Randall Lord was charged with operating a money service business (MSB) without a license. The thing is, MSBs are issued at the state level, and the office that issued the license told Randall that he didn't need one. Unfortunately for him, his lawyer had already convinced him to take a deal for a guilty plea. The business in question was simply exchanging bitcoins for dollars among mostly friends and family.
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In 2008, banks including the Federal Reserve threatened us that the economy would collapse if we didn't give them $700bn. At least that was the story we were told. In fact, that's almost completely wrong. The story claims that banks were insolvent and if the government didn't give money to these banks, people wouldn't have access to the money in their accounts. While this is mostly true, the blame was completely misdirected away from the real financial irresponsibility.
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