It made the news for a few days and then was buried. The Billionaire Club pays next to nothing in taxes… and gets away with it… while the government cracks down hard on low income wage earners. Indeed, Plantation workers in Slavelandia USA who earn less than $25,000 annually, have an audit rate that is...
Tag: jun 15 2021
BLACKROCK APPROVED TO SELL MUTUAL FUNDS IN CHINA
Chinese regulators have approved Blackrock’s application to sell mutual funds in the country through its Blackrock Fund Management Co., a wholly-owned, Shanghai-based subsidiary. Blackrock, the world’s largest asset manager with about $9 trillion in its portfolio, has six months to begin offering funds made up of Chinese stocks, the Wall Street Journal reported. Last month,...
UPDATE: EL SALVADOR RECOGNIZES BITCOIN AS CASH
El Salvador’s legislature has rubber-stamped president Nayib Bukele’s proposal that the country recognize Bitcoin as legal tender. We reported Bukele’s proposal last week (“El Salvador Moves to Make Bitcoin Legal Tender”, Trends Journal, 8 June 2021 ). The law authorizes Bitcoin to be used to pay taxes and buy goods and services. The cryptocurrency is...
DEMAND SPIKES FOR CONTAINER SHIPS
Through 2020, shipping companies were selling their older boats for scrap as global demand for non-essential goods crashed. Now, with a global recovery accelerating, orders for 208 container ships with a total value of $1.3 billion have been placed this year, compared to 120 worth $8.8 billion last year and 114 valued at $6.9 billion...
“DEFI” SOFTWARE CUTS OUT CRYPTO MIDDLEMEN
Decentralized finance, or “defi,” software is streamlining cryptocurrency transactions by allowing buyers, sellers, and traders to deal directly with each other instead of working through a broker, exchange, or other mediator. In the past 12 months, defi programs have facilitated about $67 billion worth of crypto transactions, according to data from industry-watcher DeFi Pulse. Uniswap,...
CHINA CRACKS DOWN ON CRYPTO
Chinese law enforcement agencies swept through 23 cities, provinces, and regions last week, busting 170 criminal groups and arresting at least 1,100 people alleged to have used cryptocurrencies to launder profits from telephone and Internet scams. The groups routinely shifted their take from one digital currency to another in attempts to hide their trails, authorities...
INFLATION HITS CHINA’S FACTORIES IN MAY HARDER THAN EXPECTED
Last month, China’s producer price index (PPI) jumped 9 percent from a year earlier, marking its fastest pace since September 2008, when producer prices leaped 9.1 percent. The hike was significantly greater than April’s 6.8-percent year-on-year rise and edged past the 8.6 percent predicted by economists the Wall Street Journal had surveyed. The sharp rise...
REGULATORS URGE TIGHTEST RULES FOR CRYPTO
Cryptocurrencies should be subject to the most stringent bank capital rules of any asset, a committee of the world’s bank regulators has said. Capital requirements for holding crypto should be significantly higher than those for holding stocks or bonds, the 45-member Basel Committee on Banking Supervision has urged in a report released 10 June. The...
RUSSIA RAISES INTEREST RATE TO TAMP DOWN INFLATION
Russia’s central bank has raised its benchmark interest rate from 5.0 percent to 5.5 in an attempt to cool inflation, which is now running at its fastest pace there in almost five years. The bank had considered a 1-percent hike before settling on 0.5 percent, bank president Elvira Nabiullina said in a public statement announcing...