A hacker has stolen roughly $24 million worth of cryptocurrency assets from decentralized finance (DeFi) service Harvest Finance, a web portal that lets users invest cryptocurrencies and then farm the price variations for small profit yields.

The hack took place earlier today and was almost immediately confirmed by Harvest Finance administrators in messages posted on the company's Twitter account and Discord channel.

According to these messages, a hacker invested large quantities of cryptocurrency assets in its service and then used a cryptographic exploit to siphon the platform's funds to their own wallets.

In total, the hacker stole $13 million worth of USD Coin (USDC) and $11 million worth of Tether (USDT), according to a transaction ID singled out by Harvest Finance administrators in a subsequent post-mortem investigation.

It is all but certain that the next head of the influential World Trade Organization (WTO) will be an African by birth and a woman. But neither is what makes the all-but certain naming of Nigerian-born Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala cause for alarm. Rather it is who she is and who she presently is tied to that insure she will implement the unfolding agenda of the Great Reset transformation of the world economy, using the coronavirus pandemic as a prime lever. She presently heads an organization created by the seeming omnipresent (not omniscient) Bill Gates together with the Davos World Economic Forum—both involved in implementing the Great Reset–and she is deeply tied to the prime institutions of globalization and international finance. Some background we should know about.

A housing crisis centered on the vast apartment and home-rental markets is emerging in the U.S., threatening to send millions of renters into eviction and leave landlords short billions of dollars.

A large number of renters have been unable to pay some or even all of their rent since March, when the pandemic temporarily shut down most businesses. Many businesses remain closed or only partially open, pushing renters into unemployment and draining their savings.

Federal and local eviction moratoriums have protected many of them from losing their homes if they missed payments during the pandemic. But the national eviction ban and some state and city protections are set to expire by January or sooner. Renters will then be on the hook for months of missed payments, which even those who have jobs could struggle to pay.

Back in March 2016, we published an article explaining how the coming default cycle - when it finally hits - would be different: it would be marked by record low recovery rates. While there were many reasons for that, three stood out: i) the disconnect between fundamentals and asset prices thanks to the Fed's constant manipulation of markets, ii) the record layering of debt upon debt, much of it secured, and iii) the years of covenant-lite deals that stripped most if not all creditor protections over the past decade (something which as we noted recently has resulted in bitter creditor fights and a "civil war" involving some of the most prominent names in investing).

Big Tech stocks are holding up fine despite the threat of increased regulation from U.S. lawmakers. But political strategist and venture capitalist Bradley Tusk says investors are overlooking the risk of a Democratic sweep in November.

Tusk, who worked for Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and served as Mike Bloomberg’s campaign manger in the 2009 New York City mayoral race, sent a memo on Monday to his venture firm’s 30 portfolio companies and 20 consulting clients, explaining how the results of the next week’s election could affect the tech industry.

In an interview with CNBC about the memo, Tusk said the largest tech companies face real risks should Joe Biden win the presidency, particularly if Democrats take back the Senate and hold the House. According to FiveThirtyEight, Democrats are favored to win control of all three, a result that could remove much of the gridlock that’s paralyzed Washington, and pave the way for new legislation.

Since the pandemic took hold in March, at least 18 large companies have rewarded executives with six- and seven-figure payouts before asking bankruptcy courts to shield them from landlords, suppliers and other creditors while they restructured, the Post review found. They collectively meted out more than $135 million, documents show, while listing $79 billion in debts.

Labor experts and bankruptcy attorneys say the payouts are particularly egregious — and unjustifiable — during an economic crisis, and were timed to bypass a 2005 law passed specifically to prevent executives from prospering while their companies flailed.

Wall Street made a killing during the peak of the coronavirus pandemic — at a time of sky-high statewide unemployment that has put 500,000 Big Apple residents out of work.

The securities industry raked in a massive pretax profits fortune of $27.6 billion for the first six months of 2020 — nearly eclipsing 2019’s profit total of $28.1 billion.

That’s an eye-popping 82 percent increase compared to the same six-month period last year, according to a new report released by state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli.

DiNapoli tied the gold rush to a frenzy of factors: the $2.4 trillion federal stimulus package, interest rates cut to zero and reduced borrowing costs — plus frenetic trading patterns posing a massive disruption to the financial markets.

There is nearly 12 million square feet of vacant office space now spread across San Francisco, including 5.6 million square feet of un-leased space and 6.2 million square feet of space which has been leased but is now sitting vacant and actively seeking a subletter (which is up from 770,000 square feet of sublettable space at the same time last year).

The virus pandemic has accelerated more flexible work options for employees, with many companies instructing employees to work remotely through 2021, or in some cases, permanently. As a result, according to a new survey, CEOs have said they will slash office space, a move that could ripple through commercial real estate markets, all the way down into local economies.

In collaboration with Deloitte, Fortune surveyed 171 CEOs between Sept. 23 to 30, found 76% of respondents are expected to reduce office space size in the near term. About 28% of them said they would need "a lot less" corporate space.

The arrogance and brutality of the ruling class – is nothing less than breathtaking.

Let’s begin.

April 9 2020, Business Insider: “Many Americans will not have jobs to return to after the coronavirus pandemic ends, according to former US presidential candidate Andrew Yang”:

“Many Americans will not have jobs to return to after the coronavirus pandemic ends…”

“We’re going to see something like 10 years of change in 10 weeks…”

“The fact is right now this virus is the perfect environment for companies to get rid of people, bring in robots and machines, and figure out how they can operate more efficiently.”

“Universal basic income is going to become the topic, not just here in the United States, but Spain’s adopting a version of a minimum income. Legislatures around Europe are all very, very much focused on this.”

Whether it be because the EU is staying true to its pledge to protect the freedom and well-being of its citizens, or because it wishes to increase its relevance and importance in the mind of Europeans, the matter is of no small importance. The Court of Justice of the European Union, through its Advocate General, Giovanni Pitruzzella, could put an end to a creeping campaign led by private organizations to discontinue physical currency. The motion aims to protect vulnerable citizens and fundamental liberties.

The numerous enemies of cash

Since most states only offer benefits for 26 weeks the number will start declining rapidly soon without it meaning people are actually returning to jobs

It's pretty much universally recognized that authorities use crises to impose "emergency powers" that become permanent. This erosion of civil and economic liberties is always sold as "necessary for your own good." Of course the accretion of ever greater power in the hands of the few is for our own good. How could it be otherwise? (Irony off)

In this environment of "emergency powers", it's almost refreshing to find a power grab so blatant that its sheer boldness boggles the mind. I'm talking about the Federal Reserve's FedNow, a proposed system of instant payments and digital dollars.

The American Bar Association (ABA) this week lambasted the Mexican government for using heavy handed tactics, including criminal probes into tax fraud, to motivate corporate tax dodgers to finally settle their tax bills. The complaint echoes a similar broadside from the International Bar Association last month and reflects growing frustration among companies about the government’s use of more stringent audits, tighter surveillance methods, and the threat of tough legal action to crack down on corporate tax dodgers and tax frauds.

The Government says it has launched criminal proceedings against 43 companies that owe 55 billion pesos ($2.6 billion) to the treasury in unpaid taxes dating back to 2010. Most other companies that have been subject to audit in recent months have agreed to settle their tax debts.

It is all but certain that the next head of the influential World Trade Organization (WTO) will be an African by birth and a woman. But neither is what makes the all-but certain naming of Nigerian-born Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala cause for alarm. Rather it is who she is and who she presently is tied to that insure she will implement the unfolding agenda of the Great Reset transformation of the world economy, using the coronavirus pandemic as a prime lever. She presently heads an organization created by the seeming omnipresent (not omniscient) Bill Gates together with the Davos World Economic Forum—both involved in implementing the Great Reset–and she is deeply tied to the prime institutions of globalization and international finance. Some background we should know about.

The pandemic has created a middle-class unemployment crisis that will get 'much worse' as Christmas approaches, experts warn.

Analysis reveals the extent of the jobs bloodbath in commuter towns, resorts and manufacturing hubs.

The number on the dole has already tripled in the hardest-hit towns and cities.

Russia's largest gold miner Polyus said it is working on securing 100 percent ownership of the Sukhoi Log gold deposit in Siberia, which has estimated reserves of 540 million tons of ore, containing 40 million troy ounces of gold.

According to the firm, the undeveloped Siberian deposit is the largest in the world. “As of May 31, 2020, ore reserves are initially estimated at 540 million tons with an average gold grade of 2.3 grams per ton. This is equivalent to 40 million ounces,” said Polyus chief executive Pavel Grachev. “This confirms Sukhoi Log's status as the world’s largest new and active gold mine.”

Somewhere back in the depths of the 20th century, a bunch of governors, mayors, and public sector union leaders got together and cooked up one of history’s greatest financial scams. They would offer teachers, cops, and firefighters extremely generous pensions but would avoid raising taxes to fund the resulting future obligations. Grateful workers would vote to re-elect their benefactors, while taxpayers would appreciate the combination of excellent public services and low taxes.

The beauty of the scheme flowed from its demographics: Most of the original public sector workers were young and therefore decades away from retirement, so the crime wouldn’t be discovered until long after the architects retired rich and revered.

THIS WEEK the British-based bank HSBC closed down two accounts linked to the new racial nationalist political party Patriotic Alternative — a personal account belonging to one of PA’s leaders Laura Towler, and the party’s official business account.

H&D understands complaints are being made to the relevant banking oversight authorities.

HSBC is the sixth largest bank in the world and the largest in Europe. It was founded in 1865 as the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank, making its initial fortune from opium trading.

The “fracking” revolution has unleashed an incredible American energy boom over the past decade. America is now the biggest producer of oil and gas in the world, beating Saudi Arabia and Russia. Fracking has contributed to an economic revival in areas of the country once in freefall. Pennsylvania is now second only to Texas in natural gas production, and Ohio is now fifth. This has reduced air pollution by displacing coal.

Joe Biden wants a counter-revolution, but he does not want you to know about it.

Candidate Joe Biden has sent mixed messages.

During the primary debates, Biden and his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, said they supported a fracking ban. Their campaign, however, insists that the Biden plan would ban fracking only on federal lands, not on private lands. Fact checkers regularly parrot the talking point.

Just like their forebears (the millennials who graduated from college between 2008 and 2012) it appears Gen Z is facing a labor-market shock of serious magnitude, spurred by the coronavirus pandemic and its attendant impact on the American economy, swelling the unemployment rolls while also disrupting the typical pipeline of internships and entry-level gigs that usually help students find permanent entry-level jobs.

In a report published Friday morning, Bloomberg illustrated the difficulties faced by college graduates, and students in their early 2020s, who have just seen their job market plans go up in smoke. Data released yesterday showed the number of Americans filing for the first time for unemployment benefits fell to 787k (870k exp), the lowest point since lockdowns began.

A former chief executive of Russian oil company Rosneft has accused one of Europe’s oldest banks of conspiring with New York brokers in a kickback scheme that caused him to lose more than half of his $150 million investment portfolio.

Sergei Bogdanchikov accused banking group Edmond de Rothschild of steering his funds to a pair of New York firms that he says lost money on bad investments and charged inflated fees to kick commissions back to the bank. The bank also used the now-defunct Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca to form shell companies to hide the scheme, according to a lawsuit Bogdanchikov filed in New York state court on Wednesday.

Sara Vance, 33, The daughter of one of the first female coal miners in the country, dons head-to-foot protective gear including overalls, hard hat, steel-toed boots, mining light, portable oxygen — and a red, white and blue mask emblazoned with the words “Trump 2020.”

In 2016, presidential candidate Donald J. Trump told coal miners in western Pennsylvania he was going to bring their jobs back along with the engineers, chemists and geologists who work alongside them. In return, Trump won big around the coal-producing parts of Appalachian Pennsylvania.

SSC North America, a US hypercar company, announced Monday that its 1,750hp Tuatara hypercar has just claimed the title of the world's fastest production car.

The vehicle, which was piloted by professional racing driver, Oliver Webb, pushed the Tuatara "to an average speed of 316.11 mph (508.73 km/h) following two consecutive high-speed test runs of 301.07 mph (484.53 km/h) and 331.15 mph (532.93 km/h)," read the company's press release.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the Vice President of the World Bank Carmen Reinhardt recently warned on October 15 that a new financial disaster looms ominously over the horizon with a vast sovereign default and a corporate debt default. Just in the past 6 months of bailouts unleashed by the blowout of the system induced by the Coronavirus lockdown, Reinhardt noted that the U.S. Federal Reserve created $3.4 Trillion out of thin air while it took 40 years to create $14 Trillion. Meanwhile panicking economists are screaming in tandem that banks across Trans Atlantic must unleash ever more hyperinflationary quantitative easing which threatens to turn our money into toilet paper while at the same time acquiescing to infinite lockdowns in response to a disease which has the fatality levels of a common flu.

The fall season for those with teenagers exploring college options can be one filled with anxiety and uncertainty in more stable times. This is anything but a stable time. We have college tuition spiraling out of control for well over two decades while a pandemic forced students to learn online away from carefully manicured campuses. How do you decide on which college to attend if you are unable to visit the campus, explore the classes, or experience what has been so painstakingly packaged to embody the college going years? That is the question millions of families are grappling with in the middle of all the other questions the novel coronavirus has tossed at us. Colleges are having to face an existential challenge in what they truly believe in – do they want to educate our future or serve only as a finishing school for the affluent in our society?

In June 2018, President Donald Trump and then–Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin broke ground on the outskirts of Milwaukee for what was supposed to be a $10 billion, 20 million-square-foot factory for Taiwanese tech giant Foxconn.

It was going to be “the eighth wonder of the world,” Trump said, proof that he was “reclaiming our country’s proud manufacturing legacy”—even if the project was dependent on $3 billion in subsidies from the state of Wisconsin, one of the largest corporate handouts in American history.

The fall season for those with teenagers exploring college options can be one filled with anxiety and uncertainty in more stable times. This is anything but a stable time. We have college tuition spiraling out of control for well over two decades while a pandemic forced students to learn online away from carefully manicured campuses. How do you decide on which college to attend if you are unable to visit the campus, explore the classes, or experience what has been so painstakingly packaged to embody the college going years? That is the question millions of families are grappling with in the middle of all the other questions the novel coronavirus has tossed at us. Colleges are having to face an existential challenge in what they truly believe in – do they want to educate our future or serve only as a finishing school for the affluent in our society?

The Student Debt Crisis

If ever there was a political construct the unstated objective of which is to enslave its population, it is the European Union. Its opportunity stems from national governments which, with the exception of Germany and a few other northern states, had driven or were on the way to driving their failed states into the ground. The EU’s objectives were to support the policies of failure by corralling the accumulated wealth of the more successful nations to fund the failures in a socialistic doubling-down, and to accelerate the policies of failure to ensure that all power resides in the hands of statist looters in Brussels.

A new study from the University of Chicago has revealed a rise in child labor in global cocoa production despite pledges by international companies to stop using cocoa harvested by children.

According to the study, commissioned by the US Department of Labor, more than two-fifths (43 percent) of all children aged between five and 17 in cocoa-growing regions of Ghana and Ivory Coast (the world’s largest cocoa producers) are engaged in hazardous work.

In total, an estimated 1.5 million children work in cocoa production around the world, half of whom are found in these two west African nations alone. The report said the hazardous work includes the use of sharp tools, working at night, and exposure to agrochemical products, among other harmful activities.

Beijing may be speeding up the diversification of its foreign exchange reserves away from US dollar assets in response to Washington’s potential sanctions, the South China Morning Post reported, citing analysts.

Data from the US Department of Treasury shows China cut its holdings of US government debt for three consecutive months to $1.07 trillion in late August, the lowest level since March 2017.

The State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE), China’s foreign exchange regulator, said in its most recent annual report that US dollar assets accounted for 58 percent of the nation’s reserves in 2015, unchanged from a year earlier. This means US dollar assets account for about $1.8 trillion of China’s total reserves of around $3.14 trillion.

Nine months on from Saudi Arabia’s second major oil price war in the last five years, more negative consequences are manifesting themselves. Aside from the irrevocably damaged core relationship with the U.S., the permanent distrust of international investors, and the further alienation of many of its fellow OPEC members, Saudi Arabia is now beginning to discover the true depth and breadth of damage that it has done to its own economy, which will endure for many years to come.

Coca-Cola is planning to kill off 200 drink brands, which account for about half of its portfolio, as it works to return to pre-coronavirus levels of growth.

In a bid to better weather the pandemic, the company plans to shift focus onto brands "that can be scaled to drive profits for the long term," CEO James Quincey said during an earnings call Thursday.

The streamlining is taking place during a rough stretch for Coca-Cola and almost all companies that cater to social events. Half of Coca-Cola’s sales come from stadiums, movie theaters and other places where people gather in large numbers — venues that have been closed in an attempt to curb the spread of COVID-19.

What have corporations learned from the post 9/11 era? Apparently a lot.

Since 9/11, airports in the U.S. and across the globe have been redesigned to make people feel safer and make it easier for authorities to ID and track airline passengers.

A Fast Company story reveals how Walmart is taking a cue from airport terminals by bringing the airport experience to every store.

“Airports were a place that inspired us because, by nature, you don’t spend an awful amount of time in airports, so you don’t know your way around. But you need to get a lot of people somewhere in a timely fashion,” Janey Whiteside, EVP and chief customer officer at Walmart said.

Wells Fargo's Mike Mayo alleged on Thursday that Goldman Sachs paid "a premium" in its latest nearly $3 billion settlement (which also includes payents to regulators in Hong Kong, the UK and Singapore), which followed a $2 billion-plus settlement with Malaysian authorities earlier this year.

"It took five years and $5 billion to resolve this," Mayo told Bloomberg in a phone interview. Mayo said that was more than he expected the bank to pay, and suspects that Goldman was eager to settle the issue before Nov. 3, for fear that a Biden DoJ wouldn't be nearly as forgiving.

"The government did its job" in getting more out of Goldman than expected, Mayo concluded. "Now we look forward".