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French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has sought to soften her position on euro exit saying that she felt European but understands French concerns about their savings. Many French people were thinking that their savings could lose value once the country returned to the franc. During her interview on France's most watched television station TFI, Le Pen refused to say her stance on leaving euro. Her platform was to pull out the euros but some of her interviews contradicted it as she softened her views. On her campaign on Tuesday night, she avoided some of the incendiary attacks she made...

The Trump administration is hitting Canada with stiff tariffs of up to 24% on lumber shipped into the United States. These are the first tariffs imposed by President Trump, who during his election campaign threatened to use them on imports from both China and Mexico. The decision on Monday is bound to lead to a standoff and could stoke fears of a trade war between the US and Canada, two of the world's largest trade powers. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said the tariffs, or taxes, announced Monday evening were being imposed after trade talks on dairy products fell through. Trump's...

Are we sure that Trump’s going to end up having to fire Steve Bannon? Between this and the Syria bombing, the nationalists in the White House may just up and quit.If you think these broken promises are big news, wait until Trump comes out in favor of TPP. Mr. Trump said the reason he has changed his mind on one of his signature campaign promises is that China hasn’t been manipulating its currency for months and because taking the step now could jeopardize his talks with Beijing on confronting the threat of North Korea.“They’re not currency manipulators,” Mr. Trump said…Mr....

Confirming a reversal on tough China talk, President Donald Trump told The Wall Street Journal Wednesday that he will not label the Asian country a currency manipulator in a report due this week. "They're not currency manipulators," Trump said in the interview.

The odds of President Trump fulfilling his campaign promise to label China a currency manipulator within his first 100 days are quickly diminishing. One of Trump's top economic advisers, Stephen Schwarzman, chairman of the Blackstone Group, waived off the possibility that China would meet the necessary criteria to be designated a currency cheater. The Trump administration's first currency report is set to be released in mid-April and will outline whether major U.S. trading partners are gaming their currencies.

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Advocates of abolishing the $1 Federal Reserve note are at it again, this time hoping that President Donald Trump and conservative Republicans will finally side with their three-pronged approach to revamping the nation’s currency system. Under S. 759, introduced March 29 by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., the government would end production of the $1 Federal Reserve note, revise the composition of the 5-cent coin, and suspend production of 1-cent coins. While the draft legislation calls for an end to paper dollar notes and the cent, it is silent on dollar coin production. Backers of the legislation...

Just under $2 billion has been wiped off the value of bitcoin in under three days as a fight over the future of the technology underpinning the cryptocurrency wages on. Bitcoin was trading at around $1,142.60 at time of publication, giving it a market cap of $18.53 billion, according to CoinDesk data. This is down from highs of $1,255.32 on Tuesday, which valued the total bitcoin pile at $20.36 billion. Meanwhile, rival cryptocurrency ether is up over 84 percent from highs of $29.87 on Tuesday to trading at all-time highs of around $55 on Friday, according to Coinmarketcap.com. The market...

Exclusive: Trump calls Chinese 'grand champions' of currency manipulation By Steve Holland and David Lawder | WASHINGTON President Donald Trump declared China the "grand champions" of currency manipulation on Thursday, just hours after his new Treasury secretary pledged a more methodical approach to analyzing Beijing's foreign exchange practices. In an exclusive interview with Reuters, Trump said he has not "held back" in his assessment that China manipulates its yuan currency, despite not acting on a campaign promise to declare it a currency manipulator on his first day in office.

Folks, we have a consensus here. Formidable thinkers such as Paul Krugman, Larry Summers, and David Stockman, some 370 economists including 19 Nobel Laureates, and editors at the Economist, Fortune, and Barron’s all believe that Donald Trump as president is a menace to world trade and prosperity.President Trump has talked about 35 percent tariffs on foreign goods and an array of “border taxes,” such as the tariff with Mexico he proposed last week. He intends to name China a so-called “currency manipulator” on the basis of a mere bilateral trade gap. He’s denounced the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)...

BALTIMORE (WJZ) — After being robbed a handful of times in the past few months, one Baltimore coffee shop is no longer accepting cash to stop the robberies and keep their staff safe. Nowadays, many people don’t carry cash in their wallets day-to-day, and at Park Cafe in Bolton Hill, cash payments are no longer on the menu. “We’re not going to accept cash anymore,” said Park Cafe & Coffee owner David Hart. “I’m going to take that out of the equation.” Park Cafe was robbed five times from October to January. While the armed suspect is now behind bars,...

Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize-winning economist, thinks so. Phasing out currency and moving towards a digital economy would, over the long term, have “benefits that outweigh the cost,” the Columbia University professor said on day one of the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting in Davos… “I believe very strongly that countries like the United States could and should move to a digital currency,” he said, “so that you would have the ability to trace this kind of corruption. There are important issues of privacy, cyber-security, but it would certainly have big advantages.” https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/01/the-us-should-get-rid-of-cash-and-become-a-digital-economy-says-this-nobel-laureate-economist

The U.S. Mint has unveiled a commemorative $100 gold coin that features an image of Liberty as a black woman. The 2017 American Liberty 225th Anniversary Gold Coin shows the woman’s head in profile with a crown of stars. […] The mint says it’s the first in a series of 24-karat gold that will also depict Liberty in designs representing Asian-Americans, Hispanic-Americans and Indian-Americans. …

Vice President-elect Michael Pence is currently the most powerful single political influence on President-elect Trump. Among other things, he is in charge of the transition team. He will also be in charge, after the inauguration, with dealing with Congress. For leftists, hostile to gold, that is a problem. However, for those of us who believe that the only way to solve our long-term economic problems is by a return to honest money, it is a godsend. The editor of the New York Sun realized this quite a while ago. He wrote, back in July, about the wise choice of then-Governor...

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro suspended on Saturday the elimination of the country's largest denomination bill, which had sparked cash shortages and nationwide unrest, saying the measure would be postponed until early January. The surprise pulling of the 100 bolivar note from circulation this week - before new larger bills were available - led to vast lines at banks, looting at scores of shops, anti-government protests and at least one death. Maduro, speaking from the presidential palace, blamed a "sabotage" campaign by enemies abroad for the delayed arrival of three planes carrying the new 500, 2,000 and 20,000 bolivar notes.

CARACAS— Venezuelans are rushing to the banks this week in a desperate attempt to protect their savings from the government’s latest spasm of reckless financial policymaking. On Tuesday morning thousands of people across Venezuela played hooky from work to line-up outside banks and deposit bundles of cash into their savings accounts after the government gave everyone a 72-hour countdown to turn in all their 100 bolivar notes before they’re removed from circulation. “I’ve been saving for so long, withdrawing money every week and for what? Nothing!” complained José Orozco, who was holding a backpack full of money as he stood...

U.S. government officials say Treasury Secretary Jack Lew could release early images of redesigned $5, $10 and $20 bills in an effort to pressure the Trump Administration away from reversing their plans. . . . ...in the throes of the primary election, Trump called the move “pure political correctness” and suggested moving Tubman to a lower denomination like the $2 bill. “Andrew Jackson had a great history. I think it’s very rough when you take somebody off the bill,” Trump said last spring.

It’s not so easy to find someone who still uses a wallet in Venezuela, where inflation is expected to reach 720 percent this year and the biggest bill — 100 bolivars — is worth about 5 U.S. cents on the black market. The currency has dropped dramatically in value as Venezuela’s oil-based economy has cratered and the government has frantically printed more money. Prices, meanwhile, are soaring. So Venezuelans must handle huge volumes of cash — so much that the bills don’t always fit in a standard wallet — with many people packing wads of currency in handbags, money belts or backpacks.

A 10-day losing streak for the euro against the U.S. dollar is rekindling an old debate: Will the single currency reach parity with the dollar? In the last two weeks, the euro has fallen 4% against the dollar, hitting $1.06, a level last seen 12 months ago.

Amid scenes of panic across India, following PM Modi's shock decision to withdraw high-value bills in the middle of the sowing and wedding season, Reuters reports the move, aimed at cracking down on the shadow economy, has brought India's cash economy to a virtual standstill. With over 90% of all transactions done in cash, money flows in and out of the black-and-white system... until now, as Devangshu Datta exclaims, "The system works because everybody believes that those pieces of paper will be accepted by everybody else... This move has shaken that trust." Farmers have been left stranded as traders have...