By James Saft – The yen has fallen by more than 20 percent since Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who advocates aggressive monetary and fiscal policy, was elected in December, busting through the 100 yen to the dollar level last week.
But a look at the actual data shows Japanese companies, like British ones during a similar bout of currency weakness in 2008, appear to be more eager to use a newly competitive currency to pad profits through higher margins rather than higher export volumes.
“Japanese companies have not actually cut the foreign currency prices of their exports. Just as with the UK exporters, the Japanese have chosen to hold foreign prices constant, maintain market share, and increase the yen value and thus the yen profit associated with yen depreciation,” UBS economist Paul Donovan writes. more> ttp://tinyurl.com/ct2m38j
By Nathan Lewis – The Bitcoin project is an odd combination of very advanced, Ph.D-level computer science, regarding encryption and record-keeping, and very primitive, sub-kindergarten-level monetary understanding.
By William E. Pomeranz – The Kremlin’s initial outrage over developments in Cyprus – and the island’s shocking expropriation of billions of dollars held by Russian companies and citizens – has given way to mild indifference. “If somebody gets caught and loses money at the two largest [Cypriot] banks, it’s a shame,” First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov 
By Rebecca Greenfield – After enjoying a week or so of increasing value, Bitcoin took a huge dive today (Apr 10), which explains why the “virtual currency” is not a currency at all, but more of a stock people have invested in to get rich. The coins started out at a high of $266 today, and have fallen to around $150, as this dramatic chart from 
