Babaru Keizai

Babaru Keizai, in Japanese, refers to 'Bubble Economy'. It points to the period before the sudden slowdown experienced in Japan in the early 90's. 1980's were characterized by huge investments in the real estate sector and the stock markets, to the extent that organizations in the manufacturing domain preferred to issue debentures and invest the money in stock markets in place of manufacturing. This kind of investment was referred to as 'Zaitech'. A large portion of these debentures were sold abroad. 

Prices in real estate and stock markets drove up the inflation rate in Japan and liquidity decreased considerably in the late 1980's as compared to the start of the decade. Individuals invested their savings while corporations and their pension funds were investing their surplus funds in stock markets; banks were lending for these speculative investments in real estate and stocks.

bitcoins: Some facts

1. A bitcoin is an international crytocurrency that came into circulation in January, 2009. A complex programme is used for its creation.

2. A maximum of 21 million bitcoins can be created. As of now 12-12.5 million bitcoins exist.

3. The credit for bitcoin creation goes to a pseudonymous developer Satoshi Nakamoto.

4. World's first bitcoin ATM opened recently in Vancouver, Canada.

5. Several websites accept bitcoins as donation. Information about physical outlets that accept bitcoins is available on coinmap.org

6. In order to buy bitcoins, one needs to register with an international digital wallet to get an alphanumeric string termed as the bitcoin address. coinbase.com is an instance of this. An open source software armory also serves as a bitcoin management platform.

7. The value of bitcoin has gone up significantly in the year 2013, the value being below $10 at the beginning of the year. It has touched $1000 in the recent months and the current 'buy' price is $ 740.52.

8. Tokyo, Japan based Mt.Gox holds the distinction of being the world's largest bitcoin exchange.

9.  This currency has been legalized in Germany.

10. The scepticism emanating from central banks and regulators stems from the risk of its use for money laundering and other illegal activities as the transactions involving bitcoins cannot be traced or tracked. Recently, FBI arrested entrepreneur Ross Ulbricht for his online venture, Silkroad, a web based platform accepting bitcoins, which was selling drugs and arms. It was accessible only through the Tor web network.