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How the World Bank can turn dormant SDRs into billions in new lending
by Gunnar Larson 07 Mar '23

07 Mar '23

What if there was a giant, untapped treasure trove that the World Bank could mine for tens of billions of dollars in *new, low-cost lending* within the next 12 months? And what if it could make use of Special Drawing Rights – the reserve asset created by the International Monetary Fund, many of which are languishing in central banks and treasuries? Enter the brainchild of two experts. They propose that the World Bank could issue a set of bonds denominated in SDRs <https://t.devex.com/dc/kyXVoDpAY__Vu56MNr4POsOu8-V3XC2wqJP1JI_OWCtc_mhrtlV9…>, a move that *could double the size of the bank’s primary lending wing* and give high-income countries a workaround to existing barriers in using those SDRs to support low-income countries. Shabtai has the details on this fairly technical proposal. All it will take is what he calls “financial wizardry” — so we’ll see if the bank and its shareholders take up the idea.

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USAID’s Goldilocks dilemma. Is USAID's climate ask too big or too small?
by Gunnar Larson 07 Mar '23

07 Mar '23

The U.S. Agency for International Development wants to spend an eye-popping amount of money to battle climate change — but it *wants the private sector to come up with the bulk of it*, raising the question of how realistic the ambitious plan is. On the flip side, “eye-popping” is in the eye of the beholder, and others are slamming the agency for lowballing what’s needed. Out of the $150 billion USAID wants to mobilize <https://t.devex.com/dc/kyXVoDpAY__Vu56MNr4POpCphgeXlcwK-5u_CbLr-mNjyqSrfhQ3…>, it *would only provide a few billion* of its own money, relying on external investors for the rest. The agency acknowledges both the magnitude of what it’s asking for — and that whatever it does garner is just the tip of a multitrillion-dollar iceberg. “The point of this exercise is to *turn a little money into a lot more money*,” says Gillian Caldwell, USAID’s chief climate officer. “It’s not a business-as-usual scenario at USAID right now, and I don’t think we should be expecting business-as-usual results.” But it’s tough to change the business-as-usual mindset of a behemoth bureaucracy, although some are impressed with the plan. “We are glad to see that the administration is putting some money where their mouth is,” Shaun Martin of the World Wildlife Fund says.

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Cryptocurrency: Grayscale GBTC Bitcoin ETF Sonnenshein WIN Court Oral Arguments vs SEC Gensler GovBank WarOnCrypto
by grarpamp 07 Mar '23

07 Mar '23

Audio transcripts released... Grayscale GBTC Bitcoin ETF wins oral arguments on principle. Nervous and dodging SEC lawyers expose themselves as simply wanting to arbitrarily kill Bitcoin and Crypto ETFs in the USA, making up nonsense arguments, injecting FUD, flailing around the fact that the world's free markets and price discovery in crypto are actually working just fine as they should. The court and its questions very clearly picked up on that. This is a good day for crypto and freedom worldwide. BTFD

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Wall Street On Parade’s Ongoing, Comprehensive Series On the Trading Scandal at the Federal Reserve
by Gunnar Larson 07 Mar '23

07 Mar '23

https://wallstreetonparade.com/12914-2/ The Federal Reserve Building in Washington, D.C. October 24, 2022: The Fed’s Trading Scandal Broadens into a Scandal with the Mega Banks It “Regulates” October 17, 2022: Atlanta Fed President Bought Low and Sold High in 2020 as the Fed Bailed Out Wall Street; Then He Failed to Report those Trades September 6, 2022: Former Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan’s Trading Scandal and the Merrick Garland Justice Department’s One Year of Silence July 15, 2022: The Fed’s Inspector General Clears Jerome Powell of Wrongdoing in the Trading Scandal, One Day After Five Senators Accuse Him of Hampering the Investigation July 14, 2022: Senators on Senate Banking Committee Accuse Fed Chair Powell of Hampering Trading Scandal Investigation April 21, 2022: It’s Been More than Seven Months and Still No Investigative Findings on the Fed’s Trading Scandal April 20, 2022: Biden Has Nominated a Man from the Sandy Weill/Robert Rubin/Tim Geithner School of Wall Street Hubris to Head Regulation at the Fed February 22, 2022: The Fed Just Added Short-Selling and Margin Loans to Its List of Trading Restrictions for Fed Officials – Opening a Big Can of Worms January 28, 2022: Bloomberg’s Craig Torres Shakes Up the Fed’s Zombie Press Conference with a Gutsy Trading Scandal Question January 18, 2022: After Its President Created the Biggest Trading Scandal in Fed History, Dallas Fed Chair Calls Robert Kaplan’s Tenure “Great Leadership” December 24, 2021: Dallas Fed, Home to the Largest Trading Scandal in Fed History, Quietly Runs a Help-Wanted Ad for a New General Counsel and Ethics Officer November 11, 2021: The Fed’s Board of Governors Is Blocking the Release of Former Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan’s Trading Records November 8, 2021: The Inspector General Investigating the Trading Scandal at the Fed, Reports to Fed Chair Jerome Powell, Whose Own Trading Is Dubious November 4, 2021: Prior to the Fed’s Trading Scandal, an Axios/Ipsos Poll Found 53 Percent of Americans Didn’t Trust the Fed October 21, 2021: A Forensic Look at Jerome Powell’s “Pants on Fire” Explanation for His $1 Million to $5 Million Stock Sale October 18, 2021: Another Fed Bank President’s Financial Disclosures Fail the Smell Test October 12, 2021: The Dallas Fed Board Is Now Complicit in the Robert Kaplan Saga October 8, 2021: Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan Was Gathering His Own Market Intelligence October 4, 2021: Senator Elizabeth Warren Puts the Heat on the SEC to Investigate Fed Officials for Insider Trading October 4, 2021: New Documents Show the Fed’s Trading Scandal Includes Two of the Wall Street Banks It Supervises: Goldman Sachs and Citigroup September 30, 2021: Dallas Fed President Kaplan Was Making Bold, Market-Moving Statements to Media During 2020 Crisis; the Same Year He Traded Tens of Millions of Dollars in Stocks and S&P 500 Futures September 29, 2021: Was Boston Fed President Rosengren Trading with Citigroup’s Money? September 28, 2021: Goldman Sachs Refuses to Say If It Was Placing Trades for Dallas Fed President Kaplan as Materially False Statement Released by Board on Kaplan’s Relationship with Goldman Sachs September 27, 2021: Robert Kaplan Was Trading Like a Hedge Fund Kingpin for Five Years while President of the Dallas Fed; a Dozen Legal Safeguards Failed to Stop Him September 21, 2021: Wall Street Watchdog, Better Markets, Calls Fed Presidents’ Trading Binge “Pandemic Profiteering” or, Possibly, “Illegal Insider Trading” September 20, 2021: The Justice Department Has Serious Grounds to Subpoena Trading Records from Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan September 19, 2021: Dallas Fed President Traded S&P 500 Futures. Dallas Fed Will Not Say If He Shorted the Market During Pandemic Crisis in 2020 September 15, 2021: The Latest Outrage Over Fed Presidents Trading Stocks Is Just the Tip of the Iceberg

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Avoiding Single-Point-of-Failure and securing the Root Infrastructure: TCG TPM 2.0
by ROOT＠HardenedVault 07 Mar '23

07 Mar '23

https://hardenedvault.net/blog/2023-03-07-tpm2-ref-firmware-security/ https://kb.cert.org/vuls/id/782720 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34985793 https://github.com/hardenedvault/bootkit-samples https://github.com/hardenedvault/vaultboot regards R@HardenedVault

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Be sure to mask-up while shoplifting
by professor rat 07 Mar '23

07 Mar '23

tiffany_caban · 9h I wear a mask while shopping. And it’s not so I can shoplift. I wear a mask because I give a damn about public health and it’s a very easy and small thing I can do to protect myself and other immunocompromised neighbors. This Mayor. Quote Tweet Bernadette Hogan @bern_hogan · 17h “And when you see these mask wearing people, oftentimes it's not about being fearful of the pandemic. It's fearful of the police catching [them] for their deeds,” @NYCMayor says he’s going to talk to Mayors across the US to come up with a national plan to tackle retail theft. Show this thread

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Cryptocurrency: Bitcoin announces vaporware at the Transylvania crypto conference
by grarpamp 07 Mar '23

07 Mar '23

> https://twitter.com/ercwl/status/1629562964150763520 Bitcoin will survive on waning hopium through its coming ma$$ive cycle peak. Hodling for that is conservatively ok. After that around 2025, it will face extreme competition from newer L1's that have privacy, thousands of tps, and consume storage no more than per-acct not per-tx, and from cross-L1 DEX's enabling freemarket price discovery across all relevant pairs, and darknet CEX for the rest. BTC Lightning is pretty much a joke... no p2p offline, and non-recurring endpoints are pointless (fees, preload funds into lockup, and "you have to keep a tab")... lol. BTC will either not change and lose marketshare, or will change thus committing self-nullifying hypocrisy over all its former maxi statements about never changing. Check the charts in 2026 to see who's nearer to flippening. Smart contracts and all other prog features don't belong in an efficient private p2p global simple money for the world, do that first. Never underestimate the power of the coming privacy coin revolution.

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Cryptocurrency: Crypto Goes RF with Locha Mesh Gotenna Satcom HAM GNURadio SDR and more...
by grarpamp 07 Mar '23

07 Mar '23

https://twitter.com/Locha_io https://locha.io/ Locha Mesh is open-source software & hardware to create the resilient network for private chat, censorship-resistant webs, Bitcoin and payments without internet. https://blockstream.com/satellite/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBM4bw3bhkM Locha Mesh: Monero Off the Grid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vc0I8QQIOr4?t=507 https://github.com/btcven/locha https://old.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/hm45f9/lochamesh_is_turning_people… https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/1276930007072411650/pu/vid/640x360/l_1… https://old.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/f281lt/ccs_funding_required_locha_… https://old.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/esbznr/ccs_proposal_locha_mesh_pri… https://cointelegraph.com/news/venezuelan-team-working-on-bitcoin-mesh-netw… https://old.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/e8to20/to_all_the_clowns_the_liar… https://www.wired.com/story/cypherpunks-bitcoin-ham-radio/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/dy5eac/bitcoin_sent_from_toronto_… https://inthemesh.com/archive/lot49-adding-payments-to-mesh-networks https://gotenna.com/blogs/newsroom/gotennas-vine-routing-protocol-provides-… https://repo.getmonero.org/monero-project/ccs-proposals/ https://cryptonewsmonitor.com/2018/01/22/samourai-wallet-introduces-bitcoin… https://old.reddit.com/user/rdymac/submitted/ https://blockstream.com/2019/05/11/en-gotenna-satellite-api-integration/ https://medium.com/hackernoon/completely-offline-bitcoin-transactions-4e583… https://old.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/e95ugd/can_someone_make_bitcoin_w… https://disaster.radio/ https://mobile.twitter.com/nvk/status/1095354354289135617 https://txtenna.com/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_mesh_network https://www.lopp.net/bitcoin-information.html https://www.bitcoinvenezuela.com/

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GOVCORP is winning - NOT
by professor rat 07 Mar '23

07 Mar '23

Quite contrary to what certain idiotic political imbeciles are shoveling ( Hi Gramps ) the fact the wealthiest statist criminals - like Larry Ellison, Bill Gates and now Elon Musk - are running scared instead of doing victory laps should tell the most obtuse anonymous coward something. thedailybeast.com Bodyguards Follow Elon Musk Everywhere at Twitter HQ, Even to Restroom, Says Engineer The bodyguards are “tall” and “bulky” like something out of a Hollywood movie, a Twitter engineer said. Have your people call my people https://stiffs.com/celebrity/billgates Any networked prediction market on a person is also a decentralized assassination market on that person.

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Who’s Worse, Trump or DeSantis? A Pointless Liberal Debate
by Gunnar Larson 06 Mar '23

06 Mar '23

Who’s Worse, Trump or DeSantis? A Pointless Liberal Debate https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-03-05/who-s-worse-trump-or-… As the Ron DeSantis presidential campaign edges ever closer to reality, liberal fears of a DeSantis presidency are getting ever more detached from it. Is he just as bad as Donald Trump? Or even worse? And is it OK to scold your fellow liberals for jumping to conclusions about DeSantis? Or are the scoldings themselves premature?

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