Free Republic

https://twitter.com/freeHKer/status/1180810938548547584 "China banks are running out of cash in HKD and USD. Maximum withdrawal limit drop from USD1300 to USD38. A drop of 34 times. China financial doom day coming. @Jkylebass @GordonGChang @robert_spalding

Will people have to postpone - or cancel - retirement? Why is Pelosi not being asked this question?

Army National Guard Special Forces is a unique, often misunderstood component of the military. These units are a well-utilized, effective force, but are threatened by current policy on generating orders and timing of compensation. In turn, families, like mine, are subject to a financial hardship not experienced by the active duty components. This continued financial strain drives many conversations within the four walls of the home on whether to stay in or get out. It is a dirty little secret in our circle — one that is not discussed in public forums, but absolutely must be addressed as it threatens...

A political guerrilla warfare tactic used by the Left doesn’t get the media coverage it should.  While the complicit media sleeps, the anti-gun industry liberal shareholder activists are engaging in a form of domestic terror that has banks and credit card companies altering their policies about who to do business with.  Recall the code name Operation Choke Point.  This was described as “a plot by President Obama’s Department of Justice, the Federal Deposit Insurance Commission, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and other government agencies to cut off banking and financial services for small businesses and industries that they deemed to...

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday lowered interest rates for the first time since the Great Recession in 2008 to help stave off the possibility of an economic downturn. Policymakers led by Fed Chairman Jerome Powell voted 8-2 in favor of a small cut in the federal funds rate, and recommitted to their promise to "act as appropriate" to sustain the country's longest economic expansion in history. Interest rates, which affect the cost of borrowing for credit cards and mortgages, are now set to hover between 2% and 2.25%. The rate cut follows months of pressure from President Donald Trump, who...

During Wednesday's Financial Services hearing in the House, Congressman Sean Duffy (R-Wisc.) steered the conversation with Rodgers away from SunTrust's potential merger with BB&T to the company's obvious intolerance for legal immigration. "If we have private detention centers that are caring for children, or detaining individuals who [might not be] following American law -- you say, 'I'm not going to bank [with] them.' Is that fair?" Duffy pressed. When Rogers tried to defend SunTrust, saying it "considers a variety of factors..." Duffy interrupted him and asked again, "Is it fair?" Without waiting for an answer, he pushed Rodgers on whether...

Germany's biggest lender is rapidly slashing jobs, it's losing a ton of money and the stock is trading near all-time lows. Many of Deutsche Bank's problems are self-inflicted. It's been badly mismanaged. Deutsche Bank (DB) never fully cleaned up its crisis-era balance sheet. Restructuring efforts fell short. And its countless legal black eyes haven't helped matters. But Deutsche Bank's struggles have also been amplified by something the 149-year-old lender never imagined, mostly because it had never happened before in modern history: negative interest rates. In 2014, the European Central Bank wanted to boost the sluggish economy but interest rates were...

Roman poet Virgil penned these words in his epic, The Aeneid, roughly a generation before the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. They can be loosely translated to, “the descent to hell is easy.” Those who’ve traversed this passage can attest to the veracity of this axiom. Though not apparent in the milieu of Virgil’s poem, for our purposes today, we’ll extend its application to the insidious progression of currency debasement. What short utterance more aptly characterizes the steady degradation, as currently practiced by today’s church of state? Yesterday [Thursday], for example, the House acted with untroubled ease to further America’s...

I earn my living investing other people’s money in the stock market. I am terrified contemplating how I am going to save my clients’ money, as well as my own, if a Democrat is elected president. The policies that the Democrats are advocating will destroy the American economy, not just the stock market, but the whole US economy. My first instinct will be to raise cash ahead of the stock market crash, but even that is only a temporary safe harbor. The Green New Deal, renewed regulations, Medicare for All, free college, as well as the 70-90% tax rates proposed...

... According to the Department of Education, only 45 percent of student loans are used to attend public colleges and universities, presumably because tuition at those schools is already lower than in the private sector. The department also reports that 40 percent of loans are taken out to attend graduate or professional school — for example, master’s and Ph.D. programs, law school, business school and medical school. This number is large because graduate school is expensive and, in contrast with loans for undergraduates, there is no hard cap on how much money students can borrow from the federal government for...

SunTrust Banks Inc said on Monday it will no longer provide future financing to companies that manage private prisons and immigration holding facilities. "This decision was made after extensive consideration of the views of our stakeholders on this deeply complex issue," the company said in a statement.

The small industrial buildings and blighted homes that once dotted the landscape of Detroit's Delray neighborhood are gone for good as demolition and site-cleaning work for the Gordie Howe International Bridge is in full swing this summer. The long-anticipated bridge construction project is starting to take shape on the Michigan side of the Detroit River, as cranes have been working along the riverfront in recent weeks. The cranes were drilling test shafts into the ground that will determine the final design of the new span and its towers rivaling Detroit's 73-story Renaissance Center, said Aaron Epstein, CEO of Bridging North...

President Trump took aim at the Federal Reserve on Saturday, labeling it the “most difficult problem” the U.S. faces and again criticizing the independent central bank for raising interest rates. “Strong jobs report, low inflation, and other countries around the world doing anything possible to take advantage of the United States, knowing that our Federal Reserve doesn’t have a clue!” Trump tweeted late Friday night. “They raised rates too soon, too often, & tightened, while others did just the opposite.” “As well as we are doing from the day after the great Election, when the Market shot right up, it...

I have a dilemma I need some advice on from the Legal Eagles on our forum. I have an auto loan account with GM Financial for a vehicle. I pay this electronically through my banking institution monthly. GM financial sent me to collections and dinged my credit reports saying I was 30 days late, now 60 days late. I have provided all necessary documentation showing I've sent those payments on time, bank statements and cancelled checks. Seems to me the problem was my banking institution didnt put the account number on the checks anywhere. This caused them to cash the...

There are people in prison right now for bribery. Judges have been removed from the bench for taking bribes, and people sent to cells for extended periods for offering and/or accepting them. So why aren’t the candidates running for the nomination for the Democratic Party for president among them? You name it, and there’s a Democratic candidate out there offering to give it to people if they’d just vote for them. How is that not bribery? Want free college? Done, just vote for candidate X, Y, or Z. Want your student loans “forgiven”? You got it, just vote for one...

Facebook has secured the backing of over a dozen companies for its upcoming Libra cryptocurrency set to be announced next week, The Wall Street Journal reports. These companies include major financial organizations like Visa and Mastercard, and internet darlings like PayPal, Uber, Stripe, and Booking.com. Each will invest around $10 million to fund development of the currency, and will become part of the Libra Association, an independent consortium that will govern the digital coin independently of Facebook.

The Great Recession has officially been over for a decade. For many Americans, there’s little reason to celebrate. Many people’s finances haven’t recovered from the recession’s blows, according to a new survey by personal finance website Bankrate.com. “There are still tens of millions who are struggling to even get back to where they were before the economy took a turn for the worse,” said Mark Hamrick, senior economic analyst at Bankrate.com. More than half of Americans who were adults amid the Great Recession said they endured some type of negative financial impact, Bankrate found. And half of those people say...

I recently agreed to co-sign for our veteran son for a used/low-mileage 2014 truck (31k sticker) from a dealership. He's in the police academy and need transportation for work & school. He's had some bad luck with vehicles and just lost his last rig for reasons pertaining to an ex (long unrelated story). I provided my info over the phone to our boy while he was in the sales office with the rep. Dealership sent me the paperwork to sign this week and on the form they increased my income by 25% in addition to other false statements pertaining to...

FULL TITLE:American millennials have an average net worth of $8,000 — and it's part of a bigger financial problem the generation is facing American millennials are financially worse for the wear. They have an average net worth of less than $8,000, reported Abha Bhattarai for The Washington Post, citing a new Deloitte study. According to the study, the net worth of Americans ages 18 to 35 has decreased by 34% since 1996, making them "dramatically financially worse off" than older generations, Business Insider's Kate Taylor reported.These findings underscore previous research indicating that millennials are financially behind.

China’s central bank said on Sunday that it would offer liquidity to Inner Mongolia-based Baoshang Bank, which the country’s financial regulators have said they would take over due to the serious credit risks it poses. The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) also said in a statement that it and the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC) would give more policy support to improve small- and mid-sized banks’ corporate governance. Baoshang Bank came to prominence after its key stakeholder Tomorrow Holdings was targeted in a government crackdown on systemic risks posed by financial conglomerates. The rare takeover, the first in...