Money Watch

Mike Adams | It is now abundantly obvious that bitcoin has become an insidious “trap” that’s taking money from suckers who are deluded into believing the “bitcoin cult.”

Zero Hedge | Youth unemployment once again hit a record high 59.3% in January.

Zero Hedge | As Reuters reports, European Union ministers will consider a proposal this week to impose losses on short-term interbank deposits of lenders.

techcrunch.com | The Bitcoin correction we wrote about yesterday was not caused by a DDOS attack on one of the largest Bitcoin exchanges, Mt.Gox, but rather by a massive spike in interest in the crypto currency, according to Mt.Gox.

Mac Slavo | Just a few months ago the total net worth of all Bitcoins, a popular encrypted digital currency, was worth about $140 million.

Zero Hedge | As it turns out, it was “all the central bank’s fault”.

Business Insider | As Bitcoin prices charge ever higher, the same people who were dismissing Bitcoin as a “bubble” at $35 six weeks ago are now huffing about it being even more of a “bubble” at $235.

Bull Market Thinking | A stunning piece of information was brought to my attention yesterday.

Prison Planet.com | Bitcoins, like stocks, create the illusion of free wealth during a rise in valuation.

Mike Adams | The plot to criminalize bitcoin.

New American | If the legislation is signed by Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican, Arizona would become the second state to officially define gold and silver as legal tender.

BNN.ca | The U.S. government is influencing the price of gold to prop up its currency and bond markets, John Embry, Sprott Asset Management’s chief strategist tells BNN.

Business Insider | Margaret Thatcher was an incredibly polarizing figure, but everyone should be able to agree that she was absolutely spot on about why the Euro would be such a disaster.

A Lightning War for Liberty | The news surrounding Bitcoin is now coming in so hard and fast it is virtually (pun intended) impossible to keep track of it all.

Bloomberg | Distrust of the Federal Reserve and concern that U.S. dollars may become worthless are fueling a push in more than a dozen states to recognize gold and silver coins as legal tender.

UK Daily Mail | Three members of the same Italian family have taken their own lives after state-imposed austerity measures and mounting debts left them believing there was no way out.

Zero Hedge | An incredible 30,000 households per month have seen their power supply cut off.

Washington’s Blog | We Can’t Fix What We Don’t Understand.

Mac Slavo | The nearly $50 million in gold was promptly seized by authorities.

Washington’s Blog | Rhode Island Tries to Slay the MERS Dragon.

Washington’s Blog | Instead of Changing their Behavior to Prevent Another Crisis, the Powers-That-Be Double Down On the Strategies that Caused the Financial Crisis In the First Place.

The Hill | President Obama’s budget, to be released next week, will limit how much wealthy individuals – like Mitt Romney – can keep in IRAs and other retirement accounts.

Natural News | Cutting edge currency circumvents central banking system.

Washington’s Blog | Poverty Spikes In America … While the Government Throws Money at the Super-Elite.

Zero Hedge | For a few days, the rest of the world looked on awaiting the riots and social unrest in Cyprus that we have become accustomed to from their fellow unter-sufferers Greece and Spain; but it never came.

Reuters | The Bank of Japan unleashed the world’s most intense burst of monetary stimulus on Thursday.

Washington’s Blog | 50% In Favor of Directly Breaking Them Up … Many More In Favor of Stopping Artificial Support and Letting them Shrink On Their Own.

Business Insider | A father and son from Austin say they’ve just sold their 2007 Porsche Cayman S for approximately 300 Bitcoins.

Karl Denninger | The screeching coming from CNBS and elsewhere this morning is amusing.

UK Daily Mail | The number of Americans living in poverty has spiked to levels not seen since the mid 1960s, classing 20 per cent of the country’s children as poor.

Zero Hedge | From ‘why Cyprus could not bail out its banks’ to its failed financing needs and the road to confiscation, Demonocracy provides the ‘everything you wanted to know about Cyprus’ infograph ‘but were afraid to read’.

Zero Hedge | The ever-changing rules of the French ‘tax-the-rich’ socialist state have mad eyet another unintended consequence.

Business Insider | While you were sleeping, the utterly insane roller coaster world of Bitcoin continued to do its thing.

Saman Mohammadi | Obama Ben Bernanke is to America what Osama bin Laden was to Islam: poison.

Natural News | Federal Reserve recently stole more than 25 percent of Americans’ savings and investments with ‘quantitative easing’ scam.

Business Insider | We were just talking about what a disaster the Eurozone economy was.

Mac Slavo | One of the most dangerous cities in America has just declared bankruptcy, leaving creditors out hundreds of millions of dollars.

Mike Adams | I’d like to share a lesson in economics today, and I call it the “Production, Coercion and Theft” lesson.

Bloomberg News | The U.S. economy is in a bubble inflated by “phony money” from the Federal Reserve and will burst within a few years, warned David Stockman, who was budget director for President Ronald Reagan.

Zero Hedge | The two countries may as well be joined at the hip.

Zero Hedge | After being told that the Cypriot business model was broken, the ever-resilient people of this ‘storm in a teacup’ island have, by all appearances, taken up their entrepreneurial sickles to make hay while the Troika sun shines.

Zero Hedge | There are many lessons and implications from the Cypriot crisis (we list 25 here).

Zero Hedge | For those curious.

CNBC | The EU/IMF raiding bank accounts in Cyprus to bail out the country’s financial system sets a dangerous precedent and investors should “run for the hills” said investor Jim Rogers.

Reuters | Under conditions expected to be announced on Saturday, depositors in Bank of Cyprus will get shares in the bank worth 37.5 percent of their deposits over 100,000 euros, the source told Reuters.

Prison Planet.com | The free market has already moved in to help Cypriots get access to their money via other means…

Washington Examiner | Medicare has opened the door to covering transexual operations, adding to the growing list of operations that would be allowed under Obamacare.

London Guardian | Just 24 hours ago Cypriots were told curbs to prevent money from leaving the country would only be in place for a week.

Mac Slavo | Faber is not suggesting you shouldn’t own gold, he’s highlighting how serious of a crisis we’re actually in, something the mainstream media won’t touch with a ten foot pole.

Lew Rockwell Blog | Here’s an account (literally).