The finance ministry for the European Union has announced that cash transactions over 500 euros would soon be banned. Large transactions will only be allowed via credit card, or by check, which essentially amounts to mandating that people have bank accounts. Believe it or not a lot of people don’t have, and don’t want bank accounts. The finance ministry hopes this will help combat tax evasion.

European Union to criminalize cash transactions over 500 EUROs. Banking is the primary tool they use to control us. Free people transacting outside of their control is their biggest fear. As the original Rothschild said in 1838: "Let me issue and control a Nation's money and I care not who makes its laws".

Under sanctions imposed by the U.S. and its allies, dollars are hard to come by in Iran. The rial fell from 20,160 against the greenback on the street market in August to 36,500 rials to the dollar in October. It’s settled, for now, around 27,000. The central bank’s fixed official rate is 12,260. Yet there’s one currency in Iran that has kept its value and can be used to purchase goods from abroad: bitcoins, the online-only currency.

China has been recasting their gold reserves, currently in 12.4 kg bars into smaller 1 kg bars, allegedly to lay the foundation a gold backed currency, and new banking reserve system.

An accurate portrayal of the virtual nature of the US dollar which explores misconceptions and realities of the money used by so many.

“Fiat” is money with no intrinsic value beyond whatever an issuing government is able to enforce. When it enjoys a monopoly as currency, fiat inevitably turns the free market functions of money inside out. Instead of being a store of value, the currency becomes a point of plunder through monetary policies such as quantitative easing. Instead of greasing society as a medium of exchange, the currency acts as a powerful tool of social control.

A graphical visualization of approximately the first 1000 transactions starting at block 0 on the bitcoin network.

Each dot is a bitcoin address ("Hello!" when it appears). There is a line between dots when there is a transaction between them ("Transfer"). The size of the dots represent the amount of "influence" that address has (PageRank). It is sized relative to the probability that a bitcoin will end up in that address given the transactions that have been seen.

Unfortunately, too much attention got directed to Clint Eastwood and lost in the discussion was a plank on the GOP platform of interest to those desiring sound money.

Bitcoin heist shows we may all not be ready for a Wild West mentality with currency.

The 0.2-mil property tax for the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) passed by a huge margin in Metro Detroit's primary election. It will cost taxpayers with a homeowner's market value of $200,000 and a taxable value of $100,000 an additional $20 annually.