Free Republic

One might think this column is about the various childish people elected in the recent Congress by Democrats who have little life experience and less knowledge or wisdom.  No, it is about how a major columnist at a prominent publication wants you to have more government invading your life because she herself is too irresponsible to review her own financial documents.Let us review some thoughts before we go further.   Regular readers know I draw no quarter on private enterprises acting badly.  When you are a capitalist, you have an obligation to act in a manner that does not give...

The longtime manager the CBS Employees Federal Credit Union has been arrested and charged with embezzling more than $40 million from his employer over the past 20 years. Edward Rostohar faces felony counts of bank fraud and aggravated identity theft. In conjunction with the arrest, the National Credit Union Administration — a federal agency that regulates credit unions — announced Friday that it has liquidated the CBS Employees Federal Credit Union and shut down its operations. University Credit Union immediately assumed CBS Employees’ assets.

Deutsche Bank is providing Congress with records about its prior dealings with President Trump, a powerful Democratic lawmaker said on Tuesday. House Rep. Maxine Waters, the Democrat from California, said that the Frankfurt-based bank is cooperating with the House Financial Services Committee, which she chairs.

MOSCOW, March 19 (Reuters) - Russian lawmakers on Tuesday backed the international use of a Russian alternative system for the global financial messaging network SWIFT designed by Moscow to eliminate the risk of Western sanctions. Russia has held talks with China, India, Iran and Turkey about joint use of Russia's financial messaging system, said Anatoly Aksakov, who heads the Russian Banking Association and a financial committee with the lower house of parliament. "As the system has proved to be viable and efficient, it draws interest from both Russian and foreign players, it is proposed to give any legal entities, Russian...

Republicans on the House Financial Services Committee are seeking to postpone consideration of marijuana banking legislation scheduled to be brought to vote next week by the panel’s Democratic chair, Rep. Maxine Waters of California. Ranking member Rep. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina and Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer of Missouri wrote Ms. Waters on Thursday raising concerns about Congress potentially passing the Secure And Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act, a bipartisan proposal meant to protect banks that work with marijuana businesses in weed-friendly states. “The impact that many state laws, which have legalized marijuana, have on the federal laws governing the manufacturing,...

New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez interceded on behalf of an Ecuadorian woman who was banned from traveling to the U.S. because of allegations she had engaged in visa fraud. The woman, Estafania Isaias, is the daughter of a fugitive from Ecuador convicted in absentia for bank fraud and whose relatives in Florida made significant campaign donations to the New Jersey Democrat's 2012 campaign and the Democratic Party. Current and former U.S. government officials tell NBC 4 New York that Estefania Isaias was barred from traveling to the U.S. in 2007 because she allegedly lied on visa applications to bring immigrant...

Another scandal for the "scandal-free" Obama administration. Not all ICE targets work construction or smuggle drugs. Some are key figures in the Dem machine. But the era of Obama corruption is over. There's a new sheriff in town. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) this week arrested two millionaire fugitives from Ecuador whose family donated heavily to American political campaigns. Roberto and William Isaías, 74 and 75, were detained Wednesday in Miami and taken to a detention facility for undocumented immigrants awaiting deportation, The New York Times reported Friday. ICE told the Times that the brothers were “unlawfully present” in...

Two wealthy Ecuadorian brothers, Roberto and William Isaías, who were owners of companies fined and ordered to shut down for illegally trafficking world-wide in aborted baby parts purchased from Planned Parenthood, were arrested by ICE on February 13, 2019. [snip] Roberto and William Isaias, who fled Ecuador to avoid 8-year prison sentences, were principals in California companies DaVinci Biosciences and DV Biologics, and the two career criminals were allowed to stay in the United States by Hillary Clinton’s State Department under “suspicious circumstances” after they donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign fund.

Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., has a habit of redoubling her efforts when her ideas fail. That’s especially true given that she now chairs the House Financial Services Committee. One of her top priorities is bullying banks into boosting mortgage lending to marginally qualified borrowers based on race or ethnicity. And her main vehicle for that now is a proposed subcommittee on diversity and inclusion. In a prepared statement on January 30, she declared, “I am proud to say that this will be the first Subcommittee of its kind in Congress.” One hopes it will be the last. For if she...

Big banks could be about to get a high-profile enemy in a very powerful place. Freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who is a registered Democrat but identifies as a democratic socialist, is in line to be appointed to the House Financial Services Committee, according to a Politico report. The New York legislator has vowed to take on the industry that makes up the corporate backbone for much of her constituency. She said during her successful campaign in 2018, in which she refused corporate donors and upset entrenched incumbent Democrat Joe Crowley, that she was hoping for an assignment that would allow...

Dear American: Pursuant to your request, I will attempt to clear up questions you have about the Federal Reserve Bank (FED). I spent much time researching the FED and these are the shocking and revealing conclusions. Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution states that Congress shall have the power to coin (create) money and regulate the value thereof. Today however, the FED, which is a privately owned company, controls and profits by printing money through the Treasury, and regulating its value. The FED began with approximately 300 people or banks that became owners (stockholders purchasing stock at $100 per...

Recently, I was elected treasurer of my local SAR chapter, the older male equivalent of the far better known Daughters of the American Revolution.Thus, I was appalled to learn what a partly rate of interest our existing bank paid on a recently matured CD (0.06%!) and refused to renew it, asking them to deposit it into our checking account instead.Accordingly, I am now actually shopping for another bank our credit union willing to offer a fine, patriotic organization such as our better rates and service. My retirement money, for example, is with Charles Schwab, where I can earn 2.3% (annualized)...

FULL TITLE: New York Times Wants To Have Credit Card Companies Monitor Sales Of Guns And Ammo. What Could Ever Go Wrong? The New York Times ran an article today that opens a new front in the progressive dream of restricting and eventually banning gun ownership. The story is headlined How Banks Unwittingly Finance Mass Shootings: A New York Times examination of mass shootings since the Virginia Tech attack in 2007 reveals how credit cards have become a crucial part of the planning of these massacres. There have been 13 shootings that killed 10 or more people in the last...

The spread of illiberal ideology is threatening the euro, but it is an illusion that leaving it would offer an easier path, European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said on Saturday. Warning that a half-finished monetary union could be at risk in the next crisis, Draghi made the case for sweeping changes in how the currency bloc operates and spreads around financial risk. “The fascination with illiberal prescriptions and regimes is spreading; we are seeing little steps back in history,” Draghi said in Pisa, Italy. “Only by continuing to make progress, freeing up individual energies but also fostering social equity,...

On May 17, I published an article in the Italian newspaper La Verità about pope Benedict’s abdication. A few days before, in a renowned Italian geopolitical magazine called Limes, Professor Germano Dottori had argued that Joseph Ratzinger’s 2013 abdication, and the former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s resignation in 2011, after a financial storm sold to public opinion as a “public debt” crisis, were the result of pressures on the part of Obama administration in the United States. According to Dottori, Obama was eager to dethrone Benedict XVI for two reasons. On the one hand, his presidency was close to...

Mastercard, Microsoft to Advance Digital Identity Innovations https://newsroom.mastercard.com/press-releases/mastercard-microsoft-join-forces-to-advance-digital-identity-innovations/#__prclt=IarCgTyK Mastercard, Microsoft Join Forces to Advance Digital Identity Innovations PURCHASE, N.Y. and REDMOND, Wash. – December 3, 2018 – Mastercard (NYSE: MA) and Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) today announced a strategic collaboration to improve how people manage and use their digital identity. Currently, verifying your identity online is still dependent on physical or digital proof managed by a central party, whether it’s your passport number, your proof of address, driver’s license, user credentials or other means. This dependence places a huge burden on individuals, who have to successfully remember hundreds of passwords...

QUESTION: What mechanism prevents banks from creating fraudulent electronic deposits of currency? As an IT systems admin, I have the ability to add / subtract / adjust ERP systems inventory / costing outside the normal users ability. I could add widgets to the system at will, but fraud can’t be sustained very long, as the physical widgets can’t be sold, they only exist in the system. Electronic currency, however, is only a ledger entry, and since new currency units are created as loans – What prevents any bank from just changing the numbers in their systems to create more currency...

The IMF has recommended that all Central banks should issue their own cryptocurrencies. Indeed, they are looking at using Block Chain to keep track of taxes and to enforce negative interest rates with cryptocurrencies which would allow them to impose negative interest rates whenever necessary. With adopting cryptocurrencies that governments would control, we will come one step closer to losing all our freedom. Central banks could enforce negative interest rates with cryptocurrencies and thus people would find their accounts just garnished. This technology is also causing those in hunt of tax revenues to lick their lips. The issuance of digital...

The Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund sued Goldman Sachs on the Pi Target, Wednesday, November 21st, 2018, for allegedly conspiring against the Middle Eastern fund to further a criminal scheme by Malaysia’s scandal-plagued 1MDB. The suit, filed in a New York court on behalf of Abu Dhabi’s International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC), names Goldman Sachs as well as former Goldman officials who were charged by the US Justice Department in indictments unsealed earlier this month. “This action seeks redress for a massive global conspiracy on the part of the defendants to defraud and injure plaintiffs,” said the lawsuit, which also...

Before I show you what I’ve learned about a plan to seize control of America’s money, let me make one point clear…If you value sound money and political freedom… if you value limited government and taxation with representation… and if you value enterprise and privacy… then you’re going to hate the future I’m about to describe.There is no philosophical or monetary middle ground on the issue.You’re either with it or against it.The Chicago PlanIn March 1933, Henry Morgenthau Jr., chairman of the Federal Farm Board, was sent a short memo titled, “Memorandum on Banking Reform.”It was signed by Frank Knight...