But as investor and financial blogger Simon Black points out, last week, “A senior official from the Justice Department spoke to a group of bankers about the need for them to rat out their customers to the police.”

Assistant attorney general Leslie Caldwell gave a speech in which he urged banks to “alert law enforcement authorities about the problem” so that police can “seize the funds” or at least “initiate an investigation”.

As Black highlights, according to the handbook for the Federal Financial Institution Examination Council, such suspicious activity includes, “Transactions conducted or attempted by, at, or through the bank (or an affiliate) and aggregating $5,000 or more…”

... France has taken the first step.  It seems the terrorists involved partially financed these attacks by cash, as well as by consumer loans and the sale of counterfeit goods.
French Finance Minister Michel Sapin brazenly stated  that it was necessary to "fight against the use of cash and anonymity in the French economy."  He then announced extreme and despotic measures to further restrict the use of cash by French residents and to spy on and pry into their financial affairs.

These measures, which  will be implemented in September 2015, include prohibiting  French residents from making cash payments of more than 1,000 euros, down from the current limit of  3,000 euros.

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Don’t fret. Stocks aren’t overheating. That is the message Goldman Sachs chief global strategist Peter Oppenheimer, offered up on CNBC on Monday.

The Goldman strategist included the key term “yet” in his comments about the growing fear in the market that stock’s are getting too rich.

It does not matter, as long as government can borrow trillions of money from FED and pay back the debt, and as long as the dollar they borrow have same acceptance as previous dollar

The only thing could crash all these is the dollar's acceptance, if dollar is still accepted anywhere, then this game could continue. And what is going to prevent dollar from being accepted everywhere?

I think the safest place to hide your private key is the blockchain, since the bitcoin network is immortal. Just need to figure out how to encode into some of the blocks

The only right way to think about if something will go up or down is to think it from the perspective of supply/demand intermediation.
Supply we know from the parameters. Then you ask yourself a question will there be more propensity to hold coins than today. Note, if there are 2 guys holding each coin for 1 week and one coin per person, it means one coin is held 2 weeks (for instance, if I am paying my rent with 1 xmr after holding it for one week and the landlord of my appartment is holding the coin for 1 more week before cashing it out, the coin is held 2 weeks, but in the hands of different persons).
Therefore, creating chains of holders is important for developing the Monero economy after we have some kind of merchant acceptance.
Now we still are in the age of speculation so we need to think if the willingness to hold a coin will decrease or increase from the current level. Personally I think the price of the coin doesn't matter wether it is under/overpriced, all that matters is, will there be more held coins vs. emitted coins in the future than there is now.
I am optimistic in this and therefore I am holding. I am thinking there is relatively high chance of higher amounts of coins held than there is now. If I didn't think in this way I would have dumped (all) my coins long time ago.

Even if Monero fails in getting merchants, it doesn't mean it wouldn't succeed better than bitcoin. Monero is kind of better coin for storing wealth, in this it is a little bit like UNO but with bigger community.
The network-effect and adoption will happen by raising the price little by little all the time and making sure, the long term holders will not be at loss. That will create satisfied salesmen for the coin and the price can rise exponentially.

I actually have a bunch of 3d printed models that I've created. I'll get some pics of those up in case they're of interest. I could possibly 3d print a Bitcoin-themed handle to complete a knife blade but would need some idea of what shape of knife would work best to begin.

I would choose 1/3 gold, 1/3 silver and 1/3 bitcoins.

Bitcoin's future is probably bright but obviously uncertain. Same with gold and silver, although they have been around for thousands of years.

Just to be safe.

No, as evidenced by the several exchanges that have already done it (including a few more that aren't around any more).

Walletnotify/blocknotify are are APIs from bitcoin (and bitcoin forks) and when we support something closer to those (it likely won't ever be exact because of the inherent differences in the technology), it will become easier to integrate with systems already supporting those other coins. But without them it can obviously still be done, just with a bit more work.

I don't think usd can collapse any soon. Eur and chf are riskier right now

It would be funny if he gets 95% of the way to the top, and then manages to tumble all the way down to 25% elevation and survives, plants flag.