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And they said bitcoin would never work as a currency.

While that might be true for small transactions - for now - real-estate markets across the US are increasingly demonstrating that bitcoin is a viable medium of exchange. Case in point: the seller of a luxury Miami condo will only accept payment in bitcoin. The asking price - according to real-estate listings site Redfin - 33 bitcoins, or about $550,000 at bitcoin’s present valuation.

China, somewhat unexpectedly, hikes rates this evening, minutes before dumping economic data that showed no major surprises other than a modest disappointment in retail sales growth.

Of course, we had a suspicion that they might hike rates...

So what time is China hiking by 25 Bps

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) December 14, 2017

As we noted a few months ago, ever since the ECB launched its sovereign debt QE, initially known as PSPP, in March 2015 and later expanded to include corporate debt, or CSPP, in June 2016, the world's biggest hedge fund central bank has created enough money out of thin air to purchase bonds with no consideration for price to grow its balance sheet, i.e. investment portfolio, by nearly €2 trillion.

Authored by Thorstein Polleit via The Mises Institute,

We live in inflationary times.

For at least half a decade now (How The Fed's Visible Hand Is Forcing Corporate Cash Mismanagement) we have warned about how the Fed’s flawed approach to monetary policy incentivizes corporations to fund share buybacks with massive amounts of debt...

…While the corporate sector has spent record sums on share buybacks...

Capex has experienced an unprecedented decline...