{"id":86382,"date":"2025-02-22T01:00:51","date_gmt":"2025-02-22T09:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lenpenzo.com\/blog\/?p=86382"},"modified":"2025-02-25T09:04:57","modified_gmt":"2025-02-25T17:04:57","slug":"black-coffee-22-feb-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lenpenzo.com\/blog\/id86382-black-coffee-22-feb-2025.html","title":{"rendered":"Black Coffee: Cooked Books"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"It’s time to sit back, relax and enjoy a little joe …<\/em><\/p>\n

Welcome to another rousing edition of Black Coffee, your off-beat weekly round-up of what’s been going on in the world of money and personal finance.<\/p>\n

I hope everybody had a wonderful week. And with that, let’s get right to this week’s commentary, shall we?<\/p>\n

There is a simple rule of life: Beyond a certain point, complexity is fraud. You can apply that rule to social programs – but you can also apply it to credit derivatives, hedge funds, and all the rest.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

– PJ O’Rourke<\/strong><\/p>\n

Because gold is honest money, it is disliked by dishonest men.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u2013 Ron Paul<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Credits and Debits<\/strong><\/p>\n

Debit:<\/strong><\/span> Did you see this? It was already known that there are far more Social Security numbers that have been issued than Americans who have existed since the inception of the program. But the latest DOGE audit led by Elon Musk has uncovered this: More than 10 million people aged 120 or older are on record with the Social Security Administration as still being alive. No, really<\/a>. The big question is: How many of them – or more appropriately, their grifting surrogates – are still officially collecting benefits? And the next biggest question: Who are the people who are going to complain about Elon uncovering all this fraud, waste and abuse anyway?<\/p>\n

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Credit:<\/strong><\/span> In other news, a man is raising the stakes<\/a> in his years-long battle to get back the hard drive that contains a discarded bitcoin key worth somewhere around $800 million by offering to purchase a landfill in Great Britain in an effort to find the wallet before the dump is permanently closed. The man previously offered to fully fund the excavation process and share 25% of his gains with the city. Alas, the council wasn’t interested. No word on whether it was because they\u2019d be looking for a needle in a haystack – or because their role as fiduciaries prohibits them from betting on highly-speculative assets of dubious value.<\/p>\n

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h\/t: @elessarts<\/p><\/div>\n

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Credit:<\/strong><\/span> Maybe that fear of misplaced hard drive is why Fed chair Jerome Powell testified before Congress last Tuesday that the Fed will not develop<\/a> its own digital currency as long as he is in charge. Wait \u2026 what? Then again, anyone who thinks CBDCs offer a realistic solution to America\u2019s debt problem probably thinks this<\/strong><\/em> is based in reality too:<\/p>\n