Free Republic

Among many claimed benefits, cryptocurrencies supposedly offer two significant benefits over fiat currencies: 1) autonomy and 2) discretion. This past week, the U.S. federal government took them both down. The U.S. Department of Justice issued a press statement that it had seized $2.3 million in cryptocurrency. The seizure was the result of the FBI's Colonial Pipeline investigation. As a reminder, Colonial Pipeline, the U.S.'s largest pipeline for refined oil products, was the victim of a cyberattack. Against the U.S.'s wishes and policies, Colonial Pipeline paid millions in ransom to retake control of the pipeline. According to the FBI, they had...

With BofA predicting that the US is facing a period of “transitory hyperinflation“, one which could last as long as 4 years, as a result of soaring commodity prices in everything from metals to food and beyond, in what increasingly more warn is a stagflationary burst right out of the 1970s playbook…… it makes sense that home prices are also surging thanks to trillions in stimmy checks, near-record low mortgage rates and an exodus away from cities, and as we noted two last month that’s precisely what they are doing, with Redfin reporting an 18% jump in median home sale...

US Home Prices Just Accelerated At Their Fastest Pace On Record According to the Case-Shiller indices, home prices in America’s 20 largest cities have exploded at 14.88% YoY in April – the highest since Nov 2005…Phoenix, San Diego, Seattle reported highest year-over-year gains among 20 cities surveyed… All cities are seeing home prices appreciate at double digits (a little higher than The Fed’s 2% “goal”). But, on a national scale, it gets even worse. Case-Shiller’s National Home Price Index rose 14.59% YoY in April – that is the fastest pace of home price inflation on record (back to 1988) That...

New data from online real estate brokerage Redfin further illustrates how wild the Austin housing market has been in 2021. Redfin says more than 1,500 homes have sold for more than $100,000 above asking price since the beginning of 2021 in Austin, and 72 of them sold for more than $300,000 over the asking price. At this time last year, only 22 homes had winning bids over $100,000 over the asking price. The year-over-year gap is even wider for homes that sold in a range of $25,000-$99,999 over the asking price. Last year, from Jan. 1, 2020 to May 23,...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Quitting government service under fire for the second time, John M. Poindexter says he hopes Congress will save the less controversial parts of his much-criticized research project designed to predict terrorist attacks. The more controversial elements Poindexter's project - developing a futures market on Mideast developments and scanning public and private databases loaded with personal information about innocent Americans - drew a hail of criticism from privacy advocates and politicians in both parties. Poindexter said the project had been misrepresented and misunderstood. "I regret that we have not been able to ... reassure the public that we...

Oil and gas supplier Enterprise Products Partners on Monday sued CPS Energy, a Texas gas and power utility, alleging failure to pay nearly $100 million for natural gas delivered during the state’s February winter storm. The lawsuit is the latest to emerge from a severe cold snap that drove prices and demand for natural gas and electricity to hundreds of times their pre-storm levels. Houston gas prices https://bit.ly/3noiRVL hit $400 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) from about $4.50/mmBtu a week earlier. Enterprise is suing San Antonio municipal utility CPS Energy over payment disputes for sales during the freeze. The...

Didi Taihuttu and Family =========================================================== Didi Taihuttu, his wife, and three kids bet all they have on bitcoin. In 2017, CNBC spoke to the Dutch family of five when they were in the process of liquidating their assets — from a profitable business and 2,500-square-foot house, to their shoes — and trading it all in for the popular cryptocurrency and a life on the road. Nearly four years and 40 countries later, Taihuttu and his family still don’t have bank accounts, a house, or all that much by way of personal possessions. All of the family’s savings remain tied up...

Remember those great early-pandemic days last spring when bags of flour and yeast suddenly became precious items? Wasn’t that fun? Well, great news, everybody: we’re going to get to experience them all over again. As we’ve noted before, grocers are a little more prepared this time around and have been stocking “pandemic pallets” of food they can reorder quickly, but some things will still be hard to find. Mashed has thoughtfully prepared a list: Baking supplies. It’s now chilly enough to turn the oven on again, plus the spectre of holiday baking looms Canned soups. Both General Mills and Campbell’s...

KEY POINTS The Korean won weakened sharply on Tuesday against the dollar on unconfirmed reports that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is seriously ill. As of 0239 GMT Tuesday, the Korean won fell 1.54% to trade at 1,239.35 per dollar. The moves came after CNN reported Tuesday, citing an unnamed U.S. official with direct knowledge, that Washington is “monitoring intelligence” that Kim is in “grave danger after a surgery.”

A study from the Texas Association of Realtors shows international buyers pumped more than $11 billion dollars into the Texas economy between March of 2013 and 2014. One Austin Realtor says people from outside of the U.S. are looking for a secure investment. “An international client can come into the Austin market, get a great value for what they’re buying and almost be insured that there’s profitability in that and that’s unique to the world as a whole,” said J Kuper, owner of Kuper Sotheby’s International Realty.

An elderly widow who had fallen behind in her property taxes discovered she longer owned her home after trying to sell it to pay off her debt. Unbeknown to Hertha Handler, ownership of her $1.2 million Oyster Bay Cove home in Long Island has been transferred to an investor who bought two of the liens against the property. The 73-year-old widow had lived in the property for more than 40 years but after her husband died several years ago, she slipped behind on taxes and had an outstanding debt of $200,000. Multiple liens had been made against the property, where...

In mid-September, a CNN Money headline reassured investors: Our Long National Foreclosure Nightmare Is Over. Sounds great! Now we can finally relax and be glad that Henry Paulson, the Fed and the Big Bankers saved us from the apocalypse.Wait a second. Not so fast. Before you breathe a sigh of relief, why don't we take another good look at the real state of housing markets now. Let's examine some important charts, graphs and tables that the media does not cover. Inventory of Homes for Sale: What It Tells UsIn numerous articles over the last two years, I have emphasized the...

Home prices are rising at levels not seen since the real estate boom, but American homeownership remains on the decline. The two trends underscore the nature of the housing rebound: Gains in pricing have been driven significantly by investors, leaving many would-be buyers behind. Prices are rising because of strong demand, a lack of supply and a sharp recovery in the hardest-hit markets. The number of foreclosed homes coming to market has also dropped dramatically. But because lending standards remain tight, the everyday home shopper is often losing out to investors able to pay cash. "What we are seeing right...

Lately, speculators have come under attack by Barack Obama. The president blames them for raising prices on oil and gasoline, and he has proposed new restrictions on oil traders. But this is a wrong turn on the road to a healthy economy. Back in 1958, onion farmers were concerned that speculators were taking advantage of them. They were especially concerned about the extreme volatility of onion prices, which could often double in a short period of time and then drop to a level below the cost of production. Farmers aimed their ire at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the principal futures...

With regular gas prices topping $3.70 last weekend, angry politicians are blaming the higher prices on speculators and greedy oil companies. On Monday, The Hill newspaper reported that 23 senators and 45 congressmen, all Democrats except for one independent, called for urgent action against the "speculators" they hold responsible. Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania demanded, "Consumers shouldn't be forced to pay higher prices at the pump because of speculative bets on Wall Street." These politicians want the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to use its new regulatory powers under a law signed by President Obama two years ago to limit the...

Dem Sen. Casey calls on CFTC to act against oil speculatorsBy Vicki Needham - 03/04/12 06:25 PM ET Democratic Sen. Bob Casey (Pa.) is pressing the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to help ease rising gasoline prices. In a letter sent to CFTC Chairman Gary Gensler on Sunday, Casey called on the agency to complete a rule that would limit speculation in the oil market and is two years in the making. “Consumers shouldn’t be forced to pay higher prices at the pump because of speculative bets on Wall Street,” Casey said. “Nearly two years ago Congress gave the CFTC...

Three Senate Democrats angry about the high price of gasoline propose to raise taxes on the firms that produce it. No, it does not make any sense to us, either. For Democrats, expensive gas is just the price of scoring a moral victory over Big Oil, and American consumers will be expected to pay any price and bear any burden that Harry Reid & Co. inflict upon them. The “Close Big Oil Tax Loopholes Act” is a minotaur’s labyrinth of economic illiteracy, with Democratic senators Robert Menendez (N.J.), Sherrod Brown (Ohio), and Claire McCaskill (Mo.) lurking at the center of...

As the price of oil climbed over the past few months, a growing army of commentators and pundits grimly hinted about "speculators" who were manipulating the oil market and profiting from the misery of the American people. In the darkest depictions, these speculators were alleged to be aligned in a vast, global cabal bent on squeezing money out of the U.S. middle class by driving up the price of crude. These rumblings about speculators are hardly surprising: They echo the groundswell that emerged three years ago, the last time that gas prices exploded. For that matter, there's no doubt that...

As gasoline prices passed $4 per gallon in Connecticut, Sen. Richard Blumenthal and Rep. Joseph D. Courtney joined President Obama in denouncing "speculators" and urging investigation of manipulation in the oil market. There are a few problems with this. First is that such investigations have been undertaken before, including investigations by Blumenthal himself during his 20 years as Connecticut's attorney general, and they never found anything more than the OPEC oil producer cartel's public but uneven efforts to support the oil price. Anti-competitive as its activity is, OPEC's formation a half century ago was only a defensive response to the...

Why would President Obama want high gas prices? It's a matter of ideology for him. He thinks it's good for the environment for gas prices to be high. The higher gas prices are, the less you will drive. Also, higher gas prices make his beloved "alternative fuels" more competitive. That is because these alternative fuels are inherently more expensive, and so can't compete with cheaper gas. Note this is not a prescription for easing the financial burden on working people. High gas prices make it more likely you will buy expensive "alternative fuels." But either way, your wallet will still...