Department of Justice

Yesterday the US Senate held hearings on "virtual currencies" (meaning Bitcoin).  Meanwhile the "virtual currency" ran up above $800/USD and it was reported it got above $900.  It pulled back but as of now, is hovering above $700.

• J.P. Morgan, U.S. Reach Historic Settlement (WSJ)
• OECD cuts global growth forecast (AP)
• Guess the profit margin: Wal-Mart Touts $98 TV as Holiday Seen Weakest Since 2009 (BBG)
• Republicans defy threat, block another Obama judicial pick (Reuters)
• Fed Ponders How to Temper Tapering Without Rate Increase (BBG)
• Wall Street uses 'merchant' workaround to cling to commodity assets (Reuters)
• PBOC to ‘Basically’ End Normal Yuan Intervention, Zhou Says (BBG)
• Italy’s leader warns Germany of rise of anti-European sentiment (FT)
• Yellen Nomination for Fed Chairman to Get Vote This Week (BBG)
• As U.S. default threatened, banks took extraordinary steps (Reuters)
• NSA vowed repeatedly to fix its collection errors (AP)

"Beyond Silk Road: Potential Risks, Threats, and Promises of Virtual Currencies" is the title of today's Senate hearing (from Homeland Security) on th eperils of Bitcoin. We are sure the exaggeration and exasperation will run high as Government offers up its Financial Crimes (and missing and exploited children) directors, and the de-centralized unregulated crypto-currency faces them down...

While the relentless multiple expansion (if not so much earnings growth and certainly not revenue contraction) looks set to push all three main stock indices over the key psychological levels of 16000, 1800 and 4000, with the all time bubble high on the Nasdaq increasingly looking like the next big target, the stock market mania has nothing on Bitcoin, which only yesterday crossed $500 for the first time ever, and as of this morning is already 20% higher, having just crossed $600 minutes ago. Which means that anything prices in Bitcoin has entered bear market in just the past day. How high BTC goes, is nobody's guess (Raoul Pal had a truly stunning price target): once the buying frenzy kicks in, step aside, especially since China is increasingly looking like it may be jumping on board the latest mania.

The Forex market is the largest in the world and the least understood.  Since the late 90's, traders and asset managers have flocked to it as an alternative to trade, compared to other common markets (Stocks, Bonds, Futures).  

Five years have passed since the onset of what is sometimes called the Great Recession. While the economy has slowly improved, there are still millions of Americans  leading lives of quiet desperation: without jobs, without resources, without hope. Who was to blame?

"The government, writ large, had a hand in creating the conditions that encouraged the approval of dubious mortgages. It was the government, in the form of Congress, that repealed Glass-Steagall, thus allowing certain banks that had previously viewed mortgages as a source of interest income to become instead deeply involved in securitizing pools of mortgages in order to obtain the much greater profits available from trading. It was the government, in the form of both the executive and the legislature, that encouraged deregulation..."

- Judge Jed Rakoff

Following the DoJ's 'surprising' August decision to block the $11bn merger of American and US Airways (after approving other airline mergers in the recent past), it would appear the parties have reached a settlement:

*U.S. FILES PROPOSED SETTLEMENT IN AMR CASE IN FEDERAL COURT
*DOJ REQUIRES US AIRWAYS, AMERICAN AIRLINES TO DIVEST FACILITIES
*AIRPORT SLOTS TO BE SOLD UNDER PROCESS APPROVED BY U.S.
*AMR SEES COMBINED CO OPERATING 12 FEWER DAILY DEPARTURES AT LGA
*AMR SEES COMBINED CO OPERATING 44 FEWER DAILY DEPARTURES AT DCA

Some of the initial details (Full statement below) include divesting slots at Laguardia and Reagan National. AMR is trading up over 25%...

The chief of the Federal Aviation Administration predicted Thursday that U.S. airspace could be crowded with as many as 7,500 commercial drones within the next five years. As The Washington Times reports, Michael Huerta said his agency would set up six sites across the country to test drone operators and, in an effort to balance privacy/safety with anarchic airspace drone pollution, he added, "we must fulfill those obligations in a thoughtful, careful manner that ensures safety and promotes economic growth, " as dangerous incidents involving drones have already taken place... Although they are expected to be used for peaceful purposes such as firefighting and weather tracking - it's causing a lot of concern, as Huerta warns "we need to be responsive to public concerns about privacy."

America has become a gigantic gulag over the past few decades and most of its citizens don’t know, or just don’t care. One of the primary causes of the over incarceration in the U.S. is the absurd, tragic failure that is the “war on drugs”, and indeed nearly half of the folks in prison are there for drug related offenses. Making matters worse is a rapidly growing private prison system, which adds a profit motive to the equation. Recently, we wrote an extensive rant against the private prison system and provided details on how it works in:  A Deep Look into the Shady World of the Private Prison Industry. Now here are some of the sad facts...

The “authorities” can shut down website after website, but the tide of new technology and the human spirit itself cannot and will not be overcome. This is the hard lesson that statists and collectivists will be learning the hard way in the years to come, as decentralization and freedom stage a gigantic, peaceful revolution. A revolution that is already in full swing and gaining tremendous momentum with each passing day.

It took only a little over a month for Silk Road 2.0 to launch on the “dark web,” and there are already close to 500 illegal drug listings.

While we are sure many will proclamin 'this is just a witch-hunt' - and all the hangers-on will be defending Stevie's decision... the fact is that:

• *SAC AGREES TO PLEAD GUILTY TO END U.S. INSIDER-TRADING CASE
• *SAC WILL PLEAD GUILTY TO EVERY COUNT IN INDICTMENT, U.S. SAYS
• *U.S. SAYS SAC AGREEMENT PROVIDES `NO IMMUNITY' FOR  INDIVIDUALS

Seems pretty cut-and-dried to us... As part of the deal, Reuters notes that SAC will terminate its investment advisory business.

It’s Only Tyrannical When OTHERS Do It

Proof that NSA Spying Is Not Very Focused On Terrorism

"We now rely on social structures that barely existed 150 years ago. The order and functioning of modern societies, economies and militaries depend upon tight coordination of logistics and operations. Disrupt the synchronization, and the whole system of systems becomes unreliable—thus diminishing the nation’s power and influence."

"The century-old dream and nightmare of crippling a modern society by wrecking its infrastructure—or just by disturbing its synchronization of functions—is now a reality others are dreaming of employing against the United States"

"The NSA and USCYBERCOM operate under multiple layers of institutional oversight that reinforce our commitment to privacy and civil liberties."

"Far from imperiling civil liberties and privacy, the tight links between the NSA and our growing cybercapabilities help to ensure professional, sober and accountable consideration of potential impacts from our operations."

"Building that extended cyberenterprise now is indispensable to our ability to deter and defeat enemies in cyberspace so that they do not threaten our security, prosperity and way of life."

It's Friday afternoon, do you know where your fortress-balance-sheet bank's massive settlement deal with the government is...

• *JPMORGAN TO PAY $5.1 BILLION OVER FHFA MORTGAGE CLAIMS
• *FHFA SAYS JPM TO PAY ABOUT $2.74B TO FREDDIE, $1.26B TO FANNIE
• *JPMORGAN PAYS $1.1B TO RESOLVE REPRESENTATION, WARRANTY CLAIMS
• *FHFA SAYS IT'S SETTLED FOUR OF THE 18 PLS SUITS IT FILED IN '11

$4 billion of this appears to be part of the $13 billion settlement 'agreed' last week; but still leaves the criminal cases from what we can tell... Full statement below...