Israel: Hot

 

It is 40 Celsius outside. We have so much sunshine that photo-electric energy is cheaper than gas or coal. Old people are falling on the boiling asphalt pavement like flies. More or less. 

Israel confiscates (steals?) Hamas' bitcoin treasure

 

Omri Segev Moyal, CEO of the cyber crisis company Profero, explained in a statement how the Bureau was able to locate and seize the supposedly untraceable currency, saying that "Once you go beyond the boundaries of the blockchain to the worlds of exchange platforms, you immediately lose anonymity and then, as in the present case, states and law enforcement agencies are able to locate and freeze the currencies used by criminal and terrorist organizations." The network is completely exposed, you can very accurately track the trajectory of the coins and locate their final destination," Moyal said.

Noa Mashiach, CEO of the Israeli Bitcoin Association, also responded to the seizure in a public statement, saying that "The seizure and forfeiture of Hamas' donations prove that Bitcoin is a safe currency."

"Criminals who make use of this financial system will find out the hard way that the open transaction log, the blockchain, will expose them and allow law enforcement agencies to act against them," Mashiach said.

"This is a significant improvement over anti-money laundering bans and also over international bank accounts, which are hidden behind a wall of bank-client secrecy," she said, reiterating that "Bitcoin is a safe currency, and it is precisely these perceptions that should encourage regulators to adopt and use it, as it makes it possible to expose the bad and do good with the good."

Bottom line: Bitcoin is money on the street and we take it when we want to.

We are not Athenians, so Why Democracy?

Plato defined five political forms:  Aristocracy, Timocracy, Oligarchy, Democracy, and Tyranny. He did not recommend democracy, which is the rule of the cognitively challenged masses. Israel's Supreme Court approved the Nationality Law, directed to restrict the immigration of non-Jews. The reason: it is compatible with democracy. Is that a valid reason? Why we need democracy? Is it feasible in a multinational multiracial polity? Our ancestors adopted theocracy, the rule of the cohanim, a hereditary priestly caste, Israel and Judea were for a long time elective Kingdoms, then for a few generations hereditary kingdoms. Those were typical Middle Eastern forms, like the theocracy in Iran and the Hashemite Kingdom in Jordan. Why should we adopt foreign, pagan, Greek forms? 

TASE-NASDAQ tradable differences

 TASE - Tel Aviv in deep red. NASDAQ - New York high. The difference is 8% in TSEM, an Israeli chip factory in Migdal HaEmek.  

I am not an unique genius

Once in a while, I read an insight that reflects exactly my own experience and conclusions. For an example see below. The way I am working is by providing an honest service to friendly, long-term clients. I mostly reject unknown opportunities. 

 You have to be able to develop long-term working relationships with people of high character. This extends beyond treating their clients with respect. They have to also be good to their employees. The arrogant, self-absorbed portfolio manager might be a great investor, but odds are eventually they’ll come back to haunt you at some point. And if a fund manager makes it sound like they’re doing you a favor by letting you invest in their fund, it’s probably best to sit that one out.

BTW, my very worst investment was about twenty years ago, when I started to have money to invest. I discovered a recently created "closed" fund by Bank HaPoalim, that proposed to exploit the contacts of the bank and identify the best technological startups. The Bank put up half of the seed capital of the fund. The manager was an experienced banker.  It looked good. I went to Oody, my "friend" in the bank, and asked for details. Oody showed surprise "How do you know about the fund?" and hesitantly, said he will try to obtain a share for me. It was very expensive, 40,000 shekel share, and I bought two. When I saw the detailed investments of the fund I was much disappointed: it included a toy computer to teach computing to babies of 2 -3 years. I had examined that startup at Tel Aviv University and concluded it was absurd. Effectively, it folded not long after. Another thing I learned is that the fund managers took 2 million dollars per year for office expenses. Obviously, they were out to steal my money. But I persisted even when the fund was liquidated. They offered to pay me off with a few thousand dollars or keep my shares. I suspected they wanted to buy back my shares for noting and rejected the offer. I lost all my money. I opened an account in another bank. 

   

The Plan

 

The Evil Avigdor Liberman

 The man is a bizarre political figure in Israel - once leftist, once Kahanist, but always ferociously anti-Jewish. In a world where countries are desperately trying to increase births in the native core population while watching impotent its aging and contraction, this Minister of the Treasury is cutting the child subsidies.  He wants zero population growth in order to promote economic development. Like the evil Chinese one-child policy. Liberman represents the Russian immigrant sector, which is famously ambitious and childless. And jealous and hating those fertile. In the past, he was the Minister for Infrastructure and established the ten percent "donation" (nominally for the party purse) secret policy. A corrupt, bad man. 

Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz of Meretz criticized the cuts in benefits, saying: "I am in favor of giving children what they need - irrespective from what their parents do."

"A child is an entity in itself, and if it is in his best interest to be in a daycare center - I am not in favor of depriving him of that," he added.

Meretz is the extreme leftist party in Israel and Horowitz is a self-acknowledged homosexual. Is it possible that the Haredi population will find its best defensor in him?