Dana White is just banking on CM Punk's popularity in WWE, but looking at his previous fight, I think its kinda too late for him to shift to MMA. His opponents are younger than him. Jackson is 6 years younger than him but fight stats are identical to CM Punk. His last opponent Mikey Gall is 13 years younger than him. At his age those who started early with MMA they are slowing down now, but CMs is just starting.

Here is a brief breakdown of some of the more famous bubbles in history.

the dutch tulip bubble (1630, first ever recorded)
the south sea bubble (1720)
Japan stock/real estate bubble (1990)
.COM bubble (2002)
USA housing bubble (2008)

Where is the next bubble going to appear. I know the bond market is in a 100 plus bubble and this is where im placing my bets.

In the UK, credit scores are mostly used to determine whether people can get a credit card or loan. But in China, the government is developing a much broader “social credit” system partly based on people’s routine behaviours with the ultimate goal of determining the “trustworthiness” of the country’s 1.4 billion citizens.

It might sound like a futuristic dystopian nightmare but the system is already a reality. Social credit is preventing people from buying airline and train tickets, stopping social gatherings from happening, and blocking people from going on certain dating websites. Meanwhile, those viewed kindly are rewarded with discounted energy bills and similar perks.

China's social credit system was launched in 2014 and is supposed to be nationwide by 2020. As well as tracking and rating individuals, it also encompasses businesses and government officials. When it is complete, every Chinese citizen will have a searchable file of amalgamated data from public and private sources tracking their social credit. Currently, the system is still under development and authorities are trying to centralise local databases.

Given the Chinese government's authoritarian nature, some portray the system as a single, all-knowing Orwellian surveillance machine that will ensure every single citizen’s strict loyalty to the Communist Party. But for now, that's not quite the case. Rogier Creemers, a researcher in the law and governance of China at Leiden University, has described the social credit setup as an "ecosystem" of fragmented initiatives. The main goal, he says, is not stifling dissent – something the Chinese state already has many tools for at its disposal – but better managing social order while leaving the Party firmly in charge.

Yet social credit isn't limited to the government and for the most part it has been operated by private firms. Ant Financial, the finance arm of e-commerce giant Alibaba, launched a product called Sesame Credit in 2015. It was China’s first effective credit scoring system but was also much broader, functioning as a social credit scheme and loyalty programme as well.

Along with providing preferential loans, a high Sesame Credit score – which ranges from 350 to 950 – can result in a huge variety of benefits, like no-deposit apartment and bicycle rentals. While the system is undoubtedly popular, the line between private social credit schemes and the government is being increasingly blurred. China’s supreme court, for example, shares a “blacklist” of people who haven’t paid court fines with Sesame Credit, which in turn deducts users’ scores until they sort out their debts.

As both the private and public components of social credit expand in China, there’s legitimate concern the system will end up creating an “IT-backed authoritarianism” unlike any other. One independent journalist has already been barred from buying plane tickets because of court fees related to his work, for example.

But, for now, it remains grimly captivating to see the benefits and rewards created by such an ambitious and potentially dystopian project. Here are some lesser-known examples of the social credit system’s real-life applications, from hospitals to K-pop.

Jumping healthcare waiting lists
China’s hospitals, long notorious for stifling bureaucracy, are currently experimenting with social credit systems. In a bid to reduce wait times by up to 60 per cent, Sesame Credit is giving users with a score above 650 a 1,000-yuan (£117) credit at one Shanghai university hospital, letting them see a doctor without lining up to pay. The scheme is set to expand to hospitals in 10 more Chinese cities. But social credit is also being used to punish some patients and practitioners. Last year, Chinese health authorities announced that people guilty of violence against medical workers – a significant problem in China thanks to poor malpractice policies – would be placed on the country’s national social credit blacklist. Also added to the blacklist were those running illegal plastic surgery outfits.

Punishments in virtual worlds
In 2015, Sesame Credit executive Li Yingun said playing 10 hours of video games a day would get a lower credit score than a responsible parent buying loads of diapers. But playing video games can lower your Sesame Credit score in a much more direct way – if you cheat.

Chinese citizens signing up for the wildly popular multiplayer shooter game Counter Strike Global Offensive must register using both their national ID and Sesame Credit score, according to state media outlet CGTN, and anyone caught using cheating software like ‘Aimbots’ which ensure perfect aim will have their Sesame Credit scores deducted, potentially affecting their real-life ability to get loans. “It's the worst punishment in history," Li Haiyi, vice president of Chinese game developer Perfect World, told CGTN.

Chasing K-pop stars
Rabid K-pop fans be warned. After obsessed fans caused serious delays at Beijing’s airport several times by rushing to meet their idols – including one incident where they managed to break into first-class – Chinese authorities passed a regulation that makes it possible to lower the social credit record of anyone found to have disrupted or blocked check-in counters and airport corridors.

Until then, fans were able to get away with their antics thanks to their large numbers and the fact that they bought cheap refundable tickets to enter secure areas, according to Chinese media reports. The new regulation also includes a potential one-year ban from flying and social credit penalties for a host of other bad behaviours, from forging boarding passes to stealing suitcases.

Giving men access to women only dating groups
In China, a high credit score can help you find a date. Zhenai.com, a dating service with 140 million users which is partly-owned by the American parent company behind Tinder, gives users with high Sesame Credit scores better visibility on their website. And in a Tinder-like move, dating giant Baihe.com lets users with high Sesame Credit show off their score to members of the opposite sex as long as they agree to display their scores as well.

Sometimes, though, mixing up social credit and dating goes too far. In late 2016, Alipay launched a new feature on its app called Circles which created women-only groups where only men with Sesame Credit scores over 750 could comment on women’s posts – which they immediately did, mostly by asking for sex. The feature was widely-derided as digital prostitution – one blogger called it “Alipimp” – and it was soon taken down.

Skipping deposits for rentals
Good credit can make city living significantly easier in China. In some cities, people with high Sesame Credit scores can check into hotels, rent umbrellas, and even rent cars without paying a deposit. But it’s not all about the rewards.

Chinese cities piloting government-run social credit systems punish a wide range of activities, potentially causing travel and government service restrictions. Recently the names of 169 people who have been banned from buying travel tickets were published by the government.

In the eastern city of Suzhou, for example, bus fare evasion, posting fake product reviews online, not paying your electric bill, and booking a room in a hotel without showing up all cause deductions in the city’s 200-point social credit system. Possibly to make Suzhou’s program feel a bit less Orwellian, the scheme is named after a flower popularly used in teas and cakes.

Banning social gatherings
In a sign that the government is using the social credit system to deepen its control civil society, social credit is being harnessed to crack down on “illegal social organisations.” The Ministry of Civil Affairs has announced it would take measures to blacklist people involved in such organisations, which were claimed to be largely fraudulent or copycat associations often using vague names in their titles like “international” to swindle people.

The regulation state that one’s social credit would be affected if they were found to be involved in running such an organisation. But what makes a “social organisation” legal or illegal in China sometimes has a lot to with its political stance. China has cracked down on foreign-funded NGOs, while the same ministry attacking “illegal social organisations” recently required that the legal ones include Communist Party “building” in their charters to “ensure their correct political direction”.

Stopping you eating
Since 2015 China’s supreme court has shared a ‘blacklist’ of millions of people who defaulted on their court fines with Sesame Credit. In turn, Sesame Credit lowers these users’ scores and even bars them them from making luxury purchases on the Alibaba-owned online marketplaces TaoBao and Tmall.

The system could go much further in the future. Thanks to the ubiquity of mobile payments in China, frequent debtors could eventually be barred from attempting to “buy breakfast, take a bus and look for jobs,” one Chinese academic told China Daily. While that seems extreme, one woman in 2017 did get plastic surgery to escape debts worth 25 million yuan (about £2.9 million).

http://www.wired.co.uk/article/china-social-credit

Given the Chinese government's authoritarian nature, some portray the system as a single, all-knowing Orwellian surveillance machine that will ensure every single citizen’s strict loyalty to the Communist Party. But for now, that's not quite the case.

SAN FRANCISCO — While a number of large financial institutions have discussed trading Bitcoin, one firm has already begun doing it. Very quietly.

The financial firm, Susquehanna International Group in Bala Cynwyd, Pa., just outside Philadelphia, is one of the largest players in trading traditional investments like stocks, options and exchange traded funds, or E.T.F.s. Over the last two years, the privately owned company has also built up a trading desk of around a dozen people that buys and sells millions of dollars’ worth of Bitcoin and other virtual or cryptocurrencies in private deals.

Now the firm is opening trading to a small group of its 500 clients, with plans to expand.

The move is the latest sign that the virtual currency markets, which were once relegated to the fringes of the financial world, are being embraced by big, mainstream investors.

The parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, the Intercontinental Exchange, has been in talks about opening a subsidiary for cryptocurrency trading, and Goldman Sachs is on the verge of opening its own trading operation.

But Susquehanna, which has around 1,800 employees around the world, has a lot more money backing its trading desk — and a lot more ability to interact with clients — than the hedge funds and trading firms that have also been early participants in the virtual currency markets.

The arrival of big financial institutions has raised concerns among some Bitcoin aficionados, who worry that it will harden Bitcoin’s status as a speculative trading asset like gold and diminish hopes that it can be used in day-to-day transactions.

Not so, said Bart Smith, the head of the digital asset group at Susquehanna. The firm believes that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies inspired by it are likely to have a wide array of uses, but for now, he said, Bitcoin’s best bet is to challenge gold as a scarce commodity that can be moved around more easily.

The original Bitcoin software determined that only 21 million Bitcoin would ever be created. That cap isn’t expected to be hit until 2040(Hydrogen edit: the correct year is 2140***), and the limited number of tokens currently in circulation has made the online currency appealing as a commodity.

Mr. Smith said that he could also imagine Bitcoin, or some competitor, becoming a digital payment method for the internet — as Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s chief executive, recently predicted — but that he wasn’t too worried if that didn’t happen.

“We believe that this technology and this asset class is going to change some facet of financial services, and we think it is going to exist forever,” he said.

Susquehanna first experimented with trading Bitcoin in 2014 after the investor twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss asked the firm about being involved with a Bitcoin E.T.F. that they had applied to regulators to create.

Regulators eventually denied that application. But Susquehanna kept its one Bitcoin trader on board, and then added a few more last year when the cryptocurrency markets took off.

The firm decided to step up its operation, and go out to clients, after seeing the success of Bitcoin futures contracts, which were introduced by exchanges in Chicago late last year and have been growing volume in recent months.

Susquehanna will trade futures, which are contracts tied to the future price of Bitcoin. It will also allow customers to buy and sell actual Bitcoin and a few other cryptocurrencies like Ether and Bitcoin Cash.

To make these available to customers, Susquehanna recently amended the broker dealer license that it has on file with regulators. That change will allow the company to trade cryptocurrencies that are labeled by regulators as securities. Regulators in the United States have recently indicated that many newly created virtual currencies — though not Bitcoin — should likely be categorized as securities and traded only by regulated entities.

Most of the cryptocurrency exchanges where Susquehanna trades are largely unregulated. Bloomberg recently reported that American authorities were investigating whether some traders were taking advantage of this to manipulate the price of Bitcoin by posting lots of trades that they didn’t intend to complete.

Mr. Smith said he had not seen clear evidence of manipulation, but cryptocurrency markets are still very immature compared with the other markets where Susquehanna trades, especially given the lack of regulations for many of the largest exchanges holding cryptocurrencies.

He said the single biggest problem for sophisticated investors was the security risk in holding virtual currencies. In other markets, Susquehanna doesn’t have actual custody of stocks or bonds.

Bitcoin was built so that users can hold and transfer their tokens with a password or private key that no one else knows. If the private key is compromised, a hacker can take the coins, and the owner has no way to get them back. That has led to big losses at several Bitcoin exchanges.

Susquehanna built its own systems for storing the cryptocurrencies it is holding for more than a day. To deter hackers, the private keys are kept in devices in an off-site facility that is not connected to the rest of the company’s computer systems.

“There were no financial services firms out there two years ago that were storing and moving large amounts of cryptocurrencies, so there is no road map,” he said.

Then there is the matter of trying to figure out on a daily basis what a single Bitcoin or Ether token should be worth.

There is still little agreement on what factors traders should take account of when deciding on a value for cryptocurrencies, given that many of the expected uses for digital tokens are still hypothetical. While Mr. Smith’s teams look at the technical and security specifications of the coins, it is much harder to answer the most important question: Will they be used as something other than a digital commodity?

“The value is: What do you think the best-case scenario of these different digital assets is in the future — and handicapping what is the percentage chance that they will get there,” he said.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/05/technology/bitcoin-susquehanna.html

That could work. But how does blockchain play a role in random inspections at all?

In the Moslem Countries like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates even Brunei Darussalam etc were enacted Islamic Economy System based on sharia. Is It Possible that The Moslem Countries can accept the cryptocurrencies system in their economic system? What's your opinion?

I wasn`t aware that sports betting is illegal in the USA.What about fantasy sports betting?I think that sites like Fan Duel and Draft Kings are in the shaddy gambling sector.

FanDuel restricted states – Visit FanDuel Now
The states where FanDuel blocks players are: Arizona, Alabama, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Louisiana, Montana, Nevada, Texas and Washington state.

Again, this is a reflection of company policy regarding banned states and not a legal determination by any arm of government. Inclusion on the list does not necessarily mean it is a state where DFS is illegal, and exclusion from the list also doesn’t guarantee that fantasy sports is legal in the state.

So a state being on the list above isn’t the same as being able to definitively claim that “FanDuel is illegal in that state,” and a state being off of the list isn’t the same as being able to say “FanDuel is legal in that state.”

https://www.legalsportsreport.com/daily-fantasy-sports-blocked-allowed-states/

And how is the blockchain going to help?
It's a database, that contains data from the guys that enter it.

The company will create a so-called "smart contract" in which you receive 5000$ for 8 hours of work and it will respect the payment but in reality, will work your ass for 12 hours a day!.
We already have a contract when you get your job, you have a copy of it and you can use it in court to demand your money. With the blockchain, there will be no difference, there is no extra protection.

If they don't want to pay you, they won't and you will still have to settle this in court just like you do now.
The guys that fail to pay the minimum wage are already in the gray area and they avoid signing any papers with you, they will by no means use a blockchain solution.

Besides, the numbers pretty low, an average of 8$ a year per American worker? One hour of minimum wage pay?


Wage theft is bigger than all robberies
Wage theft is costing the average American 8$ a year

Both are correct, but one is sensational, one is meh.......

In the face of persistent fears that the world could be facing a trade war and a synchronized slowdown, the U.S. economy enters June with a good deal of momentum.

Friday's data provided convincing evidence that domestic growth remains intact even if other developed economies are slowing. A better-than-expected nonfarm payrolls report coupled with a convincing uptick in manufacturing and construction activity showed that the second half approaches with a tail wind blowing.

"The fundamentals all look very solid right now," said Gus Faucher, chief economist at PNC. "You've got job growth and wage gains that are supporting consumer spending, and tax cuts as well. There's a little bit of a drag from higher energy prices, but the positives far outweigh that. Business incentives are in good shape."

The day started off with the payrolls report showing a gain of 223,000 in May, well above market expectations of 188,000, and the unemployment rate hitting an 18-year low of 3.8 percent.

Then, the ISM manufacturing index registered a 58.7 reading — representing the percentage of businesses that report expanding conditions — that also topped Wall Street estimates. Finally, the construction spending report showed a monthly gain of 1.8 percent, a full point higher than expectations.

Put together, the data helped fuel expectations that first-quarter growth of 2.2 percent will be the low-water point of 2018.

"May's rebound in jobs together with yesterday's report of solid income growth and the rise in consumer confidence points to the economy functioning very well," the National Retail Federation's chief economist, Jack Kleinhenz, said in a statement. "Solid fundamentals in the job market are encouraging for retail spending, as employment gains generate additional income for consumers and consequently increase spending."

The most recent slate of widely followed barometers could see economists ratchet up growth expectations.

Already, the Atlanta Fed's GDPNow tracker sees the second quarter rising by 4.8 percent. While the measure also was strongly optimistic on the first quarter as well, at one point estimating 5.4 percent growth, other gauges are positive as well. CNBC's Rapid Update, for instance, puts the April-to-June period at 3.6 percent.

Andrew Hunter, U.S. economist at Capital Economics, said the ISM number alone is consistent with GDP growth of better than 4 percent, though he thinks the second quarter will be in the 3 percent to 3.5 percent range.

"With global growth set to hold up fairly well in the near term, this suggests that manufacturing activity should continue to expand at a solid pace," Hunter said in a note. "That said, if the Trump administration continues to pursue protectionist policies and provoke retaliation from other countries, the export-focused manufacturing sector would be most exposed."

Indeed, there are a spate of headwinds still out there, and trade continues to top the list.

The White House's decision this week to forge ahead with steel and aluminum tariffs stoked fears that the administration could be its own worst enemy on the road to 3 percent-plus growth. While the tariffs themselves are expected to have minimal economic impact on their own, fears remain that they could spark retaliatory measures and, ultimately, an all-out trade war.

Exports make up just 12.4 percent of the U.S. economy, but S&P 500 companies generate about 43 percent of their sales internationally. That's why markets tend to recoil every time the administration saber rattles about tariffs.

Still, manufacturers remain largely upbeat.

Respondents to the ISM survey released Friday relayed mostly positive sentiments. One typical statement, from an unidentified transportation equipment firm, said, "We are currently overselling our forecast and don't see an end to the upswing in business," while noting that "we are very concerned" about the tariff situation and "are focusing on alternatives to Chinese sourcing."

Others noted price pressures, while an index that tracks order backlogs hit its highest level since April 2004. The pricing index also registered its highest since April 2011, as firms noted that inflationary pressures are building heading into the second half.

That's consistent with news out of the trucking industry, which is reporting a shortage of drivers amid huge demand for delivery vehicles.

While inflation could prompt more aggressive action in the form of Federal Reserve interest rate hikes, PNC's Faucher sees an economy resilient enough to withstand that and other headwinds.

"The tight labor market is going to lead businesses to invest in capital that makes their workers more productive. Then you've got stronger government spending with the increase in discretionary spending caps," he said. "I think we'll see growth better than 3 percent in the final three quarters of the year."

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/01/the-us-economy-suddenly-looks-like-its-unstoppable.html

In finance, a derivative is a contract that derives its value from the performance of an underlying entity. This underlying entity can be an asset, index, or interest rate, and is often simply called the "underlying".[1][2][3] Derivatives can be used for a number of purposes, including insuring against price movements (hedging), increasing exposure to price movements for speculation or getting access to otherwise hard-to-trade assets or markets.[4] Some of the more common derivatives include forwards, futures, options, swaps, and variations of these such as synthetic collateralized debt obligations and credit default swaps.[1] Most derivatives are traded over-the-counter (off-exchange) or on an exchange such as the New York Stock Exchange, while most insurance contracts have developed into a separate industry. In the United States, after the financial crisis of 2007–2009, there has been increased pressure to move derivatives to trade on exchanges. Derivatives are one of the three main categories of financial instruments, the other two being stocks (i.e., equities or shares) and debt (i.e., bonds and mortgages).[1] The oldest example of a derivative in history is thought to be a contract transaction of olives, entered into by ancient Greek philosopher Thales, and attested to by Aristotle, who made a profit in the exchange.[5] Bucket shops, outlawed a century ago, are a more recent historical example.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_(finance)

Firm apologises to millions left unable to pay for goods and services across UK and rest of Europe

Visa’s payment system is operating at “full capacity” after a hardware failure affected customers in the UK and the rest of Europe on Friday.

A statement posted on the Visa Europe website in the early hours of Saturday said: “Visa Europe’s payment system is now operating at full capacity, and Visa account holders can now use Visa for any of their purchases and at ATMs, as they normally would.”

The issue was not associated with any unauthorised access or cyber-attack, the statement said.

Millions of people were left unable to pay for goods and services across Europe after the unprecedented crash, which began at around 2.30pm.

Visa apologised late on Friday, saying it had fallen “well short” of its goal to ensure cards worked reliably at all times.

Major retailers had earlier confirmed that card purchases were failing. Queues built up at petrol stations and shopping was left at supermarket tills as customers were unable to pay.

Lisa Eagleton-Muir, 44, who had come to London to audition for the Great British Sewing Bee, could not buy any food at King’s Cross station for her return rail journey to Newcastle.

“I’ve only got two cards and they’re both Visa. I tried to buy my tea in M&S and a cafe but they were both rejected. I don’t know what I’m going to do. It’s a long journey home with no food.” She later found she could withdraw money from a cash machine.

A spokesman for the supermarket chain Asda said some payments had gone through but others had not.

“When you try to pay something, it sends a message to Visa and then Visa have to send a message back to the chip and pin machine to say this is OK and then the banks are in between at some point. The message that is coming back to the chip and pin, that is where the fault is,” the spokesman said.

It is understood the Bank of England immediately contacted Visa to find out when its system would be back up and running. One banking industry source said: “There is never a good time for the payments system to go down but a Friday afternoon, when there is a flood of people leaving work, must be among the worst.”

In Spain, the Guardia Civil sent a tweet aimed at reassuring those affected by the system failure. Beneath a picture of Johnny Depp as a shocked Captain Jack Sparrow, the force said: “Stay calm. If you can’t pay it’s not because you’ve been robbed or hacked. Visa is suffering a service crash in Europe that’s stopping payments going through in its cards.”

Bank customers in the UK were still able to obtain cash from ATMs, which led to large queues forming at cash machines.

The Visa spokesman said on Friday: “The issue was the result of a hardware failure. We have no reason to believe this was associated with any unauthorised access or malicious event.”

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/jun/01/visa-card-network-crashes-and-sparks-payment-chaos

Many wrote that we need to regulate the global cryptomarket:

i know how to do this and i can explain it to you:


1. you need to create a registry where all cryptocurrency owners are being registered with their adress they must respons, not just through it systems but also physically

2. you force them to show and open their data

3. you write and publish the regulation form, description and goals.

4. you create a global strike force or so called economic hitman to execute sanctions if a cryptocapitalists fails to achieve that regulation

5. you will have create an insitution that regulates cryptocurrencies.

-> all cryptocurrencies that follow that regulation are regulated, and under enforcment of that insitution.

regards

you see its actually possible to create a regulation if you can create an institution which is the equivalent of standards and poor. but for crypto and you get a global hitman in work.

for that you need good contacts either to interpol or to a global mercenary group. like blackwater. or those secretive agents/economic hitmans