Category Archives: Economy
Big Bitcoin Bounce
It’s been a wild ride for bitcoin. According to Cointelegraph.com the crypto coin lost 40% of its value last week. It dropped from $20,078 to $11,833. But was it just a buying opportunity? Bitcoin bounced to $15,147 yesterday. Big Bitcoin Heists
Leonid Bershidsky writes in Bloomberg View that your money is safer in a bank.
And don’t forget your bitcoin pin.
Pelosi’s Own Tax Facts
President Trump won big on tax reform. And Nancy Pelosi became unhinged. Here’s some of what she had to say about the bill:
End of the world… Armagedon…Brazen theft from the middle class…Raises taxes on 86 million middle class…Moral Obscenity…Permanent Plutocracy…Unrepentant Greed…A Vote against Tiny Tim
Tax Facts
The fact is, according to Politco and others, eighty percent of filers will get a tax cut averaging $2,000. Yet, for some reason, most people believe they’ll get a tax hike.
But despite his Christmas cash stocking stuffer, Trump’s approval rating remains low. And some Republicans lurk among the resistance.
Brian Ross News
Brian Ross reported on ABC that Trump ordered Flynn to contact Russians before the election.
Apparently Wall Street investors believe what the see on on TV and the Dow plunged 350 points.
But ABC says Ross got it wrong and suspended him for four weeks.
Then within a week CNN one upped Ross.
This wasn’t Brian’s first rodeo.
Update 12/10/17: The cartoonist carelessly wrote NBC instead of ABC on Ross’s mic. He has been suspended.
Two Headed Bureaucratic Monster
Richard Cordray resigned as Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Friday because he wants to run as a Democrat for governor of Ohio.
On his way out the CFPB door, Cordray appointed his chief of staff, Leandra English, deputy director. That spot had been vacant for two years. But the Deputy Director can serve as acting director in the absence of the director, according to the Dodd Frank Act, so it must have seemed like a good time to fill the vacancy.
Trump, however, countered that move by appointing OMB chief Mick Mulvaney acting director. The Federal Vacancies Reform Act gives him the authority to do so.
Two Headed Bureaucratic Monster
On Monday morning both “acting directors” showed up for work. CFPB’s own general counsel opined that the Vacancies Act trumps Dodd Frank. So she sided with Trump.
Paul Manafort Swamp Creature
Special Counsel Robert Mueller busted Paul Manafort on Monday. The charges included money laundering, tax evasion and failure to register as a foreign agent.
But there was no mention of President Trump colluding with Russians to steal the election. Which Trump was quick to tweet. What he didn’t tweet is why he hired a swamp creature like Manafort to run his campaign in the first place.
Manafort served as Trump’s campaign manager in the summer of 2016.
Swamp Creature Comforts
Prior to that gig Manafort took in $75 million representing the pro-Russian party in Ukraine. Here’s what National Review’s Kevin Williamson has to say about the president’s swamp creature:
In 1980, he founded a lobbying firm with Roger Stone, one of the most disreputable figures in Washington — no minor distinction — a habitual liar who boasts of his dishonesty and whose entrée into politics was setting up Richard Nixon’s dirty-tricks operation.
Manafort has earned a fortune working as a lobbyist for corrupt foreign governments and thugs and kleptocrats ranging from Mobutu Sese Seko to Ferdinand Marcos.
In the indictment Manafort’s accused of stashing Ukranian money in offshore accounts and using it to buy real estate in the U.S. Then he took out loans on those properties to raise cash to fund his lavish lifestyle, without paying taxes.
The future Trump campaign manager also used some of that money to hire the Podesta Group to seek favors for his Ukranian client. Tony Podesta resigned from his firm the same day Manafort was indicted.
Tony’s brother, John Podesta, was Hillary’s campaign manager.
