Michael Krieger

My name is Michael Krieger, and I am the creator and editor of Liberty Blitzkrieg. I'm originally from New York City.

As far as my academic and professional background, I attended college at Duke University where I earned a double major in Economics and Spanish. After completing my studies in 2000, I took a job at Lehman Brothers where I worked with the Oil analyst in the Equity Research Department.  In 2005, I joined Sanford C. Bernstein where I served as the Commodities Analyst on the trading floor. About halfway through my time there, I started to branch out and write opinions on bigger picture "macro" topics that no one else at the firm was covering. These opinion pieces were extremely popular throughout the global investment community, and I traveled around providing advice to some of the largest mutual funds, pension funds and hedge funds in the world.

I loved my job, but as time passed I started to educate myself about how the monetary and financial system functions and what I discovered disgusted me. I no longer felt satisfied working within the industry, and I resigned in January 2010.  At that point, I started a family investment office and continued to write macro pieces on economic, social and geopolitical topics. That summer, I drove cross country for six weeks and ultimately decided to leave the crowded streets of Manhattan for the open spaces of Boulder, Colorado, where I currently reside.

In the years that followed, I gradually recognized that my true passion centers upon writing on issues of significant societal importance given the extremely challenging times we live in. This realization culminated with me losing interest in financial markets and eventually launching this website in early 2012.

If you are interested in a more detailed description, replete with colorful anecdotes, of how I ended up making this bizarre professional transition, take the time to watch the video below.

https//www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/DcqMN-FXCIE?rel=0

In Liberty,
Michael Krieger

The Most Evil and Disturbing NSA Spy Practices To-Date Have Just Been Revealed

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In some cases the NSA has masqueraded as a fake Facebook server, using the social media site as a launching pad to infect a target’s computer and exfiltrate files from a hard drive. In others, it has sent out spam emails laced with the malware, which can be tailored to covertly record audio from a computer’s microphone and take snapshots with its webcam. The hacking systems have also enabled the NSA to launch cyberattacks by corrupting and disrupting file downloads or denying access to websites.

The man-in-the-middle tactic can be used, for instance, to covertly change the content of a message as it is being sent between two people, without either knowing that any change has been made by a third party.

– From Glenn Greenwald’s latest article: How the NSA Plans to Infect Millions of Computers with Malware

The latest piece from Greenwald and company on the unconstitutional spy practices of the NSA may represent the most dangerous and disturbing revelations yet. It’s hard for shadiness at the NSA to surprise me these days, but there was only one word that kept repeating over and over in my head as I read this: EVIL.

As a quick aside, Greenwald points out in the quote above how spam emails are used by the NSA to bait you into clicking dangerous links. This is a timely revelation considering I received one such email yesterday from a friend of mine. The email was sent to a wide list of let’s say “liberty-minded people” and webmasters associated with very popular sites. The link seemed shady so I texted him to ask if he had sent it. He hadn’t.

Earlier this week, during a talk at SXSW, Edward Snowden pleaded with people to use encryption. While he admitted if the NSA targeted you individually they could almost certainly “own your computer,” he stated that if people use encryption on a massive scale it makes the NSA’s attempts to monitor everyone at the same time much more difficult.

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Conan O’Brien Does Bitcoin

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This is the second humorous Bitcoin related video I have posted within the past week. The last one being the very funny: Shit Bitcoin Fanatics Say. Well now the always hilarious Conan O’Brien is having a go at it. Unfortunately, the way he pokes fun at Bitcoin is actually how the majority of people out there … Read more

Zillow CEO and Wikipedia Co-Founder Publicly Warm Up to Bitcoin

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The reason Bitcoin refuses to “die”, is because it represents a genuine technological breakthrough in payments. The reason it hasn’t been exposed as a “ponzi scheme”, is because it isn’t one.

Earlier today, I came across a very powerful quote on Twitter by Erik Voorhees:

From my own personal experience, I have found the above sentiment to be completely true.

The more people actually look into Bitcoin, rather than simply dismiss it with superficial judgments, the more people recognize its incredible potential. A recent case in point seems to be Spencer Rascoff, CEO of online real estate database Zillow.

As Coindesk points out, last November Rascoff said on Bloomberg TV:

“I am sceptical of bitcoin. I just think there’s too much shadiness associated with the currency that’s not maintained by some sort of government or central bank. And I think it will blow up at some point, with some big scandal where someone loses 50, a 100 million dollars, and I don’t think it is going to be here in five years.”

Well, $475 million in customer funds have been lost via the Mt. Gox debacle and, despite some wild prices swings, there ultimately has been zero price impact. To borrow a phrase from Nassim Taleb, Bitcoin is the definition of anti-fragile.

It seems that time (and a conversation with Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong) has changed his tune. Yesterday, the Zillow CEO Tweeted:

Meanwhile, just last week the co-founder of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, tweeted the following:

Wales subsequently posted a BTC address and the unsolicited donations started flooding in. I guess this was the Bitcoin community’s way of demonstrating its power (just as it did with the $28k recently donated to Dorian Nakamoto). By the end of today, the donations had climbed to over $11k. He tweeted:

While increased mainstream adoption by influential individuals is important, merchant adoption is equally key, and good news on this front has continued with today’s announcement by Big Fish that it will use Coinbase to accept payments in BTC.

So what’s Big Fish?

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New York to Accept Bitcoin-Exchange Proposals

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Last week, I wrote a piece titled: New York Banking Regulator Benjamin Lawsky Thinks Mt. Gox Collapse Could Help Bitcoin. In it, I speculated that Lawsky was positioning New York to emerge as a primary global Bitcoin trading hub. While certain comments from Lawsky in the past have rubbed me the wrong way, he seems to … Read more

Florida Moves to Make “Bullying” and “Cyber-Bullying” a Crime Punishable by a Year in Prison

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Apparently, having only 5% of the world’s population but 25% of the world’s prisoners isn’t a high enough incarceration rate for America. As such, some states are looking for ways to imprison more of its citizens for non-violent offenses. In this case, I refer to a bill advancing in Florida’s state Senate that would make “bullying” a crime, including “cyber-bullying” online. The bill is a reaction to the tragic suicide of 12-year old Rebecca Sedwick, who took her own life after suffering harassment from her peers.

As tragic as Rebecca’s death is, who hasn’t suffered the harassment of offensive and insensitive people in their lives? No one. This is particularly bad amongst juveniles, but even in the adult world you are bound to cross paths with some raging sociopath at one point or another. Unfortunately, this is simply a fact of life and a sad reflection of our state of consciousness. It is not something that can ever be legislated away with the stroke of a pen.

The only thing this will do is further increase an already bloated and absurd domestic prison population (in 2012 police made an arrest every 2 seconds), as well as provide the context to stifle free speech. After all, defining what constitutes criminal “bullying” or “cyber-bullying” will be extraordinarily difficult and will open the doors to criminalizing all sorts of free speech. While the intention may be noble, this sounds like an absolutely horrible idea.

From Think Progress:

A Florida bill advanced in the Senate this week to make bullying a crime, including cyber-bullying online. The new offenses criminalize a range of “harassing” behavior, both in-person and on the Internet. And a second conviction would send perpetrators to jail for a year, criminalizing what is primarily a problem among youths.

The bill comes in response to concerns of escalating bullying, especially cyberbulling, and is named for 12-year-old Rebecca Sedwick, who committed suicide in September 2013, after two teen peers allegedly harassed her over her dating of a particular boy. While Rebecca’s case did not involve LGBT harassment, bullying has been a particular concern among LGBT youth.

The bill establishes that someone who “willfully, maliciously, and repeatedly harasses or cyberbullies another person commits the offense of bullying” — a misdemeanor — and that those who engage in such harassment accompanied by a threat are guilty of a third-degree felony.

A felony for bullying? Seems way overboard…

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The Line to See “Girls” Creator Leah Dunham at SXSW Was 10 Times Longer than for Snowden

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Nothing against Leah Dunham, but the fact that the line to see her speak at SXSW was 10 times longer than the line to hear Edward Snowden (they spoke at the same time earlier today) reflects quite poorly on our society’s priorities. Not that there was ever any doubt. Earlier today, USA Today reported: Update … Read more

The True State of the U.S. Economy: Caviar Facials and Desperate Fire Sales on Craigslist

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By now, it must be completely obvious to anyone paying even the slightest bit of attention that the so-called “recovery” we have supposedly been witnessing for the past several years is nothing more than a wealth transfer to a handful of oligarchs and their political minions. While I am intimately familiar with the process in the U.S., it appears to be a global phenomenon as well.

Domestically, this process has been driven by the complete corruption and insanity of those calling the public policy shots in Washington D.C. At the heart of that process, resides a group of unelected economic Central Planners known as the Federal Reserve, or the lender of last resort for oligarchs and cronies who make bad business decisions.

Before I get to the title of this post, I want to highlight a very important article published last week that demonstrates how college graduates are forcing their lesser educated peers out of the workforce by taking jobs that do not require secondary education. If you read this and still can’t be honest that this economy is a total distorted shitshow, I don’t know what to tell you.

From Bloomberg:

Recent college graduates are ending up in more low-wage and part-time positions as it’s become harder to find education-level appropriate jobs, according to a January study by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

The share of Americans ages 22 to 27 with at least a bachelor’s degree in jobs that don’t require that level of education was 44 percent in 2012, up from 34 percent in 2001, the study found.

The New York Fed researchers said it isn’t clear whether two decades of increasing underemployment for recent graduates “represent a structural change in the labor market, or if they are a consequence of the two recessions and jobless recoveries in the first decade of the 2000s.”

Two “jobless recoveries.” I’m still trying to figure our how you can have a “jobless recovery.” Perhaps they aren’t recoveries in the first place. Bear in mind that these are the unelected people running the economy.

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How UK Prime Minister David Cameron Paid Thousands of Dollars for Facebook “Likes”

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Welcome back to The Truman Show ladies and gentlemen. The matrix of surreal bullshit that characterizes everything on the world stage these days, from financial markets to global politics.

I’ve written many articles in the past month exposing Facebook’s shady business model of selling clicks and page likes to advertisers that represent nothing but smoke and mirrors. Ultimately, this can’t be good for Facebook as people increasingly recognize that “likes” mean nothing and you can get hundreds of thousands of fake ones by simply doling out a little cash.

This reality has not stopped UK Prime Minister David Cameron, who is so unpopular at home that his team recently spent thousands of dollars to buy Facebook “likes.” You just can’t make this stuff up.

From the UK’s Independent:

Whatever the reason for his apparent lack of popularity on social media, David Cameron’s team have resorted to paying to get him more Facebook likes.

Yes, Conservative strategists have forked out thousands in party funds on Facebook ads to get the David Cameron page more fans on the site, The Mail on Sundayreports.

Facebook wouldn’t reveal any specifics on the deal, but a marketing expert told the paper that the social media campaign would have set the party back around £7500.

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Edward Snowden Speaking Live Now at SXSW – Watch it Here

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Edward Snowden will be speaking at 12 EST in Austin, Texas at SXSW. This is his first live public speaking engagement since he came forward last year as one of the most famous whistleblowers in history. Since the event is now over, I have replaced the lifestream with a recording of the talk. Enjoy.   … Read more

FBI Launches Investigation into a Private Prison So Violent it is Called “Gladiator School”

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In what is one of the most disturbing private prison stories you’ll ever hear, a facility in Idaho run by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) in under investigation by the FBI due to claims it was so violent inmates called it “Gladiator School.” So how does a prison transform into such a place? Apparently, CCA was so eager to cut costs that it chose to understaff the facility and hand over control to prison gangs.

I’ve covered private prisons on many occasions in the past, including this CCA facility in particular. I think private prisons are one of the worst ideas possible in a democratic society. I suggest you read some of my prior articles:

A Deep Look into the Shady World of the Private Prison Industry

Idaho Dumps Private Prison Company Due to “Violence, Understaffing and Over-billing”

America in 2013: Florida Football Stadium Named After a Private Prison Company

America in 2013: For-Profit Prisons Get Favorable Tax Breaks

Now from the AP:

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — The FBI has launched an investigation of the Corrections Corporation of America over the company’s running of an Idaho prison with a reputation so violent that inmates dubbed it “Gladiator School.”

The Nashville, Tenn.-based CCA has operated Idaho’s largest prison for more than a decade, but last year, CCA officials acknowledged it had understaffed the Idaho Correctional Center by thousands of hours in violation of the state contract. CCA also said employees falsified reports to cover up the vacancies. The announcement came after an Associated Press investigation showed CCA sometimes listed guards as working 48 hours straight to meet minimum staffing requirements.

“The FBI is investigating CCA and looking at whether various federal fraud statutes were violated and possibly other federal statutes connected with the fraud,” Olson said. “They will be working in close consultation with our office. Beyond that I can’t comment.”

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