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You mean is flat.

Potentially, especially since the Greenback is steadily increasing versus the Loonie.

To understand that joke it may help to look at the "unstoppable upward trajectory" on the one month chart.

It's one big giant bubble and when it bursts, who knows what financial ruin will face us.

That's what people were saying when XBT first reached $1,000 back in December 2013. Nothing to worry about at all.

Bubbles only really happen when people buy things with little to no intrinsic value for purely speculative reasons. If this were really a bubble you would have a sensational rise in price of XBT. What's more the price would have been largely unresponsive to news of increasing moves to regulate or outright ban it by various governments around the world.

So yeah, just go ahead and plow all your life-savings into XBT ... it's as safe as silver!

It's one big giant bubble and when it bursts, who knows what financial ruin will face us.

That's what people were saying when XBT first reached $1,000 back in December 2013. Nothing to worry about at all.

Bubbles only really happen when people buy things with little to no intrinsic value for purely speculative reasons. If this were really a bubble you would have a sensational rise in price of XBT. What's more the price would have been largely unresponsive to news of increasing moves to regulate or outright ban it by various governments around the world.

So yeah, just go ahead and plow all your life-savings into XBT ... it's as safe as silver!

Wow, that even already works now that the UK is still in the EU?

It's beginning to work great. The UK pound is down by 20% in the last couple of yearsand will probably fall below the value of the dollar in the near future. Yen parity will take a little longer after Brexit however. Spending, earnings, everything is down and falling. Including effective tax reciepts. No economy, no money. No money, no taxes. Living the dream!

I'm normally good with understanding markets when they are free, but not so good with manipulated ones. Can someone explain how this relates to the official exchange rate:
http://www.xe.com/currencychar...
The official exchange rate appears to be pegged to the USD. How is it then that people are spending so many bolivars for $1. Do people not honour the exchange rate? Does the government refuse to cover the value of it?

How can this "official" exchange rate not reflect what the currency is actually worth, with the subquestion of how can an official exchange rate be official if it isn't honoured?

Fix this issue and your problem will be solved.

Well, no. First of all, fixing access does not mean fixing affordability. You can build power stations and power lines all you want to get those people access, but that doesn't mean those people can suddenly afford the price of an AC unit and the cost to run it.

According to United Nation's Millennium Development Goals (MDG) programme 270 millions or 21.9% people out of 1.2 billion of Indians lived below poverty line of $1.25 in 2011-2012.

(wiki)

A quick google search for 'air conditioning price in India' tells me that the low end AC units sold start at around 19 500 rupiees, which at today's exchange rate is just slightly above 300 dollars.. So that's almost a year's salary for most of the poorest 200-300 million Indians to just afford the machine. And that's just the acquisition cost. The cheaper ones are usually ones with higher power consumption (this one which I used as an example for the price has a 3 star rating), but we shouldn't be too far off even with a 3 star rating for a 1 ton machine if we assume a power consumption of about 1 kWh.

The one good thing is that increasing warming makes solar cheaper and cheaper. According to this story from last year the prices have at times shrunk to 2.62 rupiees per kWh, roughly 4 US cents.So if you run the machine for the hottest part of the day, say from 10 to 17, that's 28 cents a day.

So for those living in poverty they need to spend about 1/5th of their income just to be able to operate the machine if they somehow managed to save enough money to actually buy one in the first place. Given that people with children especially tend to have other notable expenses, it's unlikely that many at those income levels will even be able to acquire such a machine. Granted, increasing supply will further bring prices down so this estimate is not fully reflective of the future, but I'm using these figures to highlight that 'fixing this issue' is just ever so slightly more complicated than just building a few solar plants and some power lines.

The drop in oil prices has everything to do with the current political mess in Venezuela. When oil prices went up over $100/bbl, they used the extra revenue to increase social services. When oil prices went back down to $40/bbl, they refused to cut back on those social services. Instead, the government started printing more money to pay for those services (effectively stealing from its citizens' savings). That started a massive inflationary spiral which destroyed any semblance of stability in their economy.

The government's attempt to fix it by freezing the exchange rate of the Bolivar (because they don't believe in market forces - that's why you see the exchange rate graph decrease in a stair-step) just led to more economic chaos as Venezuelan companies doing import/export were no longer able to get anyone to take their laughably mis-priced money. Thus their non-oil foreign trade mostly dried up as well. The bickering about the best way to solve this situation (hint: cut back on outlays for social services to match actual government revenue) is what's led to the current political mess.

This is the playbook of what's going to happen to Middle Eastern countries which built most of their wealth on oil. Most of them are using their oil revenue to fund social services to keep the masses content while the ruling class (usually a family) does whatever the hell they want. When their oil revenue dries up, they're going to be forced to make a difficult choice between continuing those social services and suffering Venezuela's fate, or cutting them to preserve economic stability but then having to face the full wrath of the rioting masses for the first time in decades. (Note that some Middle Eastern countries have little to no oil revenue - e.g. Jordan.)

if I have to disclose my social media accounts and phone or social media login details, I will spare you from the several thousand bucks

Trump had, literally, nothing to do with it. Here is a June 28th 2016 article about the searches, but our racist media gave Obama a pass until Trump got elected. And then, before the President-elect even entered office, there was an avalanche of articles about the "new" procedures — not directly blaming him, but planting the negative thoughts in the gullible heads (like yours and those of your adoring moderators here today). Only some of the reports mentioned the truth:

searches increased fivefold in the final fiscal year of the Obama presidency

So, no, it had nothing to do with Trump. More likely, the reason is the growth of dollar since last December — vacationing in the US simply became more expensive for foreigners, while going abroad became cheaper for Americans.

Hurry up and change your money over, this is a great time!

Tumbled? What a load of ultra-right propagandist bulls**t (a.k.a. Fake News). The Mexican dollar got slightly stronger yesterday, and after the announcement, it weakened to almost precisely where it opened yesterday. It is still considerably stronger than it was a week ago, and there's no indication that it is continuing to get weaker as a result of cancelling the meeting with Trump.

In other words, there was a bit of pure statistical noise that resulted in a tiny change that happened to coincide in timing with the cancellation. The market didn't really react to that at all, and anybody who thinks otherwise is kidding themselves. Any trade war between the U.S. and Mexico will have little effect on the relative values of our currency, because we both rely on each other pretty heavily. What it will do is lower the dollar of both the Peso and the Dollar against all other world currencies.

Not having done forex, my guess is that *most* of the time, the major currencies would drift within a few percentage points of each other week to week, so sticking with 0.99 would work better than 1.02 one day, 1.01 the next, then 0.98. 1 is psychological cut-off, going above that reduces sales.

If it was that simple, I'd be a Forex millionaire by now, as would many others, since buying each dip would be a viable strategy. Unfortunately (or fortunately, since I didn't go broke), I ultimately threw out about 6 months of development into a complex algorithmic trading system that targeted Forex. Bear in mind I did that as somebody that's not afraid to take risks; unfortunately, currency pairs swing wildly, even when no geopolitical events can be easily attributed to the fluctuations.

To get an idea, take a look at the 52-week pictures for a few currency pairs:

USD/EUR
GBP/USD
GBP/EUR

These are major currency pairs, and as you can see, they move wildly on a daily basis, let alone weekly or monthly. Sometimes there are obvious events such as Brexit, but most of the time it's due to innumerable factors and a dash of irrationality. Fixed currency conversion rates do not have a place in modern society, and are almost always a scam. What Apple is doing is wrong, and I'm sure at least some of the people involved know.

Not having done forex, my guess is that *most* of the time, the major currencies would drift within a few percentage points of each other week to week, so sticking with 0.99 would work better than 1.02 one day, 1.01 the next, then 0.98. 1 is psychological cut-off, going above that reduces sales.

If it was that simple, I'd be a Forex millionaire by now, as would many others, since buying each dip would be a viable strategy. Unfortunately (or fortunately, since I didn't go broke), I ultimately threw out about 6 months of development into a complex algorithmic trading system that targeted Forex. Bear in mind I did that as somebody that's not afraid to take risks; unfortunately, currency pairs swing wildly, even when no geopolitical events can be easily attributed to the fluctuations.

To get an idea, take a look at the 52-week pictures for a few currency pairs:

USD/EUR
GBP/USD
GBP/EUR

These are major currency pairs, and as you can see, they move wildly on a daily basis, let alone weekly or monthly. Sometimes there are obvious events such as Brexit, but most of the time it's due to innumerable factors and a dash of irrationality. Fixed currency conversion rates do not have a place in modern society, and are almost always a scam. What Apple is doing is wrong, and I'm sure at least some of the people involved know.

Not having done forex, my guess is that *most* of the time, the major currencies would drift within a few percentage points of each other week to week, so sticking with 0.99 would work better than 1.02 one day, 1.01 the next, then 0.98. 1 is psychological cut-off, going above that reduces sales.

If it was that simple, I'd be a Forex millionaire by now, as would many others, since buying each dip would be a viable strategy. Unfortunately (or fortunately, since I didn't go broke), I ultimately threw out about 6 months of development into a complex algorithmic trading system that targeted Forex. Bear in mind I did that as somebody that's not afraid to take risks; unfortunately, currency pairs swing wildly, even when no geopolitical events can be easily attributed to the fluctuations.

To get an idea, take a look at the 52-week pictures for a few currency pairs:

USD/EUR
GBP/USD
GBP/EUR

These are major currency pairs, and as you can see, they move wildly on a daily basis, let alone weekly or monthly. Sometimes there are obvious events such as Brexit, but most of the time it's due to innumerable factors and a dash of irrationality. Fixed currency conversion rates do not have a place in modern society, and are almost always a scam. What Apple is doing is wrong, and I'm sure at least some of the people involved know.

Bullshit. In no way does 0.81528 (today's close) "pretty much match" old pricing. Just 6-12 months ago, the norm was somewhere in the region of 0.7 pounds to the dollar, and from early 2009 to just a year or so ago, the norm was more like 0.6 to 0.65 or thereabouts. 0.8+ pounds to the dollar is in no way normal, and Apple is not increasing prices here, but rather adjusting them to match the post-Brexit norm.

Citation, since you'll pretend it's not true otherwise. (Mind you, you'll probably still pretend it's not true.) http://www.xe.com/currencychar...

With the Pound now trading at around $1.23, and the UK app store incorporating VAT at 20% while the US store doesn't include sales tax in the list priced, this sounds about right. Certainly the "UK premium" is nothing like the 50-100% that wasn't uncommon a decade or so ago.

Apple look simply to be pricing in the devaluation in Sterling that has occurred since the beginning of Brexit. I'm not sure anyone can find much to fault with that. The real question is how quickly Apple will move to reduce prices if/when the Pound recovers?

Prices tend to be sticky in terms of reduction, if simply if only customers get used to the higher prices so absent a steep decline companies tend to keep prices at the higher levels once they raise prices.

With the Pound now trading at around $1.23, and the UK app store incorporating VAT at 20% while the US store doesn't include sales tax in the list priced, this sounds about right. Certainly the "UK premium" is nothing like the 50-100% that wasn't uncommon a decade or so ago.

Apple look simply to be pricing in the devaluation in Sterling that has occurred since the beginning of Brexit. I'm not sure anyone can find much to fault with that. The real question is how quickly Apple will move to reduce prices if/when the Pound recovers?

Well, if you want a widely fluctuating traditional/fiat currency, you could always move to Canada (or bank in Canadian dollars)

https://www.facebook.com/photo...

http://www.xe.com/currencychar...

Would you bother playing the "how do they compare over the past 1- or 2- year period" game, then? In the name of fairness, of course--neither one of us cherry-picking a particularly good or bad 30-day window for either currency, no?

CDN-USD 1 yr: low 1.22, high 1.45

BTC-USD 1 yr: low $209, high $537

CDN-USD 2 yr: low 1.06, high 1.45

BTC-USD 2 yr: low $177, high $665

Would you bother playing the "how do they compare over the past 1- or 2- year period" game, then? In the name of fairness, of course--neither one of us cherry-picking a particularly good or bad 30-day window for either currency, no?

CDN-USD 1 yr: low 1.22, high 1.45

BTC-USD 1 yr: low $209, high $537

CDN-USD 2 yr: low 1.06, high 1.45

BTC-USD 2 yr: low $177, high $665

But with the crash of the Euro, it would be have been less expensive to bring it back and pay the taxes. Only a fool keeps cash in the Eurozone.

No, its less expensive to take the 18% loss in EURO/USD exchange, 1.35'ish to 1.1'ish in the last 10 years.
http://www.xe.com/currencychar...

So with a US tax rate of 35% and an Irish tax rate of 12.5%, Apple would owe the US government the difference, 22.5%.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/ap...

So they save about 4.5% even with the Euro's devaluation relative to the US dollar.

Consider that Apple has expenses in the Eurozone so that local cash can be used to pay those. Plus any new expenses, new stores, new R&D facilities, any acquired EU based companies, licensing any EU based tech, etc. The point (or problem from the US perspective) is that with all that cash "stuck" in the EU Apple will naturally look at ways to spend that cash in the EU. US tax policy encourages US corporations to expand overseas rather than bring those profits home to the US.

Now consider a 15% tax rate on overseas earnings. Apple would only owe 2.5% to the US government. Fear of currency devaluation would matter. The barrier to bringing those profits home would be negligible. But its not just the money collected by the US government through taxes, now that money can spur economic activity in the US rather then the EU. More R&D in the US, more acquisitions in the US, etc. Those robotic factories that are going to disassemble devices for recycling? Maybe those robots could be used for assembly too and we could have more manufacturing in the US, some low volume Macs are assembled in the US. Money is flowing in the correct (US perspective) direction with respect to foreign trade deficits.

Maybe make that 15% tax rate conditional on re-investment in US based plants, equipment, research, etc?

If Morocco is just across from Spain, why would Spain pay for the energy (i.e. cost of production, plus payoff of initial outlay, plus transportation, plus the company profits) rather than just build their own?

A good question and the answers are mostly fairly straightforward. In no particular order here is a non-exhaustive list of reasons why they might decide not to build their own. Not all of these might be the case here but all are possible.
1) If they build there own it might result in overcapacity which would make the economics not work
2) Spain isn't in great financial shape so the financing might be a problem
3) Exchange rate risk. Currently the Euro is relatively strong versus the Morrocan Dirham. This means that 1 Euro can buy relatively more KWh.
4) Cost of land might be significantly higher in Spain. Spain has about 5/7 the land area with about 4/3 the population.
5) Politics (need I say more?)
6) NIMBY

Um, what? It's currently about 8 NOK to the US dollar. If you meant that your bill was "12 and a half" NOK, that'd be about one and a half US dollars. If you meant "twelve thousand, five hundred" NOK then your bill was more like US$1400.

So you're off by a factor of either 10, or 100--which is it? :-)

--Zontar (AC because I modded etc.)

The financial damage equalled 148,000.00 GBP = 223,493.93 USD but he 'owed' these companies $373, 000 ? Huh?

Anyone feel like using their botnet to 'view' the video (exactly) 200,000 times?

Quick, time to exchange my Bitcoins for Rubles and stock in Blackberry... oh wait.
Or maybe Canadian dollars... oh wait.

Like regular currencies or stocks, pseudo-currencies are also volatile.

Right, I see what you did there...

I am Mexican. We have been told the peso has been mostly stable for almost two decades... Well, lets say, a decade and a half. When Vicente Fox was appointed president (2000), one dollar was at about MX$10, and it has very slowly slided. This year started with the dollar at ~MX$13. (Our last couple of months notwithstanding, as we are now at about 15). You can look at the last 10 years' graph

However, when the Euro started circulating (2002), one Euro was at about 7 pesos. It has since gone up to 17, then down a little. That is, it has moved from ~US$0.80 to ~US$1.40; it has peaked at US$1.60, and in the last 10 years, had valleys of US$1.20. (you can see the last ten years exchange levels history)

So, in short: There's quite a bit more to it if you dig into the whole world of currencies :)

Right, I see what you did there...

I am Mexican. We have been told the peso has been mostly stable for almost two decades... Well, lets say, a decade and a half. When Vicente Fox was appointed president (2000), one dollar was at about MX$10, and it has very slowly slided. This year started with the dollar at ~MX$13. (Our last couple of months notwithstanding, as we are now at about 15). You can look at the last 10 years' graph

However, when the Euro started circulating (2002), one Euro was at about 7 pesos. It has since gone up to 17, then down a little. That is, it has moved from ~US$0.80 to ~US$1.40; it has peaked at US$1.60, and in the last 10 years, had valleys of US$1.20. (you can see the last ten years exchange levels history)

So, in short: There's quite a bit more to it if you dig into the whole world of currencies :)

Economically speaking, this would mean that valve is selling games at 1 millionth of the usual price, but still profiting off them. Profiting so much, that they are willing to make custom software changes rather than just change the price.

The GP was exaggerating, It's actually lost about half it's value. Also steam already has code to enforce region locking on games sold through other channels and already has code to set different prices for different countries. So I would assume this was a fairly minor tweak from a technical perspective.

Sometimes I wonder why companies, especially companies selling digital goods, don't just set the price in one particular currency then let it somewhat auto-fluctuate in the other currencies according to the market. Wouldn't that be simpler for them?

Simpler? yes, more profitable? no.

The ammount people are prepared to pay for goods varies with how rich they are and with existing norms in their country. Therefore the pricepoint that balances number of sales against profit from each sale is different in different countries. This is especially true for digital goods which have negligable marginal cost to the seller.

The Japanese Yen jumped 21.4% from 77.6 to 94.2 JPY/USD Sept 28 to Feb. 24.
This has a huge impact on an export-led economy like Japan.
http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=USD&to=JPY&view=1Y

It sounds like he was being pedantic. 1 USD =~ 1 CAD these days. It's been trading in such a narrow band (0.96 - 1.04) for over a year now. Just fill out the paperwork, and get on with life. Don't upset the pencil pushers. They're goons with badges and guns.

Talk about disinformation. Check your facts!

Sorry, 1 AUD = 1.04 USD - http://www.xe.com/ucc/convert/?Amount=1&From=AUD&To=USD

In the same time, the Australian dollar has gone from 56 cents US (less than the Canadian dollar back then) to being worth more than the Canadian dollar now (graph). Even harder to believe.

Or perhaps it's more correct to say that the US dollar has been falling against other world currencies.

$5000 currently equates to $5,036.67. That's right. As of right now when I'm writing this post, the Canadian dollar is actually worth more than the American Dollar. Hard to beleve considering only 10 years ago, the Canadian dollar was only worth 65 cents US.

Or just use xe.com. I have transferred money multiple times and never had an issue. You know exactly how much you'll pay and how much they'll get. Send it to the (US) recipient via ACH and they won't pay anything to get the money.

Quit your bitchin'

More like $6000 unfortunately:

http://www.xe.com/ucc/convert/?Amount=800000&From=ISK&To=USD

ISK is about 200 to the pound...

They should use aluminum like the Japanese 1 yen coin (which is worth about 1 cent US).

Uh, No.

Unless you're talking about the value of the metals used to make the coin, in which case I rescind my criticism.

So as of this time of writing:

1.60 EUR = 2.12696 USD

1.60 EUR = 2.09633 CAD

But ya, EU still beats the eastern countries with prices without a question.

Seriously though, for currency, other than USD?
    Not if they want people to know what the hell they're talking about.

Have you ever been outside of the US? Or are you just talking out of your ass?

In Canada we have a dollar ... the symbol is the standard '$' used by most places that have currency they call dollars. There is no other symbol on the keyboard, the way you differentiate is something like "$100 CDN" -- and within Canada, we don't even do that.

If it wasn't SOPA protest blackout day, you could read a list of places, but this will pretty much show you what is used. Almost 30 countries besides the US express their currency with the $ sign.

I'm afraid if you're claiming that only the US dollar is described using the $ sign you're completely mistaken ... because it's a pretty widespread symbol.

1) What's the exchange rate between C$ and USD?

From the C&P site:

You can also buy C$ for US$1.00 each by using the menu in the upper right by your balance.

assuming it is not a 1:1 exchange rate (because, if it were, why the need to pay me in fake digital currency?)

It is 1:1. They use virtual currency so they don't have to deal with payment processing fees/regulations each time a transaction occurs, only when money is cashed out.

The price at which currency, especially fake currency, is sold is =/= to exchange rate; for example, I happen to have in my possession a stack of Indian Rupees, which I will gladly sell to you for $1 USD each. That doesn't mean the exchange rate between USD and Rupees is 1:1, it just means I'm a greedy asshole.

compare the strong Swiss Franc against US Dollars

299EUR is 412.27USD today Could be different tomorrow.

http://www.xe.com/ucc/convert/?Amount=60000+&From=JPY&To=USD

60,000.00 JPY = 779.252 USD

xe.com is awesome, apart from the main table it can even do handy tricks like:
http://www.xe.com/ucc/convert/?Amount=1&From=XAU&To=USD
http://www.xe.com/ucc/convert/?Amount=1&From=XAG&To=USD

http://www.xe.com/ucc/convert/?Amount=60000+&From=JPY&To=USD

60,000.00 JPY = 779.252 USD

xe.com is awesome, apart from the main table it can even do handy tricks like:
http://www.xe.com/ucc/convert/?Amount=1&From=XAU&To=USD
http://www.xe.com/ucc/convert/?Amount=1&From=XAG&To=USD

http://www.xe.com/ucc/convert/?Amount=60000+&From=JPY&To=USD

60,000.00 JPY = 779.252 USD

xe.com is awesome, apart from the main table it can even do handy tricks like:
http://www.xe.com/ucc/convert/?Amount=1&From=XAU&To=USD
http://www.xe.com/ucc/convert/?Amount=1&From=XAG&To=USD

$124.65 with the current exchange rate of 1 USD = 6.41822 CN.

http://www.xe.com/ucc/convert/?Amount=800&From=CNY&To=USD

I have a point to make, but first I'll give you sweet, sweet data. Here's the relevant Wikipedia page, you can backtrack the direct sources from there. These are the 2009 PISA results:

Math: China (#1), Finland (#6), United States (#30)

Reading: China (#1), Finland (#3), United States (#17)

Sciences: China #1), Finland (#2), United States (#23)

= = = = = =

And now, the average cost to teach a child (Primary/Grammar/Elementary School Source, Secondary/High School Source) For Primary School and High School:

Primary/Grammar/Elementary School: Switzerland (#2, $6,470.00 per student), U.S. (#4, $6,043.00 per student), China (No data)

Secondary/High School: Switzerland (#1, $9,348.00 per student), U.S. (#3, $7,764.00 per student), China (No data)

= = = = = =

Next, the average salary per teacher for Elementary and High School (U.S. source, Finland source, China source). All are converted to dollars using XE.com.

Elementary School: Finland (~$46,000), United States (~$40,000, China (~$18,000)

High School: Finland (~$46,000 - ~$71,000), United States (~$42,000.00 - ~$44,000), China ($24,000 - ~$28,000)

= = = = = =

On this last bit, I've done some digging but haven't been able to find concrete data on all three countries from one source, so I'm going with estimates. Peek into sources if you want.

The average U.S. School day is 9-3, or about 6 hours. Finland is about 5 hours. China is about 8 hours (roughly 9-5, with a two hour lunch, so still around 7 hours).

= = = = = =

Okay, so. China pays their teachers way less than the U.S. but get far better results. Finland pays their teachers about the same and gets way better results, but not as good as China. The U.S. pays the same amount of money (roughly) that Finland does for much, much worse results.

So what the hell are we doing wrong?

China is all drill, drill, drill. A lot of the East Asian countries (South Korea, China, Japan, Indonesia, etc.) have long school days which are often supplemented by private schooling (a.k.a. "Cram courses") after the fact. Most kids are home anywhere between 8:00-10:00 PM, 2-4 hours of homework, and then wake up at 6:00 or 7:00AM the next day.

Americans, we're 9-3, plus maybe an hour or two of homework (at most). Often there's an after school program, but these are more glorified daycare and less practical education.

Finland actually ends up using *less* hours per day than us, but they use innovative teaching methods that the U.S. is sorely lacking.

I see Finland and China as two extremes. China is like grinding in an MMO. If you simply just do something a lot, you're going to get better by rote and practice. That's the general Asian method, I've found. Drill, test, drill, test, drill, test. Finland seems to be the opposite extreme - less drilling, more trying to find methods that work without having an insanely look school day. The U.S. has the worst parts of both and the benefits of neither.

If we lengthened the school days in America and really put the kids asses to work, we could edge up closer to China - maybe eve beat it out. They do way better than us for 1/3 - 1/2 the cost on teacher salary. However, if we maintained the same salary but looked at where our methodology is wrong and tried new things, we could achieve similar resu