Free Republic

Get rid of the $100 bill. Heck, maybe get rid of the $50 bill, too. So says Lawrence Summers, a former economic adviser to President Obama and ex-Treasury secretary. Summers points to research showing that corruption is aided by paper currency in larger denominations, such as Uncle Sam’s $100 bill and the 500-euro bill ($557 U.S. equivalent). How so? It’s easier for criminals and terrorists to move lots of cash illicitly in large bills. A million dollars in €500 bills weighs just 2.2 pounds, Summers writes in a blog post on the Washington Post website. The same amount of money...

Harvard's Mossavar Rahmani Center for Business and Government, which I am privileged to direct, has just issued an important paper by senior fellow Peter Sands and a group of student collaborators. The paper makes a compelling case for stopping the issuance of high denomination notes like the 500 euro note and $100 bill or even withdrawing them from circulation. I remember that when the euro was being designed in the late 1990s, I argued with my European G7 colleagues that skirmishing over seigniorage by issuing a 500 euro note was highly irresponsible and mostly would be a boon to corruption...

Kanye West made a reference to being "$53 million dollars in personal debt" on Saturday. West, whose Twitter announcements have made headlines multiple times in recent days, tweeted, "I write this to you my brothers while still 53 million dollars in personal debt... Please pray we overcome... This is my true heart..." I write this to you my brothers while still 53 million dollars in personal debt... Please pray we overcome... This is my true heart...

In response to fears that his expansive plans for government will be prohibitively expensive, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (S-Vt) argued that "abolishing money will go a long way toward making government more efficient." "If people would only stop to consider how time-consuming it is to have to keep track of the flow of money they'd understand the tremendous efficiencies that will be achieved once we do away with it," Sanders imagined. "For the individual, all the headaches entailed in managing money—having it on hand, balancing a checkbook, paying bills—will be eliminated. If you need something you'll just go...

Gun rights groups like the National Rifle Association said that conservative Justice Antonin Scalia's death Saturday puts gun rights on the line. "We are one justice away from a Supreme Court that would harm our Second Amendment rights," said the NRA.

One of the most surprising comments this year came from a closed session on fintech where I sat next to someone in policy circles who argued that we should move quickly to a cashless economy so that we could introduce negative rates well below 1% – as they were concerned that Larry Summers' secular stagnation was indeed playing out and we would be stuck with negative rates for a decade in Europe. They felt below (1.5)% depositors would start to hoard notes, leading to yet further complexities for monetary policy.

When investors are nervous, they flee risky assets like stocks for the safety of cash. That's exactly what's been happening lately. Since July 1, cash and money market funds have easily been the world's most popular asset class, attracting $208 billion of inflows, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch. By comparison, investors have poured a relatively paltry $7 billion into stocks and yanked $46 billion from bonds. It's the latest evidence of the jitters ripping through financial markets amid crashing oil prices, a slowdown in China and soft U.S. economic activity. "The individual investor is scared by the volatility....

One of the key metrics on the strength of a campaign is how well their fundraising, and allocation of resources are going. In that measure Ted Cruz's campaign is on fire. According to FEC reports, for the most recent filing period, Ted Cruz had more cash on hand than the Republican National Committee. For the period ending on December 31, 2015 Cruz reported having $18,734,794.46 cash on hand. For the same end date the Republican National Committee had $18,723,782 on hand. Cruz had about $11,000 more in his war chest than the RNC. It shows a particular strength for his...

CHICAGO (AP) — Officials with Chicago Public Schools said Tuesday they're ready to cut $100 million from school budgets and force teachers to pay more pension costs after their union rejected the latest contract offer, ratcheting up the tone of contentious negotiations that have lasted over a year. Schools CEO Forrest Claypool called the union's rejection "disheartening" and cost-cutting efforts — including potential layoffs of support staff like teachers' aides — necessary without a deal. Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis shot back, calling the announcement the "latest act of war" and saying teachers in the nation's third-largest district would...

We need an estimated $1tn per year to stay below a global temperature rise of 2C. Creating new money might be the only way to meet this financial challenge. The international community has agreed on an ambitious agenda to curb climate change. Some 195 countries have decided to try and cut greenhouse gas emissions to a level that will limit the rise in average global temperatures to well below 2C. The question we now face is: how are we going to finance the changes needed to reach this goal? Quantitative easing - creating new money - might just be the...

Last month the Detroit Free Press published a sympathetic story by columnist Rochelle Riley about a Detroit Public School principal named Kenyetta Wilbourn who pleaded guilty to bribery and tax evasion charges. Wilbourn used her position to put relatives on the payroll, took kickbacks from vendors and wrote fake grant requests. Wilbourn, who said in the story she considered herself like Robin Hood, was also quoted about her own financial problems: “We’re talking about systemic poverty and what does that look like?” she said. “Yes, I may have a Gucci bag or a pair of Cartier (glasses), but I don’t...

As the war between Fox News and Donald Trump ratchets up, Roger Ailes is fighting off criticism from his senior executives over his handling of the crisis. According to one highly placed source, last night, Ailes sent out the now-famous statement mocking Trump as being scared to meet with the "Ayatollah" and "Putin" if he became president. "That was Roger 100 percent," the source explained. "A lot of people on the second floor" -- where top Fox executives work -- "didn't think it was a good idea." Fox executives are also troubled that Ailes's principal adviser right now is his...

Although the vast majority of public employees are covered by defined-benefit pension plans, many may need to supplement their pension checks to ensure a comfortable retirement. Teachers, for example, can enhance their retirement security by contributing to a 403(b) plan, a tax-deferred savings plan that's similar to a 401(k). Unfortunately, many 403(b) plans are vastly inferior to their private-sector counterparts as far as investment choices are concerned; primary offerings are usually products such as equity-indexed annuities, which often carry high fees and offer limited market returns

There is an economic mystery I've been struggling to understand for quite some time, and I'm not the only one who's confused: Among financial experts, it is often referred to as a conundrum, a paradox, a puzzle. The mystery is as follows: Collectively, American businesses currently have $1.9 trillion in cash, just sitting around. Not only is this state of affairs unparalleled in economic history, but we don't even have much data to compare it with, because corporations have traditionally been borrowers, not savers. The notion that a corporation would hold on to so much of its profit seems economically...

There's horse****, and then there's outrageous denial of something that nobody ought to take at face value or believe. Sure, the NY Daily News and Cruz are "no longer friends" after his gratuitous slam at New York in the debate, but that's not the part that ought to make people simply shout LIAR! or even CROOK! every time they see him. No, it's this story: Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) downplayed a report late Wednesday that he had not listed personal loans he and his wife received before donating roughly the same amount to his 2012 Senate campaign, calling the matter...

TEHRAN - Iran announced Saturday that it had released four Iranian-Americans as part of a prisoner exchange with the United States. The announcement from the judiciary on state television did not identify the four, but Iranian news media said they included Jason Rezaian, The Washington Post’s Tehran correspondent; Amir Hekmati, a Marine veteran; and Saeed Abedini, a pastor. There were discrepancies in the Iranian reports about the identity of the fourth prisoner. It was not immediately clear whom the Americans released, but Iranian reports said seven Iranians were freed. The exchange was apparently orchestrated to coincide with the expected announcement...

What would you recommend doing if you have 25 thousand dollars to invest today Where would you put it pay down our mortgage that amount relates to about half of what we owe on a modest condo any ideas

With little fanfare and as expected, today President Obama vetoed H.R.3762, the “Restoring Americans’ Healthcare Freedom Reconciliation Act of 2015″ sent to him by Congress earlier this week. The legislation would have repealed key provisions of Obamacare and restricted the availability of federal funding for Planned Parenthood. Among other things, the bill would have ended federal funding for Planned Parenthood for the next fiscal year, ended the IRS-collected penalty on taxpayers who do not carry government mandated health insurance, eased restrictions on health savings accounts and modified or removed many federal health insurance mandates on small businesses and state agencies....

Bernie Sanders and his wife have on numerous occasions steered money from organizations under their control to friends and family members, public records show. The payments benefitted the wife of the Democratic presidential candidate, his stepdaughter, and the son of a former colleague in city government whom Sanders has described as a close friend. Sanders, a self-described socialist, is now running for the presidency on an anti-corruption platform, decrying public officials’ attempts to use their positions for personal financial gain. Following 16 years as a member of the House, Sanders was elected to the Senate in 2006. His political campaigns...

Wealthy televangelists, or as some are referred to "Scamgelists," with outrageous claims are nothing new to Christian news. We've heard it all before—the mansions, the expensive cars, the private planes etc. But this is a new take on why famous pastors need private planes. There are of course some legitimate reasons, such as their busy schedules including multiple speaking dates in a week that span different places throughout the U.S. It's hard to find a commercial flight that can get you to that many engagements. One could say don't make that many engagements then, but if the church as a...