Free Republic

Nearly 50% of all global assets are now held in shadow banks, according to the IMF. These institutions, also called non-bank financial intermediaries (NBFIs), include pension funds, insurers, hedge funds, private equity funds, structured investment vehicles (SIVs), limited-purpose finance companies (LPFCs), and numerous other entities—each with their own acronym. Shadow banks are often the under-regulated middle men of the financial system, and they’re growing in number. For nearly a decade now, Federal Reserve officials have repeatedly warned about the hidden dangers present in these shadow banks. And it’s not just U.S. regulators that have expressed concern—from Ireland to China, the...

“2000 showed you can just about skate through a stock market event, but Japan and 2008 showed you can’t skate through a housing crisis,” Grantham says. Wall Street titan Jeremy Grantham has been warning of a “superbubble” in the U.S. since last year, arguing the S&P 500 is set to be cut in half as an era marked by exceedingly risky investor behavior begins to fade. Now, the cofounder and chief investment strategist of the Boston-based asset management firm Grantham, Mayo, and van Otterloo (GMO) is warning the U.S. may be headed toward a housing crisis as mortgage rates soar,...

When many Americans come across the term "integration," thoughts of Black students enrolling in predominately white schools likely come to mind. However, one Midwestern school district is turning this narrative on its head by having white students desegregate predominately Black institutions. Minneapolis recently unveiled a citywide plan to rezone school districts to combat rising segregation rates in the city's public education system. The New York Times reported approximately one-third of students throughout the city (about 10,000) were assigned to new schools, emphasizing getting white kids into predominately Black academies....

“North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in April said he would give the U.S. until the end of the year to become more flexible on nuclear talks. Since then, he's launched 12 missiles to back up that warning, including a launch on Thursday. So far, though, there is no evidence the U.S. is changing its stance, meaning the situation could soon get much more volatile, as VOA’s Bill Gallo reports from Seoul”...(sound file at link)

Actually, what makes this even more funny is that it’s part of Russ Carnahan’s attempt to run against George Bush rather than Republican nominee Ed Martin, who gets the last word in this video. The Daily Caller notes that the debate turned into stand-up comedy (er, perhaps sit-down comedy) when Carnahan tries to claim that he rescued a stable system with no problems from the clutches of Bush’s reformers when he first got to Congress. It’s left to Martin to then remind everyone that Carnahan and Nancy Pelosi then continued to raid the Social Security fund to pay for the...

While pundits called President Obama on his failure to mention Israel and the Palestinian problem in last week's State of the Union Address, a far greater omission went ignored: Latin America. Aside from one fleeting reference (to Colombia and free trade), the closest Obama came geographically was a rhetorical jaunt to the Caribbean to note the disaster in Haiti. Mexico is battling a full-blown narco-insurgency right on our border. In Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez is constructing a vicious dictatorship. Argentina's stumbling toward a government crisis. While we were napping, Brazil became a great power. None of them warranted a subordinate...

Earlier this month, Jonah Goldberg declared, “The truth is that failed states are a direct threat to American and global security.” With respect to nation building, Goldberg looked back to the debates in the 2000 presidential election and concluded that “Gore was right and Bush was wrong, though neither quite appreciated why.” He concluded by advocating that the United States attempt to create a “League of Democracies, perhaps with NATO as its military wing and a souped-up version of the Peace Corps as its political wing, to shrug off charges of imperialism and to start doing windows.” That packs a...

Pace of attacks worrisome as drug wars grow violent By Michael Marizco ARIZONA DAILY STAR An already volatile U.S.-Mexico border climate worsened in the past week as U.S. Border Patrol agents in the Tucson sector came under gunfire three times, with one shot so close the agent heard the bullet whiz past. With 80 reported attacks since Oct. 1, assaults on Tucson sector agents are on pace to more than double last year's total, when agents reported 118 assaults, sector spokeswoman Andrea Zortman said Monday. The fast-rising number of assaults has officials worried, particularly after a federal agency-wide alert was...

Britain Announces Jail Term for Guns By JILL LAWLESS Associated Press Writer LONDON (AP) - Britain will introduce a minimum five-year jail sentence for carrying an illegal firearm, a bid to stamp out a growing "gun culture" on the streets, the government said Monday. The decision - which would apply to handguns and automatic weapons, firearms most often used in crime - came as the shooting deaths of two teenagers last week reignited the debate on gun violence. A ban on replica guns that can be adapted to fire live bullets also is reportedly under consideration. "While we already have...

You would think if "gun control" was going to work anywhere it would be on a small island. Particularly a small island at whose ports of entry the zealots of HM Customs like nothing better than performing intimate cavity searches on the off-chance you've got an extra bottle of duty-free Beaujolais tucked away up there. Surely, if you also had a Walther PPK parked out of sight, these exhaustive inspectors would be the first to notice. But apparently not. Since the Government's "total ban" five years ago, there are more and more guns being used by more and more criminals...