Eli Dourado has a well written and easy to understand article about how Bitcoin transaction reversal and arbitration works. The feature built into Bitcoin is known as m-of-n or “multisignature” transactions. Here’s a brief extract: The simplest variant is a 2-of-3 transaction. Let’s say that I want to buy goods online from an anonymous counterparty. […]
December 4, 2013 | Bitcoin, Economics, Finance | No comments
As someone who recently purchased Bitcoin and two other crypto currencies using three different methods, I thought I’d share how to buy Bitcoin because I know there’s precious little information out there: Coinbase: The easiest way I found without leaving your computer is to sign into Coinbase.com and add your bank account. They’ll do 2 […]
November 28, 2013 | Economics, Finance, Investing | 7 comments
A reputable investment bank approaches you and says they’ll lend you as much money as you want for a very low interest rate. The rate depends on how long you want to hang onto the cash: 1 Month will cost you 0.01% APR interest 6 months: 0.07% 1 years: 0.11% 5 years: 0.88% 10 years: […]
Last Friday and again today the DJIA got a nice bump from data showing unemployment has dropped from 9% to 8.6%. This number is known as U3 and only counts those actively looking for work. U4 is what the government should publish which counts U3 + those who have given up looking. We “added 120,000 […]
December 5, 2011 | Business, Economics, Finance | No comments
A good friend refers to the Apple App Store as the California Lottery. So I thought I’d do some rough numbers on how feasible it is to build a big software business creating apps for iPad and iPhone and selling them in Apple’s App Store. The Apple App Store will still own three quarters of […]
John Robb writes an excellent post arguing that the concentration of wealth in the United States has resulted in a centrally planned economy. I wanted to expand on his writing. After World War II, there was a widely held view that Nazi Germany was the result of failed capitalism. Economists and political scientists in the UK […]
August 12, 2011 | Economics | No comments
I ran across this page on the Treasury’s website via Marc Cuban’s blog. It shows the yield on US government treasury bonds, adjusted for inflation. If the yield on a bond is 3% and inflation is 2.5%, the real yield is 0.5%. So in inflation adjusted terms, anyone buying 5yr treasuries today is paying the […]
August 10, 2011 | Economics | No comments
I have a sinking feeling there will be blood. Right now Dow is down 4.45%, S&P down 5.69%, Nasdaq down 5.7%, Gold up 3.87% and rising. The DAX closed down 5% and the worst drops happend towards end of trading, so I’m expecting the same for US markets. Update: I hate to say I told […]
If you haven’t heard the news, S&P just downgraded us from AAA to AA+ and gave us a negative outlook to add insult to injury. But it’s not like we didn’t deserve it. In a democracy, people deserve the government they get. Remember that “We the people…” document? Well we the people just got a […]
August 5, 2011 | Economics | No comments
I grew up in South Africa and for a time my birth country was the only worthwhile stop on the long sea journey that spice traders would make from Europe to India and back. South Africa was colonized by Europeans for this reason. A guy called Jan Van Riebeeck was ordered to set up camp […]