Archive for the 'Economy' Category
Meet the Prison Bankers Who Profit From the Inmates
October 1st, 2014Even by Cryptogon standards, this one is shocking. Via: Time: JPay and other prison bankers collect tens of millions of dollars every year from inmates’ families in fees for basic financial services. To make payments, some forego medical care, skip utility bills and limit contact with their imprisoned relatives, the Center for Public Integrity found […]
One-Fifth of U.S. Workers Were Laid Off in Past Five Years
September 30th, 2014Remember the green shoots? Via: Los Angeles Times: One in five U.S. workers was laid off in the past five years and about 22% of those who lost their jobs still haven’t found another one, according to a new survey that showed the extent Americans have struggled in the sluggish labor market since the Great […]
Mystery Man Who Moves Japanese Markets Made More Than 1 Million Trades
September 28th, 2014This is an entertaining piece about a Japanese daytrader who goes by the alias CIS. Via: Bloomberg: Betting on rebounds was dangerous, but he’d watched SoftBank lose a fifth of its value over nine days, and a drop in U.S. markets overnight had driven the shares even lower. The odds were tilting further in favor […]
Ello: Something’s Missing from the About Page
September 27th, 2014I was looking for some sort of social networking site or software that Cryptogon contributors could use in a post-Cryptogon era. I thought Ello might be worth considering—until I researched it a bit more. Check this out. Via: Aral Balkan: What I didn’t know at the time was that they’d taken $435,000 in seed funding […]
NY Fed Fired Examiner Who Took on Goldman Sachs
September 26th, 2014Via: ProPublica: In the spring of 2012, a senior examiner with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York determined that Goldman Sachs had a problem. Under a Fed mandate, the investment banking behemoth was expected to have a company-wide policy to address conflicts of interest in how its phalanxes of dealmakers handled clients. Although Goldman […]
Hungary Suspends Gas Supplies to Ukraine
September 26th, 2014Via: BBC: Hungary’s gas pipeline operator, FGSZ, says it has suspended delivery of gas to neighbouring Ukraine “indefinitely”. Ukraine has been receiving gas from Hungary, Poland and Slovakia since Russia cut off supplies to Ukraine in June in a dispute over unpaid bills. Ukraine’s state-owned gas firm, Naftogaz, confirmed the stoppage. It called the move […]
Managing a Nightmare: The CIA Reveals How It Watched Over the Destruction of Gary Webb
September 25th, 2014Via: First Look: Eighteen years after it was published, “Dark Alliance,” the San Jose Mercury News’s bombshell investigation into links between the cocaine trade, Nicaragua’s Contra rebels, and African American neighborhoods in California, remains one of the most explosive and controversial exposés in American journalism. The 20,000-word series enraged black communities, prompted Congressional hearings, and […]
China’s Tech Factories Turn to Student Labor
September 25th, 2014Via: Dow Jones: CHONGQING, China—On the outskirts of this southwestern Chinese hub lie the student factories. Schools send thousands of teenagers here to put together electronic devices for some of the world’s largest brands. Many students say they are given no choice. … Student interns have become increasingly entrenched in China’s labor force, especially among […]
U.S. Attacking Oil Infrastructure Belonging to… ISIS?
September 24th, 2014Via: CNN: U.S. and coalition warplanes pounded ISIS positions in eastern Syria on Wednesday, targeting what a Pentagon official described as mobile oil refineries being used by the so-called Islamic State terror group to help finance its operations. The latest round of airstrikes were aimed at cutting off money flowing to ISIS, which makes up […]
Scientists Make Airborne Ebola… In Laboratory Conditions Only *wink*
September 24th, 2014Via: Reuters: Ben Neuman, a Reading virologist who has been monitoring the Ebola epidemic since it began in Guinea, noted that under carefully controlled laboratory conditions, scientists have shown it is feasible to make Ebola transmit through air, but added: “So far there is no solid evidence that it actually happens out there in the […]
