Free Republic

The Federal Reserve is prepared to let the stock market drop another 15% to 20% before it acts in any way to stem the decline, says Greg Jensen, co-chief investment officer at Bridgewater Associates, the world's biggest hedge fund. With inflation soaring and unemployment dropping, the Fed has little reason to act, he told Bloomberg. Consumer prices soared 7% last year, and the unemployment rate dipped to 3.9% in December from 4.2% in November. "Some decline in asset prices is not a bad thing from the Fed's perspective, so they're going to let it happen," Jensen he said. "At these...

A cargo ship carrying American soybean exports has reportedly been stuck in the Pacific Ocean off China for a month after failing to arrive at the country before a 25 percent tariff on the good was implemented. The Peak Pegasus had rushed to sail from the U.S. to China last month, ahead of the tariff start date of July 6. But The Guardian reported Wednesday that the ship arrived just past the deadline, and has been stuck outside China since. The ship is owned by JP Morgan Asset Management, while the cargo belongs to global merchant Louis Dreyfus, The Guardian...

Hank Paulson (ya know: the guy that “managed” the financial crises in 2008) had a recent op-ed in the New York Times warning America of the next great crises. According to George W Bush’s former Treasury Secretary, climate change is the next sub-prime mortgage disaster. Or something. Writing in the New York Times, Paulson lays out his case:Looking back at the dark days of the financial crisis in 2008, it is easy to see the similarities between the financial crisis and the climate challenge we now face. We are building up excesses (debt in 2008, greenhouse gas emissions that are...

Speaking in New York City last week, Wall Street billionaire Tom Steyer laid clear his vision for penalizing people whose actions may contribute to climate change.“We need to reward people whose behavior reduces climate risk and penalize people who add to it,” said Steyer “If we can get this right, I think there’s no doubt that our economy is going to continue to do very well.”He was joined by several wealthy businessmen — such as Michael Bloomberg and former bankers and government officials Hank Paulson and Robert Reich— to unveil a report from Risky Business, an economic analysis of the...

It was 8 degrees in Minneapolis on a recent January day, and out on Interstate 394, snow whipped against the windshields of drivers on their morning commutes. But inside the offices of Cargill, the food conglomerate, Greg Page, the company’s executive chairman, felt compelled to talk about global warming. Mr. Page is a member of the Risky Business Project, an unusual collection of business and policy leaders determined to prepare American companies for climate change. It’s a prestigious club, counting a former senator, five former White House cabinet members, two former mayors and two billionaires in the group. The 10...

Nuclear energy is to the Right what solar energy is to the Left: Religious devotion in practice, a wonderful technology in theory, but an economic white elephant in fact (some crossovers on both sides notwithstanding). When the day comes that the electricity from solar or nuclear power plants is worth more than the costs associated with generating it, I will be as happy as the next Greenpeace member (in the case of the former) or MIT graduate (in the case of the latter) to support either technology. But that day is not on the horizon and government policies can't accelerate...

DUBLIN, Republic of Ireland (AP) -- A former senior official of Sinn Fein recently exposed as a British spy has been found fatally shot in northwest Ireland, police said Tuesday -- an act certain to send shock waves through Northern Ireland's peace process at a critical moment. Denis Donaldson, Sinn Fein's former legislative chief in the failed power-sharing government of Northern Ireland, admitted in December he had been on the payroll of the British secret service and the province's anti-terrorist police for the previous two decades. He then went into hiding -- because the traditional Irish Republican Army punishment for...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - California's multi-billion-dollar adult porn industry ground to a virtual halt on Thursday after a popular actor tested positive for the virus that causes AIDS (news - web sites). Industry advocates immediately called for a 60-day moratorium on filming so that others could be tested. Actor Darren James tested positive for HIV (news - web sites) on Wednesday in screening conducted routinely on the industry's 1,200 regular actors by the Adult Industry Medical Healthcare (AIM) Foundation, the foundation's Dr. Elizabeth Mitchell (news) said. They must show negative tests to keep working in the industry, Mitchell said, adding...