According to a known and reliable eyewitness numerous people have been spotted leaving the BitPay office in tears. This suggests rumors of further rounds of layoffs at BitPay. The witness further suggest that the marketing department was hit hard as many people's phone lines at BitPay no longer work. BitPay's struggles over the last year suggest high burn rate is a severe danger to companies starting up in the Bitcoin space.
India Imposes and US Considers Tariffs on Hot Rolled Steel
Last week India imposed a 20% tariff on a number of hot rolled steel products to "safeguard" domestic production. According to the Business Standard this has lead domestic producers to drop their customarily negotiated discounts and begin charging customers according to their actual published price sheets (archived). Earlier this month the United States began an investigation (archived) into hot rolled steel products of their own and have just announced that based on early findings they intend to continue the investigation (archived) as imports appear to impose "harm" on US producers in their determination through low prices. The US can be expected to follow India in introducing protectionist tariffs on hot rolled steel soon. As a larger tend expect bureaucracy heavy states struggling to support domestic industry such as the United States and India to begin ramping up their imposition of protectionist tariffs in an effort to keep the remains of their domestic production capacity from being gutted.
FDA Regulatory Overreach Allows Price Gouging
Recently news has been circulating that condemns Turing Pharmaceuticals for price gouging United States consumers of pyrimethamine1 an antimalarial which sells for under ten cents per dose in markets other than the United States where generic forms are available. Pyrimethamine is very popular in areas of the world where malaria is endemic due to its efficacy against most strains of the falciparum and vivax species of the Plasmodium malaria parasite, but in the United States it is typically used to treat toxoplasmosis in immunocompromised patients making it a niche treatment. Turing Pharmaceuticals managed to get a contract to exclusively market pyrimethamine in the United States thanks to FDA regulations. Because the FDA allows them exclusive marketing rights they can set prices arbitrarily, and if they can they must. Continue reading
trade name Daparim, released in 1953 ↩
Have Nude Pics of Yourself, go to Jail
In what is merely the most recent criminalization insanity to manifest in embarrassment of the US, two teenagers in Fayetteville, North Carolina have recently been charged with felonies for sexually exploiting themselves by having nude pictures of their own persons on their own phones. The male, 17, has been charged with exploitation of a minor and was prosecuted as an adult for his "selfies". He subsequently agreed to subject himself to a year of warrantless searches, which somehow has been found by the courts circus to not constitute self-exploitation. His girlfriend, 16, took a plea bargain, which entailed a $200 fine, 30 hours of community service, the inability to use a cell phone for one year, mandatory attendance at a "class in making good decisions", and an "order to stay in school and refrain from using drugs and alcohol". Following his girlfriend's state-mandated metamorphosis from a normal, sexually curious teenager to the passive victim of local mores well out of touch with reality, the male involved in the case accepted a "similar" plea bargain. Continue reading
Pirateat40 Pleads Guilty To Securities Fraud
Despite entering a plea of not guilty earlier this year, Trendon Shavers AKA pirateat40 has plead guilty to one charge of securities fraud related to the operation of a ponzi scheme, better known as the Bitcoin Savings and Trust. As reported by Reuters (archive), Shavers has agreed not to appeal any sentence at or below 41 months in duration and will face sentencing early next year on February 3rd.
Bet Over Ethereum's Survival Rockets Past 100 BTC in Wagers
A six day old Bet on whether Ethereum rides into 2016 as a continuing economically viable thing has managed to so far draw more than 129 Bitcoin in wagers. The criteria assigned for Ethereum to fail include the value of Ethereum tokens falling under 0.001 BTC per Ethereum token during December 2015 or if the volume of Ethereum tokens traded during the month of December 2015 being less than 100 Bitcoin in value. At the present 23 Bitcoin have been staked on Ethereum's failure while 106.11 Bitcoin are staked on Ethereum surviving December. According the the wager on BitBet price information is to be taken from Poloniex. As of this writing Ethereum is trading for around 0.004 Bitcoin per token with an all time low price of 0.00243990 Bitcoin per token on August 10th shortly after Ethereum's release. Continue reading
Apple App Store Suffers Sustained Attack, Spreads Malware to Customers
There are numerous reports that Apple's App store has been used to spread malware to customers forcing Apple to purge numerous Apps from the store (archived). The attack involved a social engineering vector where developers were convinced to use versions of Apple's Xcode IDE which had been implanted to spread malware in Apps produced with the implanted development software. This incident highlights serious risks posed by relying on gatekeepers to police malware in the way consumers have come to expect.
Trump Campaign Payment Processor Fleeces Donors
MWTW in Portland, Maine alleges a third party payment processor used by Donald Trump's presidential campaign is repeating donation charges and in at least one case was reported to have charged a man who entered payment information but decided not to purchase anything from the campaign's online store (archived). In all 13 charges were attempted of which 6 ended up successfully debiting a balance from the man's bank account. The station is referring to the charges as unauthorized while the payment processor blames a 'glitch' in their system. Continue reading
US Increases Fee to Relinquish Citizenship and Residency
The United States State Department has increased the processing fee for relinquishing United States Citizenship or Permanent Residence through means other than explicit renunciation to 2350 United States dollars from 450 United States dollars (archived). The change brings the fee in line with that for having the State Department acknowledge an explicit renunciation of citizenship even though a number of the acts leading to the relinquishment of citizenship create a loss of United States nationality even without a Certificate acknowledging the loss of nationality from the State Department. A few acts that until recently allowed one to certify their loss of United States nationality at a discount include: Continue reading
Ferguson Government's Creditworthiness Reclassified as 'Junk'
Ferguson, Missouri the site of numerous clashes over the past year between rebels and Government forces has had their creditworthiness as evaluated by Moody's reduced seven levels from Aa3 to Ba1 "junk" status (archived). Moody's cites a rapid deterioration in Ferguson's financial health following the beginning of the rebellion, and if Ferguson's government continues to conceal information about how their efforts to stabilize the situation have adversely affect their finances Moody's has threatened to withdraw their rating of Ferguson completely. Ferguson government leader James Knowles considers Moody's action "unfair" and that the embattled government is financially healthy enough to not require further debt issuances at this time. Moody's is predicting Ferguson's government could be insolvent by 2017.