* I don't want the merchant to know I paid him from my 10,000+ btc stash
* I was one of the few who were able to withdraw from mtgox and don't want someone to trace my coins back to gox.

How difficult would it be to trace these coins if I first put them through shared coin?

offline computer generate 300 addresses. Each private key is then made a 3 of 7 using shamir's secret sharing. I hold 2 paper copies and 1 on a true-crypt drive. the other 4 are sent to family and friends that wouldn't meet unless I died or was wrongly accused of a crime.

Some would say worthless

create an offline TX ready to broadcast to an address you already own, and give it to a trusted friend. I don't understand the particulars, but it shouldn't involve private keys, but public information - correct?

If the authorities wish to seize, your friend broadcasts the tx while you claim you gave the private key to officer Smith while in custody.

I was just going to suggest that bitcoin stop accepting Bank Of the West. Yeah!

I shouldn't have said "not permitted". There are no USD withdrawals from MtGox at this time. I'm pointing out the economics -- you would expect less offers for USD when there is a delay for USD. Higher USD prices for BTC leads to less USD deposits, and more BTC deposits.

You are assuming welfare funding has to be by force. If churches collect and spend voluntarily, I would still call this welfare. And as a libertarian, this is OK. Same can be said about "Foreign Aid", we all assume this is the government spending the people's money against their wishes. People from one country helping those of another voluntarily is still foreign aid.

Here is the rundown of what is going on at MtGox.

1) MtGox lost dwolla account to seizure. This is still their money, but have to get it back when/if the government allows them.
2) This strained MtGox, because now everyone requested money via wire, and funds were limited. Coins were bid up at MtGox out of fear.
3) This is leading to even more stress at MtGox, due to the fact that it is more economical to deposit at other exchanges. Example, if you were to wire $10k into an exchange, would you wire to an exchange where you can buy BTC at $94 or buy at $99? No fiat comes in, no fiat goes out.

There have been no credible reports of BTC not being withdrawn, and there must have been many thousands of coins taken out of the exchange. I've personally asked for a large cancel of funds, which MtGox did so within hours. I bought the coins and withdrew them.

This leads to my conclusion:
Gox does have the funds and the BTC to back everything up 100%. But they need to clear government regulations for it to happen. They can't come out and say "Stupid USG won't give us your money", it would lead to a panic run on the exchange as coins get bid up. It also would not help clear regulations with the government. Therefore, it is in the exchange's best interest to stall.

This is not surprising, given that USD withdrawals are not permitted at this time. Who would deposit or bid up MtGox USD in the current environment?

whoo hoo!

I would agree with this, but when will MtGox have LTC trading?

Seems Gox is having a bit of problems with their timelines.

Want to say that this did NOT happen to me. I have 2FA (yubikey), is it possible the attackers knew who had 2FA and who did not? I did have assets in my mtgox acct.