Nov 21

Today’s News 21st November 2017

  • Zimbabwe Military Says Mugabe Impeachment Process Has Begun

    Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe baffled his country and the world last night when, instead of publicly announcing his resignation, he reaffirmed his intention to stay on as the head of state in Zimbabwe, and admonished members of his ruling ZANU PF party for their “arbitrary decision making” and “victimization.”

    Mugabe’s defiance immediately spurred conspiracy theories, including one where military commanders who flanked Mugabe during his speech smuggled him an alternate version following the review of his initial draft.

     

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    Rumors circulated that some ZANU PF lawmakers had fled the country to avoid participating in an impeachment vote, though they were later debunked, according to local media reports. Still, the military’s deadline for Mugabe’s resignation – initially set at noon local time on Monday – has come and gone, and Mugabe remains the nominal leader of Zimbabwe, even if he’s still under house arrest, according to BBC.

    However, ZANU PF appears to be reaching the end of its patience with its long-time leader. In a media briefing, party member Paul Mangawana said Zimbabwe’s lawmakers will move to formally impeach Mugabe tomorrow, and that he could be formally removed from office as soon as Wednesday.

    Discussions about the impeachment proceedings began Monday, Reuters added.

    Reuters added that impeachment would represent an ignominious end to the career of the “Grand Old Man” of African politics, who was once lauded across the continent as an anti-colonial hero. Chief whip Lovemore Matuke told Reuters ZANU-PF members of parliament would meet at 1230 GMT to start mapping out Mugabe’s impeachment.

    In the draft motion, the party accused Mugabe of being a “source of instability”, flouting the rule of law and presiding over an “unprecedented economic tailspin” in the last 15 years.

    It also said he had abrogated his constitutional mandate by trying to position his unpopular wife, Grace, as his successor.

    While the process of impeaching Mugabe looks complex on paper and involves a joint sitting of the Senate and National Assembly, then a nine-member committee of senators, then another joint sitting to confirm his dismissal with a two-thirds majority. However, constitutional experts said ZANU-PF had the numbers and could push it through in as little as 24 hours.

    “They can fast-track it. It can be done in a matter of a day,” said John Makamure, executive director of the Southern African Parliamentary Support Trust, an NGO that works with the parliament in Harare.

    A statement released Monday evening (local time) by Gen Chiwanga reaffirmed the military’s commitment to ensuring a peaceful transition of power.

     

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    One Zimbabwe lawmaker said there will be another caucus meeting for ZANU PF members beginning at 10 am local time Tuesday. It also noted that the President has called for a cabinet meeting. The MDCT, another party, will also be in caucus, while the president meets with his cabinet.

     

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    However, ZANU PF's chief whip said that if Mugabe calls a cabinet meeting, no ministers will attend.

     

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    Despite the political upheaval – and the marches that occurred over the weekend – local media reported that people were going on with their lives, on their way to work, children were in class, vendors were on the streets and taxis were meandering through the streets of Harare.

    However, while the demonstrations were peaceful, tanks were strategically positioned at Mugabe's office and other key government institutions, a clear indication that the standoff is far from over.
     

  • Is A Saudi-Israeli Friendship Driving The Rest Of The Middle East Together?

    Authored by Federico Pieraccini via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    Through its top official, Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MBS), Saudi Arabia continues a wave of internal arrests, having seized nearly $800 billion in assets and bank accounts. A few days later, MBS attempted to demonstrate his authority by summoning Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri to Saudi Arabia, where he was forced to resign on Saudi state TV. Trump tweeted support for Bin Salman's accusations against Iran and Hezbollah, and the future Saudi king even obtained Israel's secret support. Iran, meanwhile, denies any involvement in Lebanon's domestic affairs or involvement with the ballistic missile launched by Houthi rebels towards Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport a few days ago. Meanwhile, Trump, Putin and Xi met recently and seem to have decided the fate of the region in an exercise of realism and pragmatism.

    News that upends the course of events has now become commonplace over the last few months. However, even by Middle East standards, this story is something new. The affair surrounding Lebanon’s Prime Minister Hariri generated quite a bit of commotion. Hariri had apparently been obliged to announce his resignation on Saudi Arabia's Al Arabiya news channel while being detained in Riyadh. His most recent interview seemed to betray some nervousness and fatigue, as one would expect from a person under enormous stress from forced imprisonment. In his televised resignation statement, Hariri specified that he was unable to return to Lebanon due to some sort of a threat to his person and his family by operatives in Lebanon of Iran and Hezbollah. The Lebanese security authorities, however, have stated that they are not aware of any danger faced by Hariri.

    In an endless attempt to regain influence in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia has once again brought about results directly opposite to those intended. Immediately after receiving confirmation that the resignation had taken place in Saudi Arabia, the entire Lebanese political class demanded that Hariri return home to clarify his position, meet with the president and submit his resignation in person. Saudi actions have served to consolidate a united front of opposition factions and paved the way for the collapse of Saudi influence in the country, leaving a vacuum to be conveniently filled by Iran. Once again, as with Yemen and in Syria, the intentions of the Saudis have dramatically backfired.

    This Saudi interference in the domestic affairs of a sovereign country has stirred up unpredictable scenarios in the Middle East, just at the time that tensions were cooling in Syria.

    Hariri's detention comes from far away and is inextricably linked to what has been happening over the past few months in Saudi Arabia. Mohammed bin Salman, son of King Salman, began his internal purge of the Kingdom’s elite by removing from the line of succession Bin Nayef, a great friend of the US intelligence establishment (Brennan and Clapper). Bin Nayef was a firm partner of the US deep state. Saudi Arabia has for years worked for the CIA, advancing US strategic goals in the region and beyond. Thanks to the cooperation between Bandar bin Sultan Al Saud, Bin Nayef, and US intelligence agencies, Washington has for years given the impression of fighting against Islamist terrorist while actually weaponizing jihadism since the 1980s by deploying it against rival countries like the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, the Iraqi government in 2014, the Syrian state in 2012, and Libya’s Gaddafi in 2011.

    MBS has even detained numerous family-related princes, continuing to consolidate power around himself. Even Alwaleed bin Talal, one of the richest men in the world, ended up caught in MBS’s net, rightly accused of being one of the most corrupt people in the Kingdom. It is speculated that family members and billionaires are detained at the Ritz Carlton in Riyadh, with guests and tourists promptly ejected days before the arrests began. Mohammed bin Salman’s actions are not slowing down, even after seizing $800 billion in accounts, properties and assets.

    MBS is intensifying his efforts to end the conflict in Yemen, which is a drain on Saudi finances, lifting the naval blockade of the Port of Aden. Not only that, the two main Syrian opposition leaders, Ahmad Jarba and Riyadh Hijab, have been arrested by Riyadh in an effort to demonstrate to Putin the good will of MBS in seeking to resolve the Syrian conflict. Not surprisingly, King Salman, in a frantic search for a solution to the two conflicts that have lashed his reputation as well as the wealth and alliances of the Saudi kingdom, flew to Moscow to seek mediation with Putin, the new master of the Middle East.

    MBS has undertaken an anti-corruption campaign for international as well as domestic purposes. At the national level, the collapse of oil prices, coupled with huge military spending, forced the royal family to seek alternatives for the future of the Kingdom in terms of sustainability, earnings and profits. MBS’s Vision 2030 aims to diversify revenue in order to free Saudi Arabia from its dependence on oil. This is a huge ask for a nation that has been thriving for seventy years from an abundance of resources simply found under its ground. This delicate balance of power between the royal family and its subjects is maintained by the subsidies granted to the local population that has allowed the Kingdom to flourish in relative peace, even during the most delicate periods of the Arab Spring in 2011. There is an underlying understanding in Saudi Arabia that so long as the welfare of the population is guaranteed, there should be no threat to the stability of the royal family. It is no wonder that after losing two wars, and with oil prices at their lowest, MBS has started to worry about his future, seeking to purge the elites opposed to him.

    The Kingdom’s reality is quickly changing under MBS, the next Saudi king, who is trying to anticipate harder times by consolidating power around himself and correcting his errors brought on by incompetence and his excessive confidence in the Saudi military as well as in American backing. The ballistic missile that hit Riyadh was launched by the Houthis in Yemen after 30 months of indiscriminate bombing by the Saudi air force. This act has shown how vulnerable the Kingdom is to external attack, even at the hand of the poorest Arab country in the world.

    In this context, Donald Trump seems to be capitalizing on Saudi weakness, fear, and the need to tighten the anti-Iranian alliance. What the American president wants in return for support of MBS is as simple as it comes: huge investments in the US economy together with the purchase of US arms. MBS obliged a few months ago, investing into the US economy to the tune of more than $380 billion over ten years. Trump's goal is to create new jobs at home, increase GDP, and boost the economy, crucial elements for his re-election in 2020. Rich allies like Saudi Arabia, finding themselves in a tight fix, are a perfect means of achieving this end.

    Another important aspect of MBS’s strategy involves the listing of Aramco on the NYSE together with the switch to selling oil for yuan payments. Both decisions are fundamental to the United States and China, and both bring with them a lot of friction. MBS is at this moment weak and needs all the allies and support he can get. For this reason, a decision on Aramco or the petroyuan would probably create big problems with Beijing and Washington respectively. The reason why MBS is willing to sell a small stock of Aramco relates to his efforts to gin up some money. For this reason, thanks to the raids on the accounts and assets of the people arrested by MBS, Saudi Arabia has raised over $800 billion, certainly a higher figure than any sale of Aramco shares would have brought.

    This move allows MBS to postpone a decision on listing Aramco on the NYSE as well as on whether to start accepting yuan for payment of oil. Holding back on the petroyuan and Aramco’s initial public offering is a way of holding off both Beijing and Washington but without at the same time favouring one over the other. Economically, Riyadh cannot choose between selling oil for dollars on the one hand and accepting payment in another currency on the other. It is a nightmare scenario; but some day down the road, the Saudi royals will have to make a choice.

    The third party to this situation is Israel in the figure of Netanyahu, Donald Trump's great friend and supporter right from the beginning of his electoral campaign. Trump's victory brought positive returns to the investment the Israeli leader had made in him. Ever since Trump won the election, the US has employed harsh words against Iran, turning away from the positive approach adopted by Obama that managed to achieve the Iran nuclear deal framework. Nevertheless, the Israeli prime minister has had to deal with numerous problems at home, with a narrow parliamentary majority and several members of his government under investigation for corruption.

    Donald Trump pursued a very aggressive policy against Tehran during the election campaign, then went on to annul the Iran nuclear deal a few weeks ago. The decision is now for Congress to certify, with a difficult mediation between European allies (other than China and Russia), who are opposed to ending the deal, and the Israelis, who can count on the support of many senators thanks to their lobbying efforts. Israel, for its part, sees in Saudi Arabia and MBS the missing link between Saudi Wahhabism and Israeli Zionism. Various private cablegrams leaked to the press have shown how Israeli diplomats around the world were instructed to support Saudi  accusations of Iran interfering in Lebanon's internal affairs.

    The interests of MBS and Netanyahu seem to dovetail quite nicely in Syria and Yemen as well as with regard to Iran and Hezbollah. The two countries have a common destiny by virtue of the fact that neither alone can deal decisively with Hezbollah in Syria or Lebanon, let alone Iran. Rouhani himself has said that Iran fears American strength and power alone, knowing that Saudi Arabia and Israel are incapable of defeating Tehran.

    Trump's approval of the arrests carried out by MBS is based on a number of factors. The first involves the investments in the economy that will be coming America’s way. The other, certainly less known, concerns the subterranean battle that has been occurring between the Western elites for months. Many of Clinton’s top money sources are billionaires arrested by MBS, with stock options in various major banks, insurance companies, publishing groups, and American television groups, all openly anti-Trump. In this sense, the continuation of Trump's fight with a portion of the elite can be seen with the halting of the merger of AT&T and Time Warner involving CNN.

    Trump seems to be accompanying Saudi and Israeli urgings for war with multiple intentions, potentially having a plan for a broader, regional and global agreement between the parties.

    At a regional level, Trump first supported the Saudi crusade against Qatar, resolved with Riyadh not getting Qatar to accede to any of its advanced demands. During the crisis, Doha approached Tehran and Moscow, who immediately took advantage of the situation to establish trade relations and commence negotiations with Qatar to tame its terrorist influence in the region, especially in the Syrian conflict. Turkey and Qatar have practically announced a military alliance, cementing a new front that includes China, Russia, Iran, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Qatar, now potentially all on the same side of the barricades, opposed to Saudi dictates and Israel’s efforts to foment war with Iran.

    With the US withdrawal from the region, as is increasingly evident from Trump's reluctance to embark on a Middle East conflict, Israel and Saudi Arabia are increasing their desperate cries against Iran, observing how the gains of the resistance axis have led Tehran to dominate the region with its allies. The visit of King Salman to Russia, and the four meetings between Putin and Netanyahu, give the idea of which capital is in charge in the region. This all represents an epochal change that further isolates Riyadh and Tel Aviv, two countries that represent the heart of chaos and terror.

    The Saudi attempt to isolate Qatar has failed miserably, and the continuous effort to paint Iran as the main cause of tension in the region seems to have reached a point of no return, with the latest stunt involving Hariri. Sunnis, Christians and Shiites agree on one point only: that the premier must return home. Riyadh hopes to light the fuse of a new civil war in the region, with Israel hoping to take advantage of the chaos brought about by an attack on Hezbollah. This is not going to happen, and the disappointment of the House of Saud and the Israeli prime minister will not change anything. Without a green light from Washington and a promise from Uncle Sam to intervene alongside his Middle East allies, the Israelis and Saudis are aware that they have neither the means nor strength to attack Iran or Hezbollah.

    Trump is playing a dangerous game; but there seems to be some degree of coordination with the other giants on the international scene. The main point is it is impossible for Washington to be an active part in any conflict in the region, or to change the course of events in a meaningful way. The "End of history" ended years ago. US influence is on the decline, and Xi Jinping and Putin have shown great interest in the future of the region. In recent months, the Russian and Iranian militaries, together with the Chinese economic grip on the region, have shown a collective intention to replace years of war, death and chaos with peace, prosperity and wealth.

    MBS and Netanyahu are having a hard time dealing with this new environment that will inevitably proclaim Iran the hegemon in the region. Time is running out for Israel and Saudi Arabia, and both countries are faced with enormous internal problems while being unable to change the course of events in the region without the full intervention of their American ally, something practically impossible nowadays.

    The new course of the multipolar world, together with Trump’s America First policy, seems to have hit hardest those countries that placed all their bets on the continuing economic and military dominance of the United States in the region. Other countries like Qatar, Lebanon and Turkey have started to understand the historical change that is going on, and have slowly been making the switch, realizing in the process the benefits of a multipolar world order, which is more conducive to mutually beneficial cooperation between countries. The more Saudi Arabia and Israel push for war against Iran, the more they will isolate themselves. This will serve to push their own existence to the brink of extinction.

  • Doomsday Preppers Are Switching Allegiance From Gold To Bitcoin

    The gold versus Bitcoin debate is complex, nuanced and still in its embryonic stages when put into the perspective of gold’s known 2,700-year use as money versus Bitcoin’s very modest eight-year track record.

    From a pure investment perspective, as the following Bloomberg chart shows, Bitcoin has obviously “wiped the floor” with its esteemed rival and, no doubt, has absorbed a considerable volume of funds that otherwise might have found their way into gold investments.

    One subset of gold investors, which is both over-stated and over-ridiculed in the mainstream media, is the “preppers”, or those preparing for a catastrophic disaster to occur in the future by stockpiling food, ammunition and “durable” methods of storing their wealth, etc. We clarify the term "preppers" because it is not common parlance in many European countries. While some allocation in gold was basically “de rigeur” some years ago, the prepping community is increasingly turning to Bitcoin, as Bloomberg reports.

    Wendy McElroy is ready for most doomsday scenarios: a one-year supply of nonperishable food is stacked in a cellar at her farm in rural Ontario. Her blueprint for survival also depends upon working internet: part of her money, assuming she needs some after civilization collapses, is in bitcoin. Across the North American countryside, preppers like McElroy are storing more and more of their wealth in invisible wallets in cyberspace instead of stockpiling gold bars and coins in their bunkers and basement safes. They won’t be able to access their virtual cash the moment a catastrophe knocks out the power grid or the web, but that hasn’t dissuaded them. Even staunch survivalists are convinced bitcoin will endure economic collapse, global pandemic, climate change catastrophes and nuclear war.

     

    “I consider bitcoin to be a currency on the same level as gold,” McElroy, who lives on the farm with her husband, said by email. “It allows individuals to become self-bankers. When I fully understood the concepts and their significance, bitcoin became a fascination.”

    Wendy McElroy's profile, for what it’s worth, is not exactly that of a “whacko” prepper. A former journalist with FOX News, McElroy might be described as an “anarcho-capitalist”. She has authored a dozen books and numerous articles on subjects such as voluntarism (all forms of human association should be voluntary), feminism, how pornography can benefit women, capitalism and defending Wikileaks. In an article “Would Bitcoin ‘Function’ in a Societal Collapse?” on bitcoin.com, McElroy cited the growth in Bitcoin adoption in the midst of the collapse of Venezuela’s economy and its currency.

    Bloomberg continues by noting the seeming contradiction for preppers, like McElroy, since a collapse in the grid would take the internet down. However, it’s the ability of Bitcoin to operate beyond the control of central bankers (so far) which is a key attraction.

    At first glance, it seems counter-intuitive that some of bitcoin’s most ardent proponents are people motivated by the belief that public infrastructure will collapse in times of social and political distress. Bitcoin isn’t yet widely accepted as a method of payment and steep transaction costs make it inconvenient to use at vendors that do take it. Preppers, as it happens, have a different perspective on what they see as the money of the future, which has surged 10-fold in the past 12 months as supporters lauded it as a digital alternative to rival the dollar, euro or yen. Used to send and receive payments online, bitcoin is similar to payment networks like PayPal or Mastercard, the difference being that it runs on a decentralized network—blockchain—that’s beyond the control of central banks and regulators. It was born out of an anti-establishment vision of a government-free society, a key attraction for those seeking unhindered access to their capital in case a massive shock shuts down the banking system.

    Even if the grid went down temporarily, preppers are attracted by the blockchain’s record of Bitcoin holdings and transaction.

    "Not too long ago, people in the prepper community were actively warning against crypto, and now they’re all investing in it,” said Tom Martin, a truck driver from Washington who runs a social-media website for people interested in learning skills to survive disaster.

     

    “As long as the grid stays up, people will keep using bitcoin.”

     

    In addition to gold, silver and stocks, Martin invests in bitcoin and peers litecoin and steem because they’re easier to travel with, harder to steal and offer better protection in the event of the kind of societal breakdown that would unfold if a fiat currency like the dollar collapsed. He’s among those confident that bitcoin can withstand even a complete blackout through the strength of the underlying blockchain, the anonymous public bookkeeping technology that records every single bitcoin transaction.

    In the bitcoin.com article, Wendy McElroy noted the increasing dependence on blockchain and the internet, the revival of which would be a priority after a disaster.

    Yes. Electricity and the internet may be less reliable or more expensive but they would be available. An increasing dependence on the blockchain would make it a top economic priority. It would also be a top military priority. In October 2016, the Pentagon revealed it was actively exploring blockchain technology “to create tamper-proof military computer systems, including those used to control America’s nuclear weapons.” Other nations are undoubtedly doing the same.

    Bloomberg acknowledges this view.

    Preppers, though, stock enough food and supplies to sustain them for months, if not years, and they expect whatever governing structure emerges post-calamity will prioritize getting the web back up and running.

     

    “It may be difficult, if not impossible to access for a while, but once things start returning to some level of normality, then the blockchain will return as it was before the disaster,” said Rob Harvey, a bitcoin investor who prepares for natural and nuclear catastrophes by learning and teaching survival skills, like making a fire. “The blockchain does not need a specific place or a specific person to survive—that’s a strong survival tactic”.

    Bloomberg notes how Bitcoin has increasingly become a topic of debate on prepper forums, where participants were previously gold devotees.

    Discussions on the pros and cons of investing in crypto have popped up on survivalist forums like mysurvivalforum.com and survivalistboards.com this year as bitcoin rallied above $7,000. “Buy bitcoin” is now a more popular search phrase than “buy gold” on Google.

     

    The buzz is starting to impinge on gold’s role as a store of value especially since, like the precious metal, there’s a finite supply of bitcoin, which proponents say gives it anti-inflationary qualities. Sales of gold coins from the U.S. Mint slid to a decade low in the first three quarters months of 2017.

     

    “It’s definitely had some impact on the market,” Philip Newman, who does research on precious-metal coin sales and is one of the founders of research firm Metals Focus, said by phone from Washington. “People see bitcoin prices going to the moon. No one thinks gold is going to the moon.”

    While gold’s lack of “portability” is considered a negative.

    Along the fringe, the 20,000 libertarians expected to converge on New Hampshire as part of the Free State Project are also switching from precious metals. They like bitcoin because it isn’t created by a government, unlike conventional currency.

     

    “You can use bitcoin for economic transactions in a way that gold was never designed to do because it’s a physical thing—it’s heavy,” Matt Philips, the project’s president, said by phone. “A lot of people don’t know what the heck to do with gold if you give it to them in exchange for a cup of coffee.”

    Wendy McElroy’s support for Bitcoin is drawn straight from the philosophy of Ayn Rand in Atlas Shrugged.

    Whatever doom-and-gloom scenario unfolds, McElroy, from Canada, has faith in bitcoin. She’s writing a book called Satoshi Revolution, inspired by the pseudonym of the person or people who created bitcoin in 2009 as an answer to the financial turmoil wrought by the global financial crisis. She says the digital currency breaks society’s dependence on a state that uses its monopoly over the issuance of money to dominate the economy, making it a natural hedge against disaster. “It is a people’s currency,” she writes in the book’s introduction. “Bitcoins move seamlessly through a world without states or borders, obeying only the command of individuals who choose to deal with each other. Immune to currency manipulation and inflation, they do not serve the powerful elites at the expense of average people.”

    When it boils down to it, the rationale and investment cases for gold and Bitcoin are similar enough that common sense suggests that the prepper community would, to some extent, adopt both.

    With Bitcoin’s performance smashing gold to bits (intended), it’s hardly surprising that preppers are shifting their allegiance towards the digital currency. They are just “following the money”. As with all these things, however, we suspect that a point will come when too many people will be standing on the same side of the boat and there will be a sharp reversal in relative performance. The all-important question is whether that’s when Bitcoin is 10,000, 13,000 or 50,000?

  • The Economist Went There – Shockingly Un-PC Study Shows Whites Work Hardest, Longest

    A trio of labor economists suggest that effort at work is correlated with race…

    As The Economist writes, given the long history of making racial slurs about the efforts of some workers, any study casting black and Hispanic men as lazier than whites and Asians is sure to court controversy.

    But, a provocative working paper by economists Daniel Hamermesh, Katie Genadek and Michael Burda sticks a tentative toe into these murky waters.

    They suggest that America’s well-documented racial wage gap is overstated by 10% because minorities, especially men, spend larger portions of their workdays not actually working.

    Uncomfortable though the topic may be, the authors have attempted a rigorous analysis.

    The study’s method is straightforward. The data come from nearly 36,000 “daily diaries”, self-reporting on how Americans spent their working hours, collected from 2003 to 2012.

     

    Relying on the assumption that workers are equally honest in admitting sloth, the authors calculate the fraction of time spent not working while on the job – spent relaxing or eating, say – and find that it varies by race to a small but statistically significant degree.

     

    The gap remains, albeit in weaker form, even with the addition of extensive controls for geography, industry and union status, among others. Non-white male workers spend an additional 1.1% of the day not working while on the job, or an extra five minutes per day.

     

    Assuming their controls are adequate, that would still leave 90% of the wage difference between white workers and ethnic minorities, which was recently estimated to be 14%, unexplained.

    After rejecting a number of plausible explanations for why this might be, the authors finally attribute the discrepancy to unexplained “cultural differences”.

    Acutely aware of the sensitivity of these findings, the professors delayed publication until after the presidential election, releasing their report in January.

    “I knew full well that Trump and his minions would use it as a propaganda piece,” says Mr Hamermesh, a colourful and respected labour economist. The paper may yet be seized on by those who are keen to root out “political correctness” and are perennially unhappy with current anti-discrimination laws.

    When asked what motivated the study of such a sensitive topic, QZ's Allison Schrager notes that Hamermesh, typical of economists driven by pure intellectual curiosity, said it hadn’t occurred to him that it might be so controversial.

    But, denunciations came quickly, however. Within hours of publication, Mr Hamermesh received vitriolic messages and was labelled a racist in an online forum popular among economists. Mr Hamermesh, an avowed progressive, who refers to Donald Trump only by amusing nicknames and resigned from a post at the University of Texas over a state law permitting the open carrying of firearms, finds this unfair.

    He notes that Americans work too much. His preferred solution would not be for some groups to work more, but for others to work less.

  • Walmart Nation: Mapping The Largest Employers In America

    In an era where Amazon steals most of the headlines, it’s easy to forget about brick-and-mortar retailers like Walmart.

    But, even though the market values the Bezos e-commerce juggernaut at about twice the sum of Walmart, Visual Capitalist's Jeff Desjardins notes that the blue big-box store is very formidable in other ways. For example, revenue and earnings are two areas where Walmart still reigns supreme, and the stock just hit all-time highs yesterday on an earnings beat.

    That’s not all, though. As today’s map shows, Walmart is dominant in one other notable way: the company is the biggest private employer in America in a whopping 22 states.

    Courtesy of: Visual Capitalist

    WALLY WORLD

    Using data from 24/7 Wall Street, we mapped out the largest employer (excluding public administrative bodies, such as state governments) in each state.

    Here are the top ten states where Walmart took the title:

    The company has 1.5 million employees in the U.S. – and about 950,000 of them are in the states above.

    A SOUTHERN INSTITUTION

    In Walmart’s home state of Arkansas, the company employees 53,310 people, or about 4% of the non-farm work force. That includes about 18,600 jobs at the HQ in Bentonville, AR.

    Despite the company’s obvious influence in the state where it was founded, Walmart is also the largest employer across the South in general. Whether it is Texas (171,531 employees) or Virginia (44,621), there are Walmarts aplenty in the states surrounding Arkansas.

    One notable exception to this rule? North Carolina, where the University of North Carolina University system employs 74,079 people. However, that doesn’t mean that Walmart has zero presence in the Tar Heel State – it actually has 218 retail stores and 58,525 employees in North Carolina, according to its website.

    YOUR TURN, AMAZON

    In case you may be wondering, Amazon is not the largest employer in any state – even in the company’s home state of Washington, where it still lags behind Boeing.

    However, Amazon’s epic ramp-up is quickly taking over Seattle, and the company now has as much office space there as the city’s next 40 biggest employers combined.

    And who knows, with over 238 bids for Amazon’s new HQ2, it’s possible that the company could be adding up to 50,000 new jobs in another state very soon.

  • Now the Sexual Harassment Noose Falls Upon Rep. John Conyers

    Content originally published at iBankCoin.com

    The sexual harassment allegations continue, with today’s showcase revelations being Charlie Rose and Rep. John Conyers. Over at the Weinstein scandal, upwards of 90 women have come forward, some of whom claimed they were outright raped by the big fat ape.

    So you know, Harvey Weinstein is still at large.

    This from Buzzfeed tonight — tipped off by Mike Cernovich

    Here’s Mike discussing the latest scandal via Periscope.

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    Michigan Rep. John Conyers, a Democrat and the longest-serving member of the House of Representatives, settled a wrongful dismissal complaint in 2015 with a former employee who alleged she was fired because she would not “succumb to [his] sexual advances.”

    Documents from the complaint obtained by BuzzFeed News include four signed affidavits, three of which are notarized, from former staff members who allege that Conyers, the ranking Democrat on the powerful House Judiciary Committee, repeatedly made sexual advances to female staff that included requests for sexual favors, contacting and transporting other women with whom they believed Conyers was having affairs, caressing their hands sexually, and rubbing their legs and backs in public. Four people involved with the case verified the documents are authentic.

    And the documents also reveal the secret mechanism by which Congress has kept an unknown number of sexual harassment allegations secret: A grinding, closely held process that left the alleged victim feeling, she told BuzzFeed News, that she had no option other than to stay quiet and accept a settlement offered to her.

    “I was basically blackballed. There was nowhere I could go,” she said in a phone interview. BuzzFeed News is withholding the woman’s name at her request, because she said she fears retribution.

    Last week the Washington Post reported that the office paid out $17 million for 264 settlements with federal employees over 20 years for various violations, including sexual harassment. The Conyers documents, however, give a glimpse into the inner workings of the Office of Compliance, which has for decades concealed episodes of sexual abuse by powerful political figures

    The woman who settled with Conyers launched the complaint in 2014 with Congress’s Office of Compliance alleging that she was fired for refusing his sexual advances and ended up facing a daunting process that ended with a confidentiality agreement in exchange for a $27,111.75 settlement. Her settlement, however, came from Conyers’ office budget rather than the designated fund for settlements.

    Congress has no human resources department. Instead, congressional employees have 180 days to report a sexual harassment incident to the Office of Compliance, which then leads to a lengthy process involves counseling, mediation, and requires the signing of a confidentiality agreement before a complaint can go forward.

    After this, an employee can choose to take the matter to federal district court, but another avenue is available: an administrative hearing, after which a negotiation and settlement may follow.

    In her complaint, the former employee said Conyers repeatedly asked her for sexual favors and often asked her to join him in a hotel room. On one occasion, she alleges that Conyers asked her to work out of his room for the evening, but when she arrived the congressman started talking about his sexual desires. She alleged he then told her she needed to “touch it,” in reference to his penis, or find him a woman who would meet his sexual demands.

    She alleged Conyers made her work nights, evenings, and holidays to keep him company.

    In another incident, the former employee alleged the congressman insisted she stay in his room while they traveled together for a fundraising event. When she told him that she would not stay with him, she alleged he told her to “just cuddle up with me and caress me before you go.”

    “Rep. Conyers strongly postulated that the performing of personal service or favors would be looked upon favorably and lead to salary increases or promotions,” the former employee said in the documents.

    Three other staff members provided affidavits submitted to the Office Of Compliance that outlined a pattern of behavior from Conyers that included touching the woman in a sexual manner and growing angry when she brought her husband around.

    One affidavit from a former female employee states that she was tasked with flying in women for the congressman. “One of my duties while working for Rep. Conyers was to keep a list of women that I assumed he was having affairs with and call them at his request and, if necessary, have them flown in using Congressional resources,” said her affidavit. (A second staffer alleged in an interview that Conyers used taxpayer resources to fly women to him.)

    The employee said in her affidavit that Conyers also made sexual advances toward her: “I was driving the Congressman in my personal car and was resting my hand on the stick shift. Rep. Conyers reached over and began to caress my hand in a sexual manner.”

    The woman said she told Conyers she was married and not interested in pursuing a sexual relationship, according to the affidavit. She said she was told many times by constituents that it was well-known that Conyers had sexual relationships with his staff, and said she and other female staffers felt this undermined their credibility.

    “I am personally aware of several women who have experienced the same or similar sexual advances made towards them by Rep[.] John Conyers,” she said in her affidavit.

    A male employee wrote that he witnessed Rep. Conyers rub the legs and other body parts of the complainant “in what appeared to be a sexual manner” and saw the congressman rub and touch other women “in an inappropriate manner.” The employee said he confronted Conyers about this behavior.

    “Rep. Conyers said he needed to be ‘more careful’ because bad publicity would not be helpful as he runs for re-election. He ended the conversation with me by saying he would ‘work on’ his behavior,” the male staffer said in his affidavit.

    “I don’t think any allegations should be buried…and that’s for anyone, not just for this particular office”
    The male employee said that in 2011 Conyers complained a female staffer was “too old” and said he wanted to let her go. The employee said he set up a meeting in December 2011 to discuss “mistreatment of staff and his misuse of federal resources.” The affidavit says that Conyers “agreed that he would work on making improvements as long as I worked directly with him and stopped writing memos and emails about concerns.”

    Another female employee also attested that she witnessed Conyer’s advances, and said she was asked to transport women to him. “I was asked on multiple occasions to pick up women and bring them to Mr. Conyers[‘] apartment, hotel rooms, etc.”

    BuzzFeed News reached out to several former Conyers staffers, all of whom did not want to speak on the record. One former staffer, who did not want to be named, said she was frustrated by the secretive complaint process.

    “I don’t think any allegations should be buried…and that’s for anyone, not just for this particular office, because it doesn’t really allow other people to see who these individuals are,” said the former staffer. “When you make private settlements, it doesn’t warn the next woman or the next person going into that situation.”

    Another staffer said that Conyers’ reputation made people fearful to speak out against him. Aside from being the longest-serving House member and the ranking member of a powerful committee, Conyers is a civil rights icon. He was lauded by Martin Luther King Jr. and is a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus.

    “Your story won’t do shit to him,” said the staffer. “He’s untouchable.”

    In a statement to BuzzFeed News, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said she was not aware of the settlement.

    “The current process includes the signing of non-disclosure agreements by the parties involved. Congresswoman Jackie Speier has introduced legislation that will provide much-needed transparency on these agreements and make other critical reforms,” Pelosi said in the statement. “I strongly support her efforts.”

    What’s interesting about the revelations of sexual harassment is they’re mainly being reported by left wing media, concerning left wing men. Perhaps there’s a disruption in the matrix, or they’re quite literally eating their own.
    This didn’t age well.

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    Good times.

     

  • Where Does It End?

    Authored by Jeff Thomas via InternationalMan.com,

    It’s nothing new.

    Whenever a major country is in decline and approaching collapse, a contingent arises that does everything it can to speed up the process toward collapse.

    This is always done in the same way:

    • Vilify the established rulers as being the culprits for the nation’s woes.
    • Establish simplistic arguments to support that view. (The arguments need not be entirely logical or supportable, but they must have emotional public appeal.)
    • Create simplistic rhetoric that supports the destruction of the establishment and its icons.
    • Make the arguments and rhetoric as ubiquitous as possible (particularly through the media).

    Then, like any recipe, turn up the heat and bake until done.

    Generally, the destruction of the first icon (most often a statue) requires some sort of explanation, regardless of how flimsy the argument may be. After that has succeeded, praise is to be showered on those who took part, egging them, and others, on to do more. As each new icon falls, less justification is necessary and, in the end, only blind anger is required to keep the destruction going.

    In the present era, we’re witnessing this age-old process taking place in quite a few countries, but notably in the US.

    But, why the US—the one country in the world that began as possibly the most advanced, freest nation the world had ever seen? How did this come to pass in “the land of the free”?

    Well, truth be told, no matter how inspired or sincere the founding fathers of any nation may be, those who would usurp them are always many in number and, in most cases, are prepared to do whatever it takes to slowly take power and return to tyrannical rule.

    As Thomas Jefferson said,

    Even under the best forms of Government, those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.

    And, even in George Washington’s Cabinet, the rot set in early, with Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton continually seeking to subvert the objectives of Secretary of State Jefferson. Therefore, the degradation in the US system began quite early.

    But why does it seem as though it’s speeding up dramatically now? Why is it suddenly pulling apart at the seams?

    Well, for that answer, we can once again rely on Mister Jefferson:

    Democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where 51% of the people may take away the rights of the other 49%.

    And the US has passed that significant tipping point. The majority now depend upon handouts from the government. Once that occurs, it becomes easy to sell them the idea that, since they’re “entitled” to the handouts, they have a perfect right to be outraged that they’re not receiving more. (Again, logic is not necessary; what’s required is an emotionally-charged sense of victimisation.)

    Historically, once a nation has reached this point, it never goes back. It’s ripe for a collectivist revolution. Ironically, in every collectivist revolution, the leaders have no intention of “freeing the people.” Their goal is to dominate them far more greatly than they presently had been.

    Essentially, what we’re observing in the US is a standard collectivist revolution, but in slo-mo. At the same time as relatively pampered Americans are purchasing the latest pricey smartphones and buying a Toasted Graham Latte at Starbucks for $5.25, the sense of victimisation is well under way and the destruction of icons has begun.

    The tearing-down of Confederate flags occurred. Statues of Robert E. Lee were destroyed and, recently, a plaque in a Virginia church honouring the seat where George Washington regularly sat has been under attack for removal.

    In each of the above cases, the arguments have been increasingly flimsy, but no matter. As stated above, the reasoning need not bear scrutiny. All that matters is that it has an emotional attraction. As the destruction continues, the emotion will morph from indignation to blind rage as necessary.

    And, as any revolutionary leader could attest, if he can succeed in inducing blind rage, no King, no Czar, no President can stand up to that rage for long.

    It’s important to note that, in every country where collectivist revolution has taken place, only a small minority of the population has been necessary to bring about the unseating of conventional leaders. In some cases, the leaders have been killed. In others, they’ve been forced to flee the country quickly. In still others, the leaders have agreed to step down in disgrace.

    What’s significant is not the manner in which the leaders were supplanted, but the direction that the country takes following the leaders’ downfall.

    In the US, this may be as mild a change as the resignation of the president, followed by the election of an avowed collectivist that will transform the country.

    It will matter little whether the new leader describes himself as a collectivist, socialist, democrat, or other term. The outcome will be the same.

    In the beginning, there will be euphoria on the part of the 51%, who will see themselves as the heroes of change. What they will be, in reality, will be the pawns of the new order.

    Recently, an American associate of mine sent me the link for the article describing the intended removal of the Washington plaque and asked, “Where does it end?”

    Well, unfortunately, it doesn’t “end.” It continues for decades. (Collectivism can sometimes be maintained for generations before it finally flames out, due to lack of productivity and the weight of a costly top-heavy government.)

    The folly is in hoping, as my colleague sometimes does, that the stampede toward collectivism will somehow magically screech to a halt and reverse its direction. The sad truth is that, historically, this has never happened. At best, we observe a revolution in slow motion, as is taking place in the US.

    The question for the individual who’s likely to be impacted by this is whether he should rely on “hope,” or whether he should recognize that hope is not a plan.

    Plans often prove to be challenging, costly, and difficult, but, for those who may soon be losing a large measure of their freedom, they are essential, if the outcome is to be a positive one.

    *  *  *

    Fortunately, you don’t have to draft your plan from scratch. We know practical steps you can take today to prepare for the fallout from America’s collectivist revolution. Get the details in our Guide to Surviving and Thriving During an Economic Collapse.

  • Roy Moore Refutes Sexual Assault Claim With Statements By Former Restaurant Employees And Customers

    Content originally published at iBankCoin.com

    Over the last several weeks, accusations of sexual improprieties by Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore have led to calls for the judge to exit the race to fill the vacant seat left by Attorney Jeff Sessions. Others, meanwhile, have rushed to Moore’s defense – calling into question everything from the original Washington Post article, to accuser Beverly Young Nelson’s claim that Moore showered her in unwanted attention when she was 15, and sexually assaulted her when she was 16.

    A now infamous yearbook entry, from December 1977, which Nelson claims is Moore’s has also come under scrutiny, with many pointing out that Moore’s last name, title, date, and location appear to have been added later – constituting a forgery if true.

    Nelson’s attorney Gloria Allred refused to confirm the authenticity of the yearbook, and she won’t hand it over to handwriting experts unless a US Senate Committee agrees to conduct a hearing first. Considering that the Alabama special election is just over three weeks away.

    Meanwhile Nelson’s stepson, Darrel Nelson, claims that his stepmother’s accusations are “one hundred percent a lie,” stating “I know for a fact that there is a lot that that woman does not tell the truth on,” Nelson claimed in an in-person interview with Breitbart News.  “Do I think that Beverly is trustworthy? No, I really don’t. Could I see her making it up? …The odds are in that favor.”

    And now the latest – the Moore campaign has released a lengthy statement poking holes in Nelson’s claims 

    Everything from Nelson’s age when she began working at the Olde Hickory House, to the restaurant’s hours, to the physical layout of the location Nelson says Moore assaulted her have been called into question – aided by the testimony of former Old Hickory House employee Rhonda Ledbetter, a waitress at Olde Hickory House for almost three years from 1977-1979, along with another former employee.

    In addition, two former waitresses and two former customers say they never say Moore come into the restaurant, despite Nelson’s claim that he was there “almost every night.”

    • According to Ledbetter, Olde Hickory House required employees to be 16 years old. Nelson claims she was 15 when she started.
    • According to two former employees, the dumpsters were on the side of the building. Nelson claimed that they were in the back.
    • Olde Hickory House sat right off of the four-lane highway and had a wrap-around porch with lights all around it. Nelson claimed that the surroundings were “dark and isolated.”
    • Rhonda Ledbetter, who worked at Olde Hickory House for almost 3 years, states that the earliest it closed was at 11 p.m. but she believes it was open until midnight. She is certain it did not close at 10:00 because Goodyear was next door, and employees came to eat when their shift ended at 10 p.m. Nelson claims her story occurred after the restaurant closed at 10 p.m.
    • It is unlikely that there was an entrance from the back of the parking lot, which Nelson claimed existed. Multiple sources have claimed that everyone parked on the sides of the building because there wasn’t much room behind the restaurant, according to Rhonda not enough room to turn around. Renee Schivera stated that a neighborhood backed up to the parking lot and it was adjacent to the backyards of people’s houses, so she did not see how there would have been a back entrance as it would have gone through someone’s yard.
    • Nelson claimed that Judge Roy Moore came in almost every night and sat at the counter, but former employees state that customers at the counter were served by the bartender or short order cook – not served by the waitresses and had no reason to interact with the wait staff. Additionally, two former waitresses and two former patrons state they never saw Judge Moore come into the restaurant. 

    Read the full statement below: 

    GADSDEN, Ala. – On Monday evening, the Moore Campaign unveiled statements from key witnesses that completely bust the story of Beverly Nelson and Gloria Allred and further reveal an unconscionable bias on the part of state and national press to hide the truth from Alabama voters who will undoubtedly see through the “fake news” and elect Judge Moore for the man that they have always known him to be.

    • According to a former waitress, Olde Hickory House required employees to be 16 years old. Nelson claims she was 15 when she started.
    • According to two former employees, the dumpsters were on the side of the building. Nelson claimed that they were in the back.
    • Olde Hickory House sat right off of the four-lane highway and had a wrap-around porch with lights all around it. Nelson claimed that the surroundings were “dark and isolated.”
    • Rhonda Ledbetter, who worked at Olde Hickory House for almost 3 years, states that the earliest it closed was at 11 p.m. but she believes it was open until midnight. She is certain it did not close at 10:00 because Goodyear was next door, and employees came to eat when their shift ended at 10 p.m. Nelson claims her story occurred after the restaurant closed at 10 p.m.
    • It is unlikely that there was an entrance from the back of the parking lot, which Nelson claimed existed. Multiple sources have claimed that everyone parked on the sides of the building because there wasn’t much room behind the restaurant, according to Rhonda not enough room to turn around. Renee Schivera stated that a neighborhood backed up to the parking lot and it was adjacent to the backyards of people’s houses, so she did not see how there would have been a back entrance as it would have gone through someone’s yard.
    • Nelson claimed that Judge Roy Moore came in almost every night and sat at the counter, but former employees state that customers at the counter were served by the bartender or short order cook – not served by the waitresses and had no reason to interact with the wait staff. Additionally, two former waitresses and two former patrons state they never saw Judge Moore come into the restaurant.
    • These witnesses have shared their testimony with multiple news outlets. The outlets have failed to report.

    Rhonda Ledbetter, a retired public school teacher who is currently the senior choir director at a Baptist church and teaches children at a local, church-sponsored day care center, was a waitress at Olde Hickory House for almost three years from 1977-1979. She was a college student at Jacksonville State University at the time and worked varying shifts at different times of day, multiple days a week during the time of her employment. She said in a statement: “When I heard Beverly Nelson’s story, there were several details that were different from what I remember. I was nervous at coming forward because of all the attention this story has gotten, but as a moral and ethical person I had to speak up about what I know to be true. I was a waitress at Olde Hickory for almost three years from 1977-1979, and I never saw Roy Moore come in to the restaurant. Not one time. And I would have noticed because most of our customers weren’t wearing suits, especially not at night. Many customers worked at Goodyear next door and would stop in on their way to and from work, and I don’t remember anyone from the courthouse coming in at all. That just wasn’t our crowd.

    “A few things stuck out to me. First, Nelson said she was 15 years old when she started working there but you had to be 16. I don’t remember her from my time there, and I don’t remember any 15 year olds working there at all.

    “Second, Nelson said the restaurant closed at 10 p.m. but I know the earliest it closed was 11, though I believe it was midnight. I’m certain of that because Goodyear employees came in to eat after their shift ended at 10:00 p.m., so there’s no way we would have closed at that time.

    “Third, the area wasn’t dark and isolated as she described. Rather, the building was right off the busy four-lane highway and people and cars were always around. The restaurant had a wrap-around porch, like the ones at Cracker Barrel restaurants, and there were lights all around the sides of the building. So it wasn’t dark and anyone in the parking lot was visible from the road.

    “Fourth, the dumpsters were to the side of the building, not around back and there sure wasn’t room to park in between the building and the dumpsters. People from the kitchen would take trash out of the side door and throw it right into the dumpsters. We were always told to park on the side of the building, because there just wasn’t much room behind it. I don’t remember there being an exit from the back of the parking lot, there would barely have been enough room to turn a car around.

    “I came forward because from what I’ve seen, the media is only interested in reporting one side of this story. In fact, Dixon Hayes from WRBC in Birmingham asked for former employees to contact him but never responded when I told him I never saw Roy Moore come into Olde Hickory House during the three years I worked for. Two other news outlets in the state asked to interview me and I agreed, but neither one has aired my interview and I have to wonder why they don’t think the people of Alabama deserve to hear anything that counteracts the accusations against Judge Moore. It’s not for me to say whether or not something happened, I can only tell the truth about factual details that I know for sure. I think all Alabamians deserve to have all of the facts so they can decide for themselves what the truth is. Despite what the national media and people in DC might say, Alabama voters are intelligent and have common sense. We don’t need anyone to tell us how to vote or to explain to us what really happened. We will make that decision and I just wanted to do my part in sharing the truth on some of these important facts. I, like all Alabama voters, want any and all information that can shed light on the truth.”

    Johnny Belyeu, Sr. is a former police officer with over two decades of experience with the Etowah County Sheriff’s Department and the Gadsden Police Department. He said in a statement, “I was an officer with the Etowah County Sheriff’s Department in the 1970s which means I worked in the courthouse and knew who Roy Moore was since he was the Deputy District Attorney at the time. I was a regular customer at Olde Hickory House, and I never once saw Judge Moore come in there. If he had I would have immediately recognized him. I also never met Beverly Nelson during any of the many times I frequented the restaurant, and I can’t say that she even worked there.”

    Renee Schivera of Huntsville, Alabama stated, “I was a waitress at the Olde Hickory House during the summer of 1977, before my senior year of high school. When I heard Beverly Nelson’s story the first thing that stuck out to me was that I don’t remember Roy Moore ever coming into the restaurant. I also don’t remember her working there. The other thing that struck me as odd is that from my best recollection, the dumpsters were to the side of the building. I just know they were visible from the road, and not back behind the building. But the main thing is that if someone came in almost every night we knew who there were, and I never saw Roy Moore there. As a Christian woman, I wouldn’t lie for anyone and I am only sharing what I know because it’s the truth.”

    “The days of unbiased reporting are over,” Moore Campaign strategist, Brett Doster said. “The liberal media will dodge any source and refuse to air any interview that doesn’t square with their effort to land a liberal Democrat in the senate seat. The Moore Campaign is committed to presenting factual truth to the people of Alabama and looks forward to victory on December 12.”

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  • Realtors In Miami And Manhattan Are Embracing Bitcoin

    Back in September, we reported on a major milestone in bitcoin’s evolution into a respectable medium of exchange for large purchases: A Dallas real estate agent had negotiated the first all-bitcoin purchase of a US home on record. Few details about the home or the identity of the buyers were released. However, given bitcoin’s blistering rise since then – the value of a single coin has more than doubled – it’s reasonable to assume that, whoever they are, they probably regret pulling the trigger on their dream home, seeing as, if they had just waited two more months, they could’ve bought two. Indeed, the unknown seller of the home reportedly earned $1.3 million from the bitcoin they accepted as payment in the transaction.

    At the time, we predicted that it wouldn’t be long before settling real-estate transactions in bitcoin would be commonplace, something we imagine could help further inflate real-estate prices in trendy markets like San Francisco, while also potentially attracting real-estate speculators to also dabble in bitcoin.

    As if according to some preordained plan, Cryptocoins News reported this weekend that real-estate agents in both Miami and New York City are warming to bitcoin, and some have even convinced their clients to accept payment in the digital currency.

    Eric Fernandez, owner of Sol/Mar Real Estate, recently listed a $3.5 million penthouse condo at the Blue Diamond in Miami Beach, Fla. saying the owners would accept payment in bitcoin or Ethereum, according to the Miami New Times.

    Fernandez believes it is only a matter of time before bitcoin acceptance for real estate purchases gains popularity.

    Fernandez is not the only real estate agent who expects more homes to be bought with digital currency. Bitcoin is achieving cult status for international buyers. Some believe Miami will lead this trend.

    Another Miami realtor, Stephan Burke, who listed a Coral Gables mansion for sale in August, said the seller would accept bitcoin. Burke pointed out that Miami is an ideal market for bitcoin since it offers investors from South America, Canada, Asia and Russia a way to quickly purchase property.

    * * *

    Manhattan realtors are also jumping on the bitcoin bandwagon, according to Ben Shaoul, of Magnum Real Estate Group.

    We were approached by a buyer who has been collecting bitcoin for many years and was interested in using it to buy property.

    Since then there have been a further two to three customers who have approached the developer to see if they can purchase luxury condos with the cryptocurrency. Prices for these properties range in price from $700,000 to $1.5 million.

    The United Kingdom has also recorded a few examples of sellers accepting payment in bitcoin for their homes, with at least one case of a seller accepting payment only in bitcoin.

    Last month, a Notting Hill mansion in London was put up for sale with the asking price of $17 million, believed to be a first for the metropolitan city. In this case, though, the seller is only accepting bitcoin. In the last week it has been reported that a 49-year-old man has put his £80,000 house up for sale, with the option of accepting the digital currency.

    Meawhile, a UK co-living company has announced that it will begin accepting down payments made in bitcoin, making it that much easier for traders hooked on effortless, outstanding returns to speculate in another bubble-prone market: UK housing.

    Of course, bitcoin’s somestimes-extreme volatility presents risks. But the NYC realtors say they’re not worried.

    "Would you stop investing in stock markets? No, you wouldn’t. Each person is going to have a risk assessed judgement on whether or not they want to invest in bitcoin," one realtor said.

    And now that traders can easily purchase futures contracts allowing them to profit off of declines in the bitcoin price, sellers can purchase protection to offset some of the risk.
     

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