Free Republic

Inflation has been taking its toll on retirees, especially those who rely solely on Social Security. But have no fear, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and seven Democratic cosponsors recently introduced S. 4365, the Social Security Expansion Act, a bill to enhance Social Security benefits and ensure the long-term solvency of the Social Security program. If this bill passes, retirees 62 and over would start to receive an additional $200 a month in benefits beginning in January 2023. Most retirees rely heavily on Social Security benefits, and for some it’s their only source of income. Currently, Americans will stop receiving their...

Wipe out! Crypto markets have slumped, adding to a decline that has wiped away some $2 trillion of market value and left market participants uneasy heading into the long Fourth of July weekend. Bitcoin has fallen below $20,000 as the US Dollar strengthens. At least Dogecoin is up today. Enjoy your expensive 4th of July weekend! As long as you don’t eat much due to expensive food prices or drive anywhere due to high gasoline prices. At least the Biden Administration is doing what The New World Order is making them do. Or The Liberal World Order. Biden looks like...

Despite supposedly being a form of crypto, OneCoin didn’t actually have a payment system or a blockchain model, the crucial technology that underpins cryptocurrencies — thus rendering OneCoin’s tokens essentially worthless. Ignatova and the company’s founders are accused of knowing as much. (In a statement to the BBC in 2019, OneCoin denied any wrongdoing.) OneCoin relied on its users to bring in more participants by offering a slew of rewards, commissions and “trading packages” at different price points, according to federal investigators. In the end, the network of investors spanned over a hundred countries. More than 3 million people are...

President Biden told union workers at the AFL-CIO convention in Philadelphia, that Republicans want to get rid of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid based on a proposal by National Republican Senatorial Conference Chairman Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), which calls for all federal legislation to sunset in five years. “All federal legislation sunsets in 5 years. If a law is worth keeping, Congress can pass it again,” Scott’s proposal states. […] Biden attributed Scott’s proposal to the Republican Party despite Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-S.C.) saying months ago that such a proposal will not be part of the Republican agenda....

A week ago we learned that the go-broke date for Social Security had been pushed back by a whole year:The annual Social Security and Medicare trustees report released Thursday says Social Security’s trust fund will be unable to pay full benefits beginning in 2035, instead of last year’s estimate of 2034. The year before that it estimated an exhaustion date of 2035.The projected depletion date for Medicare’s trust fund for inpatient hospital care moved back two years to 2028 from last year’s forecast of 2026…When the Social Security trust fund is depleted the government will be able to pay 80%...

Green energy executive Robert A. Karmann, who was the chief financial officer for a now non-existent company, was sentenced to six years in prison on Tuesday for his role in a Ponzi scheme encompassing billions of dollars. Karmann was also ordered to pay $624 million in restitution for his involvement in fraudulent acts related to the DC Solar company, which made mobile solar generator units. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of California, investors were given “generous federal tax credits” for purchasing the units. The investors were also falsely told that there would be consistent revenue...

Millions of seniors today rely on Social Security as a critical source of retirement income. And chances are, many future retirees will depend heavily on those benefits as well. But Social Security is facing its share of financial challenges that could have devastating consequences for current and future retirees alike. And if lawmakers don't intervene, the results could be downright catastrophic. There's a serious revenue shortfall at play Social Security primarily relies on payroll taxes (the ones we all hate paying) to stay afloat. But in the coming years, that income stream is expected to shrink. That's because baby boomers...

Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes has been found guilty on 4 counts of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud after 7 days of jury deliberation. Jurors found her not guilty on four other counts and failed to reach a verdict on three others. Her trial spanned more than four months and featured bombshell testimony from investors, ex-employees, and Holmes herself.

(CNN)The federal government announced a large hike in Medicare premiums Friday night, blaming the pandemic but also what it called uncertainty over how much it may have to be forced to pay for a pricey and controversial new Alzheimer's drug. The 14.5% increase in Part B premiums will take monthly payments for those in the lowest income bracket from $148.50 a month this year to $170.10 in 2022. Medicare Part B covers physician services, outpatient hospital services, certain home health services, medical equipment, and certain other medical and health services not covered by Medicare Part A, including medications given in...

Although Social Security has been around for a long time, the program continues to evolve. And one positive change that has the potential to arise in the near term is a generous cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA. COLAs are the annual raises seniors on Social Security are entitled to. They're not guaranteed, and there have been years when seniors have gotten no boost to their benefits at all. A nice windfall could be on the way In recent years, Social Security's COLAs haven't been much to write home about. In 2021, seniors saw their benefits increase by 1.3%. In 2020, they...

According to the latest just released report on the State of the Crypto Market from Gemini, 2020 which polled 3,000 U.S. adults, ages 18 to 65 with $40,000 or more in household income (survey respondents were polled from October 19-November 16, 2020, and included 921 self-identifying current cryptocurrency owners and 1,697 consumers who were interested in learning more about cryptocurrency), the exchange estimates that roughly 14% of the U.S. population owns cryptocurrency. This translates to 21.2 million U.S. adults who own cryptocurrency, and other studies estimate this number to be even higher. This number is expected to double in 2021.Gemini...

Over the last week, the altcoin market has added over $500 billion taking the overall crypto market cap to above $2.5 trillion. Ethereum (ETH), Binance Coin (BNB) and Dogecoin (DOGE) have been the top performers in the crypto market while Bitcoin (BTC) has been consolidating for a long time time. As altcoins continue to extend their market dominance, Wall Street investors are worried over Bitcoin’s falling market dominance. From over 70% at the beginning of 2021, the BTC dominance has now dropped to under 44%. Strategists at JPMorgan Chase & Co and DataTrek Research LLC calling it a warning sign...

Thodex, a crypto platform based in Turkey, said its platform has been “temporarily closed” to address an “abnormal fluctuation in the company accounts.” Local media reports say that Faruk Fatih Ozer, Thodex’s founder, has flown to Albania, taking $2 billion of investors’ funds with him. According to the state-run Anadolu Agency, Turkish authorities have now issued an international warrant seeking Ozer’s arrest. ...In 2019, Canadian crypto exchange QuadrigaCX went bankrupt after its CEO died, resulting in millions of dollars’ worth of digital assets being trapped in a digital wallet.

We all have a crypto-friend who sounds like this guy. Gold back in 698BC was no different.

Bernie Madoff, whose $65 billion Ponzi scheme made him one of the world’s most hated criminals and destroyed even his own family, died Wednesday at the secure federal medical center in Butner, North Carolina, where he was serving a 150-year prison sentence, according to prison officials. The Associated Press reported the 82-year-old scam king, who had been suffering from end-stage kidney disease and other chronic ailments, died of natural causes. Madoff would have turned 83 on April 29. His epic stock fraud, which came to light amid the global financial crisis of the late 2000s and remains the biggest in...

In today’s cruise ship and travel news we hear about the Giant Ponzi Scheme going on with some of the cruise lines and customers that want a refund and can’t get one after months of trying. Jim Walker a Marine Lawyer based in the Miami area has called out the cruise lines for their poor handling of this multi million dollar issue.

NEW YORK—The founder of a New York money manager and two associates were criminally charged on Thursday with running a $1.8 billion Ponzi-like fraud where thousands of victims were falsely promised steady returns on their investments. David Gentile, the chief executive of GPB Capital Holdings LLC, was accused of cheating more than 17,000 retail investors taken in by promises of consistent 8 percent annual returns even as the firm was hemorrhaging losses. Authorities said GPB told investors their payments would be funded by revenue from the firm’s holdings, including a group of car dealerships, when in fact a “significant” portion...

A Chinese cryptocurrency trading platform recently collapsed, prompting speculation that the site was running a scam.On Oct. 15, the platform, Aishang, saw the cryptocurrency traded on its site named Tether plummet from 0.268U (USDT, equivalent to $0.28) to 0.05U within 3 minutes of opening.Aishang is one of three Chinese crypto exchanges that crashed around the same time, according to local media.An investor named Liu Qing (alias) told the Chinese-language edition of The Epoch Times that Aishang was a Ponzi scheme. He said that if this was a normal trading site, the low costs to enter the new market would cause...

Ghislaine Maxwell may be the last person alive who knows the answers to one of the decade’s great mysteries: how did Jeffrey Epstein amass his fortune and where is it now? For one of the theories is that Maxwell’s father Robert bankrolled him. When Epstein died a year ago, his visible assets added up to an extraordinary £467 million. But that was ‘only the tip of the iceberg’, according to the head of a multi-billion-dollar hedge fund who I first met at Epstein’s mansion in New York. The question this financier could not answer was how Epstein, who he had...

Defendant Allegedly Promised Falsely High Rates of Return for Investments in Wholesale Jewelry Purchases An indictment was unsealed today in federal court in Brooklyn charging Gregory Altieri, the president of LNA Associates, with one count of wire fraud for allegedly running a two-year, $200 million Ponzi scheme based on nonexistent wholesale jewelry deals and false promises of inflated returns.  Altieri was arrested today and will be arraigned this morning via video conference before United States Magistrate Judge James Orenstein.Seth D. DuCharme, Acting United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, and William F. Sweeney, Jr., Assistant Director-in-Charge,...