Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
"China’s Next Time Bomb" – A Look Inside The Insane World Of China’s Bitcoin Traders
By Tyler Durden
The recent tumble in bitcoin, driven by a stampede of Chinese sellers who until last week were willing buyers at any price, has exposed the weakest link in bitcoin’s until recently exponential rise: the mood and social psychology of Chinese momentum and bubble chasers, who like clockwork rush into any one given asset, bid it up to ridiculous levels, watch the bubble burst, before moving on to the next bubble.
The good news is that courtesy of $25 trillion in local savings, or more than double the amount in the US, the bubble eventually returns to where it burst. The bad news is that in the meantime, those who chased the original bubble lose most if not all of their money.
Unfortunately, for most of China’s bitcoin traders, the bad news may be just starting.
Take the story of Ding Wen, who by the age of 34 had built up a personal fortune of more than two million yuan after years of hard work at an internet company in Nanjing, in east China’s Jiangsu province. But, as SCMP recounts his tale, Wen saw most of that wealth go up in smoke on January 5, when China’s bitcoin market crashed, sending the price of the virtual currency plunging 40 per cent in just a few hours after lunch.
With the market in free fall, Ding was unable to log into his account with China’s biggest bitcoin trading platform, Huobi, meaning he could not sell off his holdings or top up his principal to meet the margin call. By the time he managed to log on in the evening, most of the bitcoins in his account had been compulsorily sold off by Huobi for 6,361 yuan each, lower than his purchase price of 8,101 yuan. This included the part of his investment he had bought using a loan he obtained from Huobi by pledging the bitcoins he owned originally.
“I have taken on big risks when making leveraged betting, but the collapse of the trading system made me unable to run stop-loss orders, so I think the platform should compensate for investors’ losses,” Ding said.
The platform disagrees.
Ahead of the market crash, Ding had borrowed 995 million yuan from Huobi by pledging a principal consisting of the 409 bitcoins he already owned. He then bought a further 1,228 bitcoins with the loan. Most of his holdings were compulsorily sold out by Huobi during the price collapse while he was unable to access his account.
Meanwhile, Wu Xing, head of marketing at Huobi, said the log-in delay was caused by a torrent of visits and selling orders, which exceeded the capacity of the website. “[The loss] was due to irresistible factors and not included in the compensation scope. We are sorry and understand the feelings of the investors,” she said.
So to recap… trading the extremely volatile bitcoin on massive, unregulated margin, in an exchange that arbitrarily locks out its clients?
What can possibly go wrong.
* * *
According to SCMP, “many analysts and investors fear China’s bitcoin …read more
Source: "China’s Next Time Bomb" – A Look Inside The Insane World Of China’s Bitcoin Traders
Disney’s Bob Iger took a $1 million pay cut last year
Disney CEO Bob Iger saw his pay dip by $1 million in 2016 — but don’t feel too sorry for him. He still made $43.9 million …read more
Source: Disney’s Bob Iger took a $1 million pay cut last year
Stunning Before And After Pictures Of The California Drought And Devastating Rain Storms
By Tyler Durden
Just as California’s liberal elites had convinced everyone that climate change had permanently altered global weather patterns such that the entire state was doomed to be stuck in a perpetual drought which would inevitably render it about as inhabitable as the surface of Mars within years, an unrelenting series of storms has struck and in a matter of days filled lakes, overflowed rivers and buried mountains in snow. And just like that, 40% of California was lifted from a drought that had plagued the state for a decade.
Of course, that much rain, in such a short period of time, can have devastating consequences as this video from Big Sur illustrates.
River campgrounds and cabins at Big Sur under water as river rages through #CAstorm #CAflood pic.twitter.com/jV1gxcMlIb
— Evan Sernoffsky (@EvanSernoffsky) January 9, 2017
As does this dashcam video of a flash flood in norther California.
In all, the rainfall totals from around Northern California over the past 14 days are staggering with certain areas receiving nearly 2 feet of rain according to SFGate.
Downtown San Francisco has received 5.53 inches of rain since Jan. 1. The last time the city has seen a number higher than this was 1982 when 7.53 inches fell between Jan. 1 and Jan. 11. During last year’s El Niño year, S.F. had received close to three inches by this date.
More impressive numbers: The coastal range mountains outside Guerneville, where roads and homes went underwater when the Russian River flooded, has received some 21 inches of rain since Jan. 4.
In Downieville, where the Yuba River gushed with a heavy flow all week, some 23 inches of rain were recorded in the past seven days.
And as bad as the flooding has been in parts of Northern California, it would have undoubtedly been even worse but for the the ability to divert some of the excess water into previously depleted reservoirs scattered throughout the state.
The super soakings have filled reservoirs that were mere mud puddles, their cracked lake beds once exposed at the height of the drought that plagued the state for five-plus years and still persists in many regions, especially in Southern California.
The reservoirs in Northern California have gained some million acres of storage in the past seven days, Michael Anderson, a climatologist with the California Department of Water Resources estimates. And total surface storage for the state is roughly 97 percent of average, with the the total storage for the largest reservoirs being at 111 percent of normal.
Lake Oroville, the state’s second-largest reservoir, gained a bit more than 620,000 acre-feet in the first 10 days of January alone.
“That is almost 18 percent of its capacity,” Anderson said. “Since Oroville was about 750,000 acre-feet below its storage limits during flood season (a consequence of the drought), they can keep all that water for future use and largely offset storage impacts from the drought.”
Meanwhile, the transformation of the state’s reservoirs, in just a …read more
Source: Stunning Before And After Pictures Of The California Drought And Devastating Rain Storms
Stunning Before And After Pictures Of The California Drought And Devastating Rain Storms
By Tyler Durden
Just as California’s liberal elites had convinced everyone that climate change had permanently altered global weather patterns such that the entire state was doomed to be stuck in a perpetual drought which would inevitably render it about as inhabitable as the surface of Mars within years, an unrelenting series of storms has struck and in a matter of days filled lakes, overflowed rivers and buried mountains in snow. And just like that, 40% of California was lifted from a drought that had plagued the state for a decade.
Of course, that much rain, in such a short period of time, can have devastating consequences as this video from Big Sur illustrates.
River campgrounds and cabins at Big Sur under water as river rages through #CAstorm #CAflood pic.twitter.com/jV1gxcMlIb
— Evan Sernoffsky (@EvanSernoffsky) January 9, 2017
As does this dashcam video of a flash flood in norther California.
In all, the rainfall totals from around Northern California over the past 14 days are staggering with certain areas receiving nearly 2 feet of rain according to SFGate.
Downtown San Francisco has received 5.53 inches of rain since Jan. 1. The last time the city has seen a number higher than this was 1982 when 7.53 inches fell between Jan. 1 and Jan. 11. During last year’s El Niño year, S.F. had received close to three inches by this date.
More impressive numbers: The coastal range mountains outside Guerneville, where roads and homes went underwater when the Russian River flooded, has received some 21 inches of rain since Jan. 4.
In Downieville, where the Yuba River gushed with a heavy flow all week, some 23 inches of rain were recorded in the past seven days.
And as bad as the flooding has been in parts of Northern California, it would have undoubtedly been even worse but for the the ability to divert some of the excess water into previously depleted reservoirs scattered throughout the state.
The super soakings have filled reservoirs that were mere mud puddles, their cracked lake beds once exposed at the height of the drought that plagued the state for five-plus years and still persists in many regions, especially in Southern California.
The reservoirs in Northern California have gained some million acres of storage in the past seven days, Michael Anderson, a climatologist with the California Department of Water Resources estimates. And total surface storage for the state is roughly 97 percent of average, with the the total storage for the largest reservoirs being at 111 percent of normal.
Lake Oroville, the state’s second-largest reservoir, gained a bit more than 620,000 acre-feet in the first 10 days of January alone.
“That is almost 18 percent of its capacity,” Anderson said. “Since Oroville was about 750,000 acre-feet below its storage limits during flood season (a consequence of the drought), they can keep all that water for future use and largely offset storage impacts from the drought.”
Meanwhile, the transformation of the state’s reservoirs, in just a …read more
Source: Stunning Before And After Pictures Of The California Drought And Devastating Rain Storms
YouTube Joins The "Fake News" Crusade, Shuts Down Popular Conservative Channel
By Tyler Durden
Late last night YouTube blocked the channel of the influential conservative politics and law website, “Legal Insurrection,” citing copyright infringement claims. The creator of the website, Cornell University Law Professor William Jacobson, told Fox News he was given no warning of the action and no opportunity to defend himself, saying “it’s very frustrating, it’s very scary, to have 8 years of content removed without a chance to defend yourself.”
Without notice, YouTube replaced Legal Insurrection’s channel with the following notice:
While the infringement notice from YouTube cited “multiple third-party claims”, earlier this morning, Legal Insurrection posted the following update to their website noting the complaint came solely from the Modern Language Association and was based on a couple of short excerpts borrowed from a 2-hour video from MLA that were “well-within fair use.”
UPDATE 1-13-2017 9:50 a.m. — I just received notice from YouTube that the copyright claims were filed by the Modern Language Association based on excerpts of audio of pro- and anti-Israel speakers at the MLA Annual Meeting we reported on in this post, Massive DEFEAT for BDS at Modern Language Association.
We intend to fight this both at the YouTube and legal level. It is highly questionable that MLA owns the copyright for oral presentations at the Annual Meeting, and even if it did, the limited excerpts we used from the nearly 2-hour video posted by MLA on YouTube are well-within fair use. What I think is really going on here is that anti-Israel activists at MLA complained to MLA that MLA had posted the audio on YouTube. MLA took down its own 2-hour video and now seeks to silence our reporting.
Which, of course, led Jacobson to the logical conclusion that YouTube’s decision was seemingly nothing more than the latest attempt of Silicon Valley’s liberal elitists to censor conservative media outlets, saying “clearly this was a politically motivated move…these were perfectly legitimate fair use excerpts with great news value.”
In an email, Jacobson said that he never received notice of the claims prior to the channel’s removal on Thursday. On Friday the publisher received notification from YouTube that the copyright claims were filed by the Modern Languages Association (MLA) based on audio posted of a recent MLA vote on a resolution to boycott Israeli universities. The boycott resolution at the MLA Delegate Assembly failed.
“Clearly this was a politically motivated move,” he told FoxNews.com. “I never received any request or complaint from MLA. These were perfectly legitimate fair use excerpts with great news value.”
“This is an attempt to silence our reporting on a matter of great public importance,” added Jacobson, whose website reported on the vote. “We intend to pursue all available remedies, and call on YouTube to restore our account.”
For those not familiar with the site, Legal Insurrection gets over 1.5 million page views per month and is a well-respected conservative blog that has been widely cited over the years by not only other conservative media outlets, but mainstream media publications …read more
Source: YouTube Joins The "Fake News" Crusade, Shuts Down Popular Conservative Channel
YouTube Joins The "Fake News" Crusade, Shuts Down Popular Conservative Channel
By Tyler Durden
Late last night YouTube blocked the channel of the influential conservative politics and law website, “Legal Insurrection,” citing copyright infringement claims. The creator of the website, Cornell University Law Professor William Jacobson, told Fox News he was given no warning of the action and no opportunity to defend himself, saying “it’s very frustrating, it’s very scary, to have 8 years of content removed without a chance to defend yourself.”
Without notice, YouTube replaced Legal Insurrection’s channel with the following notice:
While the infringement notice from YouTube cited “multiple third-party claims”, earlier this morning, Legal Insurrection posted the following update to their website noting the complaint came solely from the Modern Language Association and was based on a couple of short excerpts borrowed from a 2-hour video from MLA that were “well-within fair use.”
UPDATE 1-13-2017 9:50 a.m. — I just received notice from YouTube that the copyright claims were filed by the Modern Language Association based on excerpts of audio of pro- and anti-Israel speakers at the MLA Annual Meeting we reported on in this post, Massive DEFEAT for BDS at Modern Language Association.
We intend to fight this both at the YouTube and legal level. It is highly questionable that MLA owns the copyright for oral presentations at the Annual Meeting, and even if it did, the limited excerpts we used from the nearly 2-hour video posted by MLA on YouTube are well-within fair use. What I think is really going on here is that anti-Israel activists at MLA complained to MLA that MLA had posted the audio on YouTube. MLA took down its own 2-hour video and now seeks to silence our reporting.
Which, of course, led Jacobson to the logical conclusion that YouTube’s decision was seemingly nothing more than the latest attempt of Silicon Valley’s liberal elitists to censor conservative media outlets, saying “clearly this was a politically motivated move…these were perfectly legitimate fair use excerpts with great news value.”
In an email, Jacobson said that he never received notice of the claims prior to the channel’s removal on Thursday. On Friday the publisher received notification from YouTube that the copyright claims were filed by the Modern Languages Association (MLA) based on audio posted of a recent MLA vote on a resolution to boycott Israeli universities. The boycott resolution at the MLA Delegate Assembly failed.
“Clearly this was a politically motivated move,” he told FoxNews.com. “I never received any request or complaint from MLA. These were perfectly legitimate fair use excerpts with great news value.”
“This is an attempt to silence our reporting on a matter of great public importance,” added Jacobson, whose website reported on the vote. “We intend to pursue all available remedies, and call on YouTube to restore our account.”
For those not familiar with the site, Legal Insurrection gets over 1.5 million page views per month and is a well-respected conservative blog that has been widely cited over the years by not only other conservative media outlets, but mainstream media publications …read more
Source: YouTube Joins The "Fake News" Crusade, Shuts Down Popular Conservative Channel
Liberal media outlets mobilize for Trump presidency
President-elect Donald Trump has been a galvanizing force and an economic boon for many left-of-center outlets, which are now gearing up to cover his administration. …read more
Source: Liberal media outlets mobilize for Trump presidency
Sanctions, What Sanctions? Russia Bond Yields Plunge To 3 Year Lows
By Tyler Durden
After three years of US sanctions on Russia, Putin's cost of funding his nation's economy has tumbled as Russian government five-year ruble notes climbed further this week, pushing the yield to the lowest on a closing basis since February 2014.
As Bloomberg reports, the securities are gaining as a strengthening ruble and lower-than-expected inflation prompt economists to project that the Bank of Russia will resume interest-rate cuts as soon as March, and not in the second quarter as Governor Elvira Nabiullina had previously signaled.
Along with being the best performing stock market in the world since Trump's election, Russia's bond market has soared (while China's has tumbled).
Perhaps Rex Tillerson was right after all – despite the liberal media's desperation to paint him as yet another 'friend of Putin' – when he questioned the efficacy of US sanctions on Russia this week during his confirmation hearings…
The long-serving executive said the Trump administration needs to review the efficacy of the sanctions and judge whether there might be better ways to try to constrain, or potentially woo, the Kremlin.
“Sanctions, in order to be implemented, do impact American business interests,” Mr. Tillerson said in response to questioning. “When sanctions are imposed, they are, by design, going to harm American business.”
“In protecting American interests.…sanctions are a powerful tool. Let’s design them well… Let’s ensure those sanctions are applied equally.”
Source: Sanctions, What Sanctions? Russia Bond Yields Plunge To 3 Year Lows
Taiwan Tech Giant May Open US LCD Plant In Response To Trump’s "Make In America" Call
By Tyler Durden
While so far various international and domestic companies have announced, grudginly, they would expand production in the US, and hire US workers, after being called out by president-elect Trump on his favorite “bully pulpit”, Twitter, on Friday the push for insourcing took on an unsolicited twist, when Taiwan’s Hon Hai Precision Industry, also known as iPhone maker FoxConn, and one of the largest employers in the world, and its Japanese subsidiary Sharp, have begun studying the possibility of building an LCD panel plant in the U.S., a Sharp executive said Friday cited by Nikkei.
The Taiwanese electronics contract manufacturer, and its Japanese alliance partner SoftBank Group reportedly told Donald Trump they would jointly make significant investments creating new jobs in the U.S. when SoftBank Chairman Masayoshi Son met the President-elect in New York last month according to the Japanese paper.
The joint investment plan was proposed by Son, the Sharp executive said, and was put ‘on the table’ in response to Trump’s ‘Make in America’ call.
While it was reported before that Foxconn may consider making iPhones in the US, that speculation was at a very preliminary stage, with nothing definitive confirmed. It also took place prior to the diplomatic fiasco following Trump’s statement that the “one China” policy is negotiable.
Whether this is “gratitude” by Foxconn exces to Trump for siding with the small island is unknown. Officially, with Trump urging American manufacturers to bring operations back to the U.S., Hon Hai is considering production in the U.S. due to its huge market for TVs and other home appliances.
In late December, an LCD panel maker jointly owned by Hon Hai and Sharp announced it would build one of the world’s largest panel plants for LCD TVs in Guangzhou, China. The plant is to be jointly built with the local government at a cost of around 1 trillion yen ($8.69 billion) and is scheduled for completion in autumn 2018.
Details of the possible new U.S. plant, including the amount of investment and the date for the launch of operations, have yet to be decided. But people familiar with the plan said approximately the same amount may be spent on the U.S. project as it would entail the construction of a similar facility to to the one in Guangzhou.
Foxconn and Apple both have manufacturing facilities on a very small scale in the U.S., but the newly discussed facility by Foxconn and Sharp would be notably larger. Currently, Foxconn has plants in Virginia and Indiana, along with logistic locations in California and Texas.
As reported previously, Hon Hai, a major producer for Apple, is also considering producing iPhones in the U.S. As an incentive, Donald Trump in November told Tim Cook that he would offer the company a “very large tax cut” to make its products in the U.S. Cook was said to have remained largely neutral on the subject during his call with Trump, later pointing out that one of the major reasons Apple’s manufacturing is so …read more
Source: Taiwan Tech Giant May Open US LCD Plant In Response To Trump’s "Make In America" Call
