Free Republic

Longtime Colombo under-boss John “Sonny” Franzese is the living embodiment of the ultimate mob rule — bragging in an interview about refusing to rat despite it making him the oldest federal prisoner at the age of 100. Wheelchair-bound Franzese, now 102 and living in a nursing home, told Newsday about his life of crime — and how he stuck to the “Goodfellas” adage of “Never rat on your friends, and always keep your mouth shut” despite facing 50 years behind bars.

BEIJING (Reuters) - Peter Wang was asleep at his home in Beijing last Monday when police officers arrived before dawn to detain him, saying he had helped organize a protest planned for later that day. Across the city, others who had lost money investing in China’s online peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platforms - including some who had traveled from as far away as Shandong and Shanxi provinces - got similar visits from police. By the time they were released, the demonstration they had planned using social media chat groups had fizzled amid a massive security response around the China Banking and...

Eurozone finance ministers agreed on Saturday to lend Spain up to €100 billion ($125 billion) to shore up its teetering banks, and Madrid said it would specify precisely how much it needs once independent audits report in just over a week. After a 2½-hour conference call of the 17 finance ministers, which several sources described as heated, the Eurogroup and Madrid said the amount of the bailout would be sufficiently large to banish any doubts. "The loan amount must cover estimated capital requirements with an additional safety margin, estimated as summing up to €100 billion in total," a Eurogroup statement...

European Union officials are urgently exploring ways to rescue Spain's debt-stricken banks, although Madrid has not yet formally requested assistance and is resisting being placed under international supervision, European sources said yesterday (6 June). Spain, the eurozone's fourth biggest economy, said earlier this week it was effectively losing access to credit markets due to prohibitive borrowing costs and appealed to European partners to help revive its banks. The European Central Bank dashed investors' hopes of an easing of monetary policy or another flood of cheap liquidity for banks despite saying that the eurozone money market has again become "dysfunctional". The...

Chinese President Hu Jintao said on Thursday that Beijing will offer $10 billion in loans to the member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. The SCO, founded in 2001, includes China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Iran, India, Pakistan and others attend the summits, but not as full members. "China has decided to give to the other member states $10 billion in loans," Hu said in a speech broadcast on state television. He did not elaborate on how the funds would be used. …

ROME—Organized crime has tightened its grip on the Italian economy during the economic crisis, making the Mafia the country's biggest "bank" and squeezing the life out of thousands of small firms, according to a report on Tuesday. Extortionate lending by criminal groups had become a "national emergency," said the report by anti-crime group SOS Impresa. Organized crime now generated annual turnover of about €140 billion ($178.89 billion) and profits of more than €100 billion, it added. "With €65 billion in liquidity, the Mafia is Italy's number one bank," said a statement from the group, which was set up in Palermo...

The Social Blessings of "Usury" by Glen Tenney [Posted on Wednesday, December 14, 2005] [To receive the Daily Article in your inbox, go to email services, and tell others too!] In a front-page article in the Birmingham News of November 22, staff writer Russell Hubbard reported that the Alabama Supreme Court has ruled that the high interest rates charged by payday lenders in Alabama from 1998 through 2003 were "usurious" and therefore illegal. Though high-interest payday loans have been legal in Alabama since 2003 (albeit with a cap on the actual rate charged) an attorney named Mike Skotnicki suggests that possibly...

If humanity cannot live with the dangers and responsibilities inherent in freedom, it will probably turn to authoritarianism - Erich Fromm >>>>>>>>Do you have a centrist POV?<<<<<<<<< Are you willing to investigate the world monetary powers behind the giant corporations and expose them for what they truly are... >>>>>>>>U-L-T-I-M-A-T-E.... P-R-E-D-A-T-O-R-S <<<<<<<<< The topic is raceless/cultureless, it exposes an elite phenomenon and shabby secret which has always plagued Humanity since e-v-e-r. (yep, sorry for this extremely bad news) "The individual is handicapped by coming face to face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists." -- J. Edgar Hoover...