Bitcoins
banned in Thailand - (www.telegraph.co.uk) Thailand
has become the first country to ban bitcoins after the central bank ruled it is
not a currency. In a statement on its website, Bitcoin Company Limited said it had given a
presentation to the Bank of Thailand about how the currency works in a bid to
operate in the country. However, at the end of the meeting, "senior
members of the Foreign Exchange Administration and Policy Department advised
that due to lack of existing applicable laws, capital controls and the fact
that Bitcoin straddles multiple financial facets... Bitcoin activities are
illegal in Thailand". The ruling means it is illegal to buy and sell
bitcoins, buy or sell any goods or services in exchange for bitcoins, send any
bitcoins to anyone outside of Thailand, or receive bitcoins from anyone outside
the country.
Clinton: Obama should 'honor' health-care
pledge - (www.cnbc.com) President Barack Obama should consider changes to his
health-care law to honor his pledge to allow consumers to keep their
health-care plans if they so desire, former President Bill Clinton said in an interview released Tuesday. Clinton
told the website OZY that the implementation of the Affordable Care Act has
been, on balance, a good thing. "The big lesson is that we're better off
with this law than without it," Clinton said. But he also lent some
credence to GOP attacks on the law. "I personally believe, even if it
takes a change in the law, the president should honor the commitment the
federal government made to those people and let them keep what they got,"
Clinton said. The former president was referencing the pledge Obama made
repeatedly during his sales job of the health-care law that if individuals
liked their current health-care plan, they could keep it. In an interview with
NBC News last week the president apologized for cancellations many individual
policy holders are receiving and said his administration is looking at ways to
change that part of the law.
Obamacare buyers: Young, female and pricey
tastes - (www.cnbc.com) And
the Bluegrass State's data show that people who are enrolling in private
Obamacare insurance plans there are often young women with more expensive
tastes in insurance than might have been expected. But at the same time, the
bulk of interest in health-care coverage is, like the rest of the country,
coming from the poor and uninsured. Experts told CNBC.com that they would be
surprised if the federal government even matches Kentucky, much less surpasses
it, in the level of detail in its enrollment data, given widespread
expectations that very few people have actually enrolled in Obamacare insurance
through the federal marketplace. Federal authorities to date have refused to
reveal that data since the Oct. 1 launch of the Obamacare marketplaces—even
under pressure from Congress—and have not committed to breaking down the
enrollment data to the extent Kentucky has. The Wall Street Journal late
Monday, citing two unnamed sources, said the federal government's marketplace
has enrolled fewer than 50,000 people in private insurance since October, well
below its initial target of 500,000 for just the month of October.
Dallas Fed president Richard
Fisher: QE won't last forever - (www.cnbc.com) The
Federal Reserve's monetary stimulus program cannot continue forever, Richard
Fisher, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas told CNBC on Tuesday. "We've
changed and impacted the markets because of our intervention and I understand
there's sensitivity, but markets should also bear in mind that this program
cannot go on forever," he said. "The balance sheet is $4 trillion and
there are limits to what the Federal Reserve can do," Fisher, who is in
Melbourne speaking at an Economic Development for Australia function, added. There
has been intense speculation in recent months over when the Fed will start to
scale back its $85 billion-a-month asset purchase program, also known as
quantitative easing.
OSX
becomes second Batista company to file for bankruptcy - (www.reuters.com) Brazilian
shipbuilder OSX Brasil SA filed for bankruptcy protection on Monday, becoming
the second company controlled by former billionaire Eike Batista to seek court
protection from creditors in just over a week. The move, confirmed by the
company shortly after a source told Reuters the filing was underway, follows a
decision by the OSX board on Friday to pursue bankruptcy
proceedings. The petition was made to the same court in Rio de Janeiro where
Batista's oil company OGX Petróleo e Gas Participações SA sought protection
from creditors on October 30. That case, citing 11.2 billion reais in debt
($4.8 billion), was Latin America's largest bankruptcy filing.
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