Even with today’s 3% surge – the most in a month – on the heels of Unicredit’s CEO proclaiming that EU banks are “intensely” looking for funding solutions, European banking stocks have collapsed for a 4th straight week for the worst losses since 2012. Following the brief exuberance after Draghi unleashed his latest bazooka…
Category: Financial News & Analysis
Modern Crime: The “Panama Papers” Scandal Keeps Getting Stranger
The man behind a Panama ‘tax scam’ that guards the clandestine wealth of the global elite is the son of a Nazi SS officer from a unit known as the ‘Death’s Head division’. Jürgen Mossack is at the heart of the biggest financial data leak in history, and has allegedly been helping world leaders, politicians…
Financial News and Modern Crime: Why You Should Care About the “Panama Papers” Leak
The Panama Papers—11.5 million leaked documents that detail the inner workings of Mossack Fonseca, a law firm accused of helping drug lords, sports stars, Ponzi schemers, kings, presidents, prime ministers, FIFA officials, mafia members, high-profile thieves, high-ranking politicians, and at least one convicted sex offender launder money, evade taxes, and escape criminal prosecution—are a big…
Espionage Files and Modern Crime: The Security Implications of the Panama Papers
For those of you that have not heard about the largest leak of Secret Documents in History, Here is some background from BBC and Business Insider. -SF Aside from their immediate shock value, the Panama Papers reveal the enormous extent of tax evasion on a worldwide scale. This unprecedented phenomenon is inextricably tied with…
Time for a Remedial History Lesson for Political Candidates
Although I am all about National Security, “Make America Great” needs to start and end with this issue, which if I am not mistaken, has not been mentioned once on the campaign trail. Come to think of it, I have not heard very much about America’s dire fiscal debt situation by any of the candidates,…
STRATFOR Founder Warns: “Be Ready for War”
Interstate warfare is a thankfully unusual occurrence in the present day. State-assisted nonstate groups frequently fight governments, a scenario currently unfolding in Syria, Eastern Ukraine, and a host of other places. But you’d have to go back to the US-led invasion of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in 2003, or the Eritrea-Ethiopia conflict of the late 1990s for an example…
Brush-Up On Your History: Churchill was a Terrible Debtor and a Huge Party Monster
Despite Winston Churchill’s popular image, Britain’s most celebrated statesman spent much of his seemingly extravagant life on the edge of a financial cliff, according to retired banker and Oxford history scholar David Lough. In Lough’s “No More Champagne: Churchill and His Money,” he outlines how Churchill flirted with severe debt while projecting an image of wealth, with his…
Surprise! Last Years IRS Hack was Way Worse Than They Let On
WHEN THE IRS first reported a hack that exposed taxpayer accounts’ vulnerable information, it pegged the number of affected people at a little over 100,000. Today, in its second upward revision, the number of affected people now stands at over 700,000. The Hack As WIRED originally reported last spring, the hack gave attackers access to…
Cyber-Crime: JP Morgan Invents Algorithm to “Sniff Out” Rogue Traders
I swear every day we get closer to the movie “Minority Report” being a reality..the “authorities” knowing you are guilty of a crime before you commit it! Combine this with the current fight with Apple and the FBI you start to see the big SCARY picture. -SF Wall Street traders are already threatened by…