"Blowhard" Predicts $1 Million BTC By 2020!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epObQ1AujyQ

"John McAfee, founder of McAfee Associates a well-known software company  has always been Bullish on Bitcoin, in fact, he has even been confrontational on the fact.

In July, with a lot of fear and uncertainty surrounding Bitcoin ahead of its Aug. 1 chain split, McAfee came forward and stated boldly that he was willing to stake his name and up to $10 mln on a bet that the Bitcoin price will move above $500,000 within three years or he would "eat my d**k on national television."

That prediction was seen as ludacris at the time, and many were left wondering how his on-screen promise would play out - however, now that Bitcoin has crossed $11,000, McAfee is not sitting back smugly, but rather raising the bar.

The outspoken tech mogul has now said:

“When I predicted Bitcoin at $500,000 by the end of 2020, it used a model that predicted $5,000 at the end of 2017. BTC has accelerated much faster than my model assumptions. I now predict Bitcoin at $1 mln by the end of 2020. I will still eat my dick if wrong.”

Source : "John McAfee Doubles Down, Predicts $1 Mln BTC, Bets His D**k On It" 

            [ obf sez: Too funny! Mr McAfee used some sort of supposedly "predictive" model of his to predict a future price, but he got it wrong, and so now, of course [:-) ], he has a new model to use! Whodathunkit? What could be simpler ? This "techno-narcissist" knows all! [because his latest model is infallible].

The underlying psychology of this person is no different from any other person using an economic model, be they an "investment advisor", an economist or something else. Just another know-it-all [great for entertainment value :-) ].

Summary: "Houston , You Have a Problem"

And so, dear reader, if you really believe that Mr McAfee [or any other "techno-geek", let alone any regular "investment expert"] can successfully, consistently predict the financial/economic future, via the implementation of some secret [ no doubt algorithm- rich] formula, then I would suggest that you, like Mr McAfee himself, have a serious problem and should seek help.

See: "Do Not"Invest"In Bitcoin! [Or:How to Safely Profit With Bitcoin Etc.] "

Also: The Folly of Forecasting

                     

                                                       image source

                         

                                                     image source

                     

                                                      image source

  

                                                      image source

Regards, Financial Safety Services: onebornfreeatyahoodotcom

Revisiting The "Swiss Banks Are Not Safe for U.S Depositors" Scam

[N.B. Financial Safety Services has no professional affiliation with any bank, Swiss or otherwise, anywhere in the world.]

Main Goals of the Scam: 

1]:To scare US citizens into abandoning offshore bank accounts [even though it is still perfectly legal for them to have one] and to "repatriate" their offshore finances. 

In other words, big U.S banks are behind all of this, to no less an extent than the government itself- the banks obtain more fees from their new, scared , ex-offshore banking, customers.


2]: "Sheep shearing", i.e to "beat the bushes" and scare US persons  using  legitimate offshore banks in Switzerland and elsewhere into finally "coming clean" and paying even more money to the Federal behemoth than they already do, so that just like the banks themselves, the government gets more money [i.e. tax revenues]. 

Also, it is far easier for the US government to seize funds from a customers account within a fully cooperative US based bank that is threatened, than it is for it to do the same to an entirely foreign bank outside of direct US government influence.

 Timing:

As in all government scams, for maximum psychological effect, timing is crucial in the scam/shearing operation.

Because the US "tax day" deadline is  set for April 14th, typically [actually, like "clockwork" every year], the scam usually starts in the New Year and builds momentum  January through March to its final crescendo of  attention-grabbing headline status by April 14th. or so, as a scary reminder to all "good" [i.e. extremely gullible] US citizens to pay their "fair share" of taxes, and not to be naughty girls and boys and try to bank offshore, because according to those annual headline-grabbing, intentionally fear-inducing headlines, the US government can grab any/all offshore accounts it feels like, whenever it feels like it - even in Switzerland, despite its 600-odd year history of banking privacy for all  non-criminal, depositors.

 How The Scam Works: The "Straw Man" Set Up

The scam works by setting up a "straw  man"[ or "straw men"] , who most people will, out of sheer  ignorance, believe to be the genuine article, then have the U. S government attack [or "put pressure on"] said straw men, who then predictably,  cave in to that pressure after a suitable amount of resistance on their part.

The media  [i.e the propaganda arm of the U.S government] then dutifully broadcasts the caving in of the straw men and this is then broadcast as "proof positive" that other, seemingly similar 
 institutions [to the uneducated, anyway], are just as vulnerable as the straw men who have now caved to the demands of the U.S. government.

This Years [2013] Two Favorite Straw Men? : Credit Suisse and U.B.S.

This time around, there appear to be at least two straw men: Credit Suisse and U.B.S.  therefor, pre April 14th we have had stories like this one appearing in places like The Wall Street Journal, implying that your money is no longer safe in any Swiss bank.

U.S Behind The Pressure Put On German Depositors?

Allthough the journal Article focusses on the ongoing trials and tribulations between German depositors and these two particular straw men, the implication is that the exact same demands from these institutons apply to U.S depositors  at U.B.S. and Credit Suisse- which they do, of course.

In actuality, and in all liklihood, the U.S. government   persuaded  the German government to apply pressure in  a "quid pro quid" arrangement to both their benefits. The timing of these "bush beating" escapades makes me suspect direct US involvement in what is happening to German depositors at these two institutions [Unless maybe the Germans also have an April income tax filing deadline or similar.]

Forget Most "Alternative" and "Free Market" Commentaries Too! 

And by the way, even some of the the "alternative" "free market" financial press appears to have been fooled by the latest US government shenanigans, as these articles from The Daily Bell clearly show . [Which just goes to show, and no differently from any other news source, don't believe everything you read on an "alternative" "free market" website either.]: 

http://www.thedailybell.com/28954/The-Destruction-of-Offshore-Banking-Tolls-for-Thee

http://www.thedailybell.com/28946/Anthony-Wile-Offshore-Banking-and-the-Shadow-of-the-Gallows-

Financial Privacy Anyone?:

If you want financial privacy via an offshore bank account [for whatever reason], and while it is still legal to do so, do not open such an account with any bank that has ANY branches in the US, or even has branches in an overseas territory at the mercy and influence of the US government.  


Confiscation/ Seizure of US Citizen Depositors Funds


Remember also, any bank account held in the US or overseas that is subject to US law , in any US regulated domestic or foreign bank branch [ie still subject to US law], can be easily frozen, or even confiscated ", merely on suspicion", pre-trial, even pre-sentencing, by virtually any federal agency or by any federal judge, literally on a whim.

Exactly Why Are Credit Suisse and U.B.S. U.S Government "Straw Men" [ and therefor extremely vulnerable to U.S government pressure] ?  :
I've written about this before, and why it is not true [and can never be true] that all Swiss Banks are susceptible to the same political pressure being applied to Credit Suisse, U.B.S. and their clients, by the U,S. bank lobby, via the U.S. government, here.

 I see no need to repeat myself at this time. So if interested in this subject please read my previous article here. The article is free for you to read. 

Still Don't Get It?

However if you are unable to "read between the lines" there, I'm afraid I would have to charge you for my time spent explaining further :-) !

Happy [and safe and private] offshore banking everyone.

Regards, Financial Safety Services.

*****************************

FINANCIAL SAFETY SERVICES DISCLAIMER:

Financial Safety Services is NOT an investment advisory service. Financial Safety Services is an educational service that teaches the interested individual non-original [i.e. invented by others far more intelligent than myself], time-tested safe methods/principles that might be successfully used by the individual for relatively low risk speculations in various financial markets.

ACCURACY OF INFORMATION : Financial Safety Services MAKES NO CLAIMS AS TO THE ACCURACY OF ANY INFORMATION EITHER GIVEN AT THIS BLOG SITE, OR IN PERSON TO PAYING CLIENTS. All information given/sold, must be understood to have been acted on AT THE INDIVIDUALS OWN RISK .

********************************************************************

More About Financial Safety Services

[Free phone consultations via "Skype". To set a time/date email: onebornfreeatyahoodotcom ]

Financial Safety Services is a private , mostly off-line, international, person to person consulting service that attempts to show its real-time [i.e. non-internet derived] clients how to speculate safely with money that they can afford to lose. Money that the client cannot afford to lose should never be risked in these speculations

For more than 20 years, nearly all of Financial Safety Services clients to date have been found via direct [i.e off-line, in-person] referral from previously satisfied clients only.

No attempts are made to procure clientele via the selling of the sporadic, deliberately incomplete online information posted at this site. All valuable information is sold to clients, via e-mail, or preferably in person, on a "need to know" customized basis, depending on their specific speculative wants/needs.

Therefor any/all posts at this site are for the reference and possible benefit of pre-existing , real-world, paying clients only as part of my services [and to perhaps help emphasize a particular point I make to them in private], and never for the benefit of the general reading public and casual internet reader at large.

Internet posts arer not made on a regular schedule in order to build an on-line audience; only when I feel that so doing is beneficial to my actual existing clientele.

I have no interest in gaining clients first hand from any posts made either here or elsewhere [if it happens, it happens!] - as I previously stated, to date [20 years+], nearly all of my previous clients have come to me via direct, in-person referral from other satisfied clients- that is, [1]an existing client personally recommends my services to a close friend, [2] the friend contacts me, [3]we discuss their wants/needs, [4] I make a decision as to whether or not I can really help them, [5] We come to a financial agreement- or not :-) .

None- Client Questions?

Should a casual reader/none client have a serious question about an assertion I make on this site, they must write to me at: onebornfreeatyahoodotcom and I will do my best to answer their question. Their first question will usually be answered for free. After that, fees may apply.

Current Client Questions.

All existing, paying client questions are of course, answered for free [usually via private e-mail]- it is part of the service!

onebornfreeatyahoodotcom

******************************************************************************************

The Invisible Hand [Always] Strikes Back

[Financial Safety Services commentary:  a good article from Anthony Wile of  "The Daily Bell" follows below this commentary. Mr Wile is commenting on the idea, still being promoted by the establishment financial media, that the traditional "buy and hold" strategy for stocks is still reliable, and he zero's in on a recent Bloomberg article  that unabashedly promotes the traditional "buy and hold" concept that had seemed to work so well for both Wall Street and the proverbial " man on the street"  till around 2000 or so.  

Invisible hand vs. All-seeing eye

Of course, the truth of the matter is that "The Invisible Hand" , is always striking back and correcting capital misallocations. This effectively means that the economic future can never be reliably and consistently predicted. 

Meaning, if you take Mr Wile's "gloom and doom"/continuing bull markets for gold and other "hard" assets predictions seriously, bet on them all only using money you can safely afford to lose- in other words,  speculate in those markets you believe Mr Wile predictions will benefit, don't invest in them long term with money you cannot afford to lose.

 Likewise for any believed stock market boom  predictions by the likes of Bloomberg etc. - remember that these  future prosperity predictions have just as much chance of being right or wrong as do Mr Wile's {or any one else's} "gloom and doom" scenarios. 

And by the way money you cannot afford to lose should, as usual, always be kept in a long- term savings plan that has no bias towards any particular economic future, and that is instead designed to make a small profit regardless of what the economic future may hold: a stock market boom, a deflationary collapse, continued recession, or whatever. 

On the other hand, should you be lucky enough to have money you can afford to lose should events move against you, then stock market index option   "calls" [if you believe the stock market is headed upwards from here], or index option "puts", or "shorts" [if you believe the market has peaked and will shortly collapse], or maybe other similar simple arrangements that might also bring you profit should your bet be correct, [ with suitable "buy in" points and automatic sell prices and other safety measures firmly in place] , might be the way the to go. Or, if you feel [i.e."know"] that Mr Wile is correct, then buy gold bullion. 

Happy speculating! {with the money you can afford to lose, that is}] Regards, Financial Safety Services.

Saturday, December 29, 2012 – by Anthony Wile 

"Bloomberg has posted an article entitled "Americans Miss $200 Billion [by] Abandoning Stocks" that is presumably supposed to illustrate the folly of avoiding equities but in my view merely illustrates the difficulty of sustaining this meme.

And make no mistake, it IS a meme.

The idea that one can simply buy and hold equities like family heirlooms was always suspect and is more-so now. That's because people simply cannot internalize the reality of a failing economy and a booming stock market. The cognitive dissonance makes them wary.

Thanks to what we call the Internet Reformation, many people are much savvier about how the market works and the way the economy behaves. Such individuals are not apt to assume that the US recession is over just because the mainstream media proclaims it is so. They are nervous and not easily willing to dump large amounts of cash into the stock market.

Who can blame them?

This doesn't stop Bloomberg from launching articles like this one. The idea of course – the dominant social theme if you will – is that investing is frightening but those with a strong stomach can become wealthy if they just "stay the course." Here's more:

Americans have missed out on almost $200 billion of stock gains as they drained money from the market in the past four years, haunted by the financial crisis ...

Assets in equity mutual, exchange-traded and closed-end funds increased about 85 percent to $5.6 trillion since the bull market began in March 2009, trailing the Standard & Poor's 500 Index's 94 percent advance.

The retreat shows that even the biggest gain since 1998 failed to heal investor confidence after the financial collapse that wiped out $11 trillion in U.S. equity value was followed by record price swings in equities, a market breakdown that briefly erased $862 billion in share value and the slowest recovery from a recession since World War II. Individuals are withdrawing money as political leaders struggle to avert budget cuts that threaten to throw the economy into a new slump.

"Our biggest liability in the stock market has been the total destruction to confidence," James Paulsen, the chief investment strategist at Minneapolis-based Wells Capital Management, which oversees about $325 billion, said in a telephone interview. "There's just so much evidence of this recovery broadening." ...

Individuals have also seen evidence that computerized trading is making stock markets less reliable. An equity rout temporarily sent the Dow down almost 1,000 points on May 6, 2010, causing investors to question the stability of market mechanics and the effectiveness of regulators.

Botched IPOs for Facebook Inc. (FB) and Bats Global Markets Inc. earlier this year led to concern about trading and exchange technology, while Knight Capital Group Inc. nearly went out of business in August after it bombarded U.S. equity exchanges with erroneous orders in the wake of improperly installed software that malfunctioned.

"Whether it's the flash crash, the low-growth economy, unemployment, uncertainty about jobs -- those things just don't engender any desire to risk money," Walter "Bucky" Hellwig, who helps manage $17 billion of assets at BB&T Wealth Management in Birmingham, Alabama, said in a phone interview. "Investors say: The stock market? I don't have a clue as to how it works anymore."

Those who have organized modern equity markets have no one to blame but themselves. While certain stocks (especially small stocks) may offer legitimate promise, the larger marketplace is seen as unreliable. Too much has been passed off as legitimate that is not.

And many investors have internalized the disconnect between the economy and stock market performance. The Federal Reserve's tremendous money printing has boosted stock prices over the past four years, but this has only illustrated the control that the elites exercise over investment activities.
Facebook was the big story of 2012, but its wretched overpricing and downright weird business model had investors scratching their heads. The suspicion that US intelligence agencies had a hand in both the IPO and the company itself didn't help Facebook's cause.

The Flash Crash received a good bit of attention, making investors aware – as they had never been before – of how quickly stock valuations could change. But it's really quantitative easing that is the outstanding issue – the one that Bloomberg chooses to present without properly explaining the mechanism.

There is generally a great deal of talk about how stock markets and stocks themselves are value-oriented investments. But what is clear to many people is how close the market came to a meltdown in 2007-2008. The system proved a good deal more fragile than people have been led to expect.

Couple that with the Fed's ongoing money-printing that has literally doubled equity values and you get increasing resistance to the whole idea of stock investing. First people are frightened by the breakdown of the system itself and then they are exposed to ongoing – "industrial strength" – monetary manipulation.

What do those in the industry expect? What do elites that have built up the modern stock market believe people will do with their money? People "get it" ... and not in a good way. The Age of Promotion is waning in the setting of a waxing monetary expansion that was aided and abetted by mainstream media misdirection for decades. Too bad.

Once the Great Depression hit, people gradually stopped investing in stocks. Even after World War II, there was no appreciable action in US equities. NYSE officials ended up going on road shows in the 1950s to tout the benefits of stocks and stock-market investing.

At the time, the markets were ripe for US stocks. The US dominated the world, which had been mostly destroyed by the war. US industry was ascending and US power was at an all time high. People who invested in stocks were amply rewarded.

That's simply not the case today. US debt is in the tens, even hundreds, of trillions. The dollar itself is increasingly looked upon with suspicion around the world and its reserve status may be in jeopardy.
Perhaps most questionable from an investment standpoint is the money that has already been released by central banks in order to stimulate the economy. Much of this currency remains trapped in bank coffers, but it will circulate eventually.

The circulation of these trillions will cause tremendous price inflation – that will in turn result in significant interest rate hikes. As in the 1970s, these rate hikes will damp the recovery (to put it mildly), and stock prices as well.

I haven't even touched on the so-called fiscal cliff, which I believe will be resolved one way or another without the entirety of its tax-and-spend burden being implemented. But it, too, illustrates just how vulnerable equities are to outside political forces and their potential impact on the economy.
The past five years have shown investors clearly that stocks are NOT the proverbial "sure thing." There are good stocks, of course. There are good investments.

But this Bloomberg article is focusing on the wrong argument. The powers-that-be may wish to encourage stock investing, but reminding people of how far down the markets have traveled, and how extensively they have been manipulated by central bankers is not the way to do it.

The road to recovery for many kinds of equities will be a long and hard one. Even gold and silver stocks will struggle. The problem is that reality has caught up to the promotion. The market itself has struck back.

Of course one can argue, as we do, that the current US stock behavior – and modern downturns – have been in a sense planned by the powers-that-be for a variety of reasons, mostly having to do with impending global governance. But it is also obvious that Money Power seeks a continual "buy in" to the systems it has created and implemented.

This time, people aren't buying. Despite all their power, the elites are still at the mercy of the Invisible Hand and the natural laws that govern us all. It will be nice to watch the Internet Reformation swing the pendulum back in the direction of truth." 

Article source

FINANCIAL SAFETY SERVICES DISCLAIMER:

Financial Safety Services is NOT an investment advisory service. Financial Safety Services is an educational service that teaches the interested individual non-original [i.e. invented by others far more intelligent than myself], time-tested safe methods/principles that might be successfully used by the individual for relatively low risk speculations in various financial markets.

ACCURACY OF INFORMATION : Financial Safety Services MAKES NO CLAIMS AS TO THE ACCURACY OF ANY INFORMATION EITHER GIVEN AT THIS BLOG SITE, OR IN PERSON TO PAYING CLIENTS. All information given/sold, must be understood to have been acted on AT THE INDIVIDUALS OWN RISK .

********************************************************************

More About Financial Safety Services

[Free phone consultations via "Skype". To set a time/date email: onebornfreeatyahoodotcom ]

Financial Safety Services is a private , mostly off-line, international, person to person consulting service that attempts to show its real-time [i.e. non-internet derived] clients how to speculate safely with money that they can afford to lose. Money that the client cannot afford to lose should never be risked in these speculations

For more than 20 years, nearly all of Financial Safety Services clients to date have been found via direct [i.e off-line, in-person] referral from previously satisfied clients only.

No attempts are made to procure clientele via the selling of the sporadic, deliberately incomplete online information posted at this site. All valuable information is sold to clients, via e-mail, or preferably in person, on a "need to know" customized basis, depending on their specific speculative wants/needs.

Therefor any/all posts at this site are for the reference and possible benefit of pre-existing , real-world, paying clients only as part of my services [and to perhaps help emphasize a particular point I make to them in private], and never for the benefit of the general reading public and casual internet reader at large.

Internet posts arer not made on a regular schedule in order to build an on-line audience; only when I feel that so doing is beneficial to my actual existing clientele.

I have no interest in gaining clients first hand from any posts made either here or elsewhere [if it happens, it happens!] - as i previously stated, to date [20 years+], nearly all of my previous clients have come to me via direct, in-person referral from other satisfied clients- that is, [1]an existing client personally recommends my services to a close friend, [2] the friend contacts me, [3]we discuss their wants/needs, [4] I make a decision as to whether or not I can really help them, [5] We come to a financial agreement- or not :-) .

None- Client Questions?

Should a casual reader/none client have a serious question about an assertion I make on this site, they must write to me at: onebornfreeatyahoodotcom and I will do my best to answer their question. Their first question will usually be answered for free. After that, fees may apply.

Current Client Questions.

All existing, paying client questions are of course, answered for free [usually via private e-mail]- it is part of the service!

onebornfreeatyahoodotcom