Entries Tagged 'Economics and Investing' ↓

Recently Congresswoman Maxine Waters from California announced on the news that her committee was reviewing “mirror trades” made at Deutsche Bank

What Is Mirror Trading?

Investopedia calls mirror trading a useful strategy for investors to use in forex (foreign exchange) markets to make money from arbitraging the differences between currency exchanges located in different countries or areas of the world.

Financial institutions make this strategy available only to larger investors.

Mirror trading involves the use of computer algorithms to test trades to determine accuracy of results of the trade when made in different places (i.e. in different markets).

Of course, most people use the forex market to exchange currency at fair market rates when we travel abroad, or when doing business with foreign country entities.

The forex market is the largest market in the world with currencies worth trillions of dollars traded every day. However the major forex markets are largely dominated by banks in just a handful of countries—including the U.S.

Deutsche Bank’s Illegal Mirror Trades

Continue reading →

Really? Are we sure about this?  In 2018 police in the United States shot and killed 998 people.

How is it that policemen and policewomen in the U.S are allowed to shoot and kill people, even unarmed people, whenever “police think their own lives are in danger?”

Just think about this for a minute.

Think about the young black boy, Tamar Rice, age 12, playing in a park who was shot and killed seconds after a Cleveland cop arrived. Tamar was murdered because the young man waved a toy gun at the officer. A precious life lost in seconds!

When I was that boy’s age many of us played on the street or in back yards with cap guns, squirt guns, and even air pellet guns that looked like real guns. None of us died back then. What’s different now?

Certainly not just racism! I heard racist language and saw far more racist acts when I was young than nowadays. Nor is the reason that real guns back in my day wouldn’t have killed a policeman. In big cities like Philadelphia in the 1960s, those guns did kill policemen.

Here’s what I think. Continue reading →

With the tragic outcome of the murders at the Pittsburgh synagogue this year, the mail bombs sent to prominent Democrats, and the upcoming midterm elections, it’s hard to focus on anything but our own country these days.

Nevertheless, there is another story of dark money flowing not just in America but in much of the world that, like Sean McFate’s political thriller series, is being portrayed by nonfiction authors and mystery book writers rather than our news media.

That story is about opioid addiction. Estimates in the United States alone are that 80,000 Americans died of overdoses last year. Opioid deaths are fast outstripping heart attacks as the number one cause of death here.

Today I’ll be writing about two of my favorite mystery series writers’ latest books about the political corruption and ethical dilemnmas raised by opioid epidemics happening in other countries.

These authors are Louise Penny and Donna Leon. Louise Penny’s series are set in Canada. Donna Leon’s series are set in Italy. Continue reading →