman on the $20 concludes a long, concerted drive to reimage U.S. currency. More to the point, it illustrates a profound, probably permanent shift in American historiography. Tubman joins the historical pantheon of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Alexander Hamilton, and Ben Franklin. Going forward Lucretia Mott, Sojourner Truth, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Alice Paul, and Susan B. Anthony will decorate the back of the $10. The New York Times calls the changes the “most sweeping and historically symbolic makeover of American currency in a century.” OK, no problem, we say, and maybe a good thing. Tubman on the $20...

The European Central Bank announced Wednesday that it will phase out the 500 euro banknote because of concerns that this banknote "could facilitate illicit activities" ... Europe's top law enforcement officials maintain that the 500 euro banknote (worth about $576) makes it easy for criminals to launder money since it's so easy to move around undetected. In a report last year, Europol said cash was still the "instrument of choice" for terrorists and 500 euro notes were in high demand, though they're not popular for everyday transactions. ...

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- When you think of felony forgery your thoughts might turn to Al Capone or Bonnie and Clyde shooting it out with the Texas Rangers. Not for some local school cops. For one day, public enemy number one when it came to forgery was 13-year-old eighth grader Danesiah Neal at Fort Bend Independent School District's Christa McAuliffe Middle School. Now 14, Daneisha was hoping to eat that day's lunch of chicken tenders with her classmates using a $2 bill given to her by her grandmother when she was stopped by the long arm of the law. "I went...

The Democratic Party is poised to change the name of its annual fundraisers from The Jefferson and Jackson Day Dinners to the Harriet Tubman and the Artist Formerly Known as Prince Day Dinners, where crow will be served to atone for the sins of slavery and misogyny and celebrate the triumph of racial- and gender-identity politics over reality. Not really. But the $20 bill is about to get a pc makeover, with Harriet Tubman, an obscure figure in U.S. history (an escaped slave who aided the Underground Railroad), replacing the 7th president of the United States, a man who gave...

Before presidents were the standard, a variety of American figures could be found on our banknotes. Twenty dollar bills, soon to be updated. (Photo: selbstfotografiert/CC BY-SA-3.0)This week, the U.S. Treasury announced a number of changes to the banknotes’ designs, most prominently changing the face featured on the $20 bill from Andrew Jackson to Harriet Tubman. The makeover—the first change to the portraits featured on banknotes since 1928—incorporates numerous women and African-Americans from US history, such as Eleanor Roosevelt and Martin Luther King, Jr. While the currency overhaul seems novel to us, banknote portraiture has changed frequently enough that 53 individuals...

It’s not often that one can take issue with the argument that Barack Obama is needlessly dividing the country, but this might be the exception. The US Treasury has decided to honor Harriet Tubman, the woman who helped innumerable slaves escape to freedom, by putting her face on the $20 bill, replacing President Andrew Jackson. Right now, more people are concerned about finding their next $20 bill than are emotionally invested on whose face will be peering back at them when they get it. Greta van Susteren, however, argues that Obama and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew are dividing the country...