Free Republic

Eric Daugherty@EricLDaugh·3h🚨 HOLY SMOKES. Sec. Scott Bessent just said that because Iran BOMBED Gulf neighbors, those countries are suddenly opening up Iranian regime BANK accounts to TreasurySo he can FREEZE their assets! Checkmate playing out. 🔥"What may prove to be FATAL mistakes the Iranians made was bombing their [Gulf] NEIGHBORS.""Who are now willing to be much more transparent in terms of the funds, or do a deeper dive in investigating the funds that are held within their banking systems.""So, we have pushed out to them the request that we want to freeze more funds of the leadership of the IRGC...

A generally good summary into some of the financial issues happening in the background of the dire Straits of Hormuz. Susan Kokinda highlights UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer declining to join an American blockade and claims Britain has lost control of the choke point. She details financial actions targeting Iranian money flows, including UAE arrests of IRGC-linked money changers, Treasury Secretary Bessent using Patriot Act Section 311 against a Zurich bank, and scrutiny of London-based crypto exchanges and Santander UK. She cites a UK military chief admitting Britain’s war planning has lapsed since the Cold War and links fuel disruptions...

The heads of the International Energy Agency (IEA), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank said on Wednesday they would form a joint coordination group to strengthen their response to the severe economic and energy fallout from the war in the Middle East, according to Reuters. In a joint statement, the three institutions said the conflict had caused major disruption across the region and triggered one of the largest supply shortages in the history of global energy markets. “At these times of high uncertainty, it is paramount that our institutions join forces to monitor developments, align analysis, and...

For generations, the conventional wisdom went something like this: serious money lives in New York. The serious decisions about who gets capital, who gets to list on an exchange, who gets to participate in the grand machinery of American finance—all of it emanated from a few square miles of lower Manhattan, governed by institutions so entrenched they seemed geological. Wall-Street wasn’t just an address. It was a statement about where power lived and who held it. That era is ending. And the remarkable thing isn’t simply that it’s ending — it’s why it’s ending, and what that tells us about...

We have long heard about the financial plights of solidly blue states. Places like New York and California have the highest taxes and the highest costs of living in the country. But there is a new blue state story where Democrats refuse to back off their ideological insistence that high taxes will get their state to the fiscal promised land. That place is Massachusetts. Massachusetts is on the verge of a financial implosion. The reason: Massachusetts Democrats' grand plan to replace the state's taxpayers with migrants is not the grand plan they expected it would be, and the state is...

Parents of more than four million children have claimed Trump Accounts, according to a report. The tax-deferred investment accounts for children were instituted by President Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act last year, providing a $1,000 contribution from the federal government for all children born to U.S. citizens between Jan. 1, 2025, and Dec. 31, 2028, the Washington Examiner reported. Parents can claim the accounts for their children either through an IRS portal or by filing Form 4547 with their federal tax returns. Per IRS data reviewed by the news outlet, 983,784 children have qualified for the $1,000 bonus via...

"I can tell the entire internet has doomer fatigue." — Catturd on X. The mysterious financial repo markets — which practically no one outside of banking understands (and even some banking insiders don’t) — are going wonky again like they did in September 2019, just before You-Know-What sucker-punched the world with lockdowns, stolen elections, and fake vaccines. Half of America still hasn’t got its head straight. . . and here we go again. The private equity outfits, like giant BlackRock, are wobbling so hard that they had to “gate redemptions” — meaning, investors can’t pull their money out of funds...

Wholesale prices rose sharply in February, providing another sign that inflation continues to percolate even aside from rising energy prices.The producer price index, a measure of pipeline costs that producers receive for their products, increased a seasonally adjusted 0.7% on the month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday. Excluding volatile food and energy costs, the so-called core PPI increased 0.5%.Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for increases of 0.3% for both measures.For the all-items index, prices rose faster than the 0.5% pace in January. However, the core increase was less than the 0.8% for the prior month.

Big Tech is planning multi-billion-dollar investments in its own energy generation. Combined with the ongoing AI boom, the massive expansion of data centers is stretching every capital market framework to its limits. Even the European bond market is increasingly in the crosshairs of companies and investors. For the heavily indebted states of the European Union, this is not good news. The “credit pump” could rightfully claim its place as a symbolic flag of the European Union. With virtually unlimited access to the bond market, politics magically transforms an inexhaustible credit stream into political maneuvers and ideological wizardry. Through this manipulation...

Environmental scholar Bjorn Lomborg recently calculated that across the globe, governments have spent at least $16 trillion feeding the climate change industrial complex. And for what? Arguably, not a single life has been or will be saved by this shameful and colossal misallocation of human resources. The war on safe and abundant fossil fuels has cost countless lives in poor countries and made those countries poorer by blocking affordable energy. Since the global warming crusade started some 30 years ago, the temperature of the planet has not been altered by one-tenth of a degree -- as even the alarmists will...

Manhattan’s luxury housing market is quietly edging back toward its mid-2010s swagger after a decade marked by excess, collapse and recovery. And this time, the rebound appears to be powered by real money, not just empty supply. New data shows the borough’s priciest homes are nearly back to their 2016 highs, a milestone last seen during the condo boom that reshaped Manhattan’s skyline. By the end of last year, the median price for a luxury home — defined as the top 10% of the market — hit $6.39 million, according to a new report from Douglas Elliman. Manhattan’s luxury housing...

RAY DALIO SAYS THE MONETARY ORDER IS BREAKING DOWN AND FIAT IS NO LONGER A CENTRAL BANK ASSET. GOLD AND SILVER BECOME THE ANCHOR WHEN PAPER CONFIDENCE CRACKS.

The sudden collapse last fall of a string of American companies backed by private credit has thrust a fast-growing and opaque corner of Wall Street lending into the spotlight. Private credit, also known as direct lending, is a catch-all term for lending done by nonbank institutions. The practice has been around for decades but surged in popularity after post-2008 financial crisis regulations discouraged banks from serving riskier borrowers. That growth — from $3.4 trillion in 2025 to an estimated $4.9 trillion by 2029 — and the September bankruptcies of auto-industry firms Tricolor and First Brands have emboldened some prominent Wall...

"If that would happen, there would be a big retaliation on our part, and we have all the cards," the US leader statedNEW YORK, January 22. /TASS/. Serious tit-for-tat measures can be taken if European countries start selling US bonds, President Donald Trump told Fox Business television in an interview. "If they do, they do. But you know, if that would happen, there would be a big retaliation on our part, and we have all the cards," Trump said. Danish pension fund AkademikerPension made the decision earlier to sell US Treasury Bonds amid the conflict around Greenland. The fund plans...

President Trump’s power over the Federal Reserve will be front and center at the Supreme Court next week. The justices on Wednesday will hear arguments on whether Trump can fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook over accusations of mortgage fraud. Looming over it all is the Justice Department’s criminal investigation into Jerome Powell, the Fed’s chair, which came into public view last weekend.

For a year, Wall Street’s dominant theme has been the so-called K-shaped economy, in which the well-to-do have powered financial activity despite lower earners’ struggles. This week, the nation’s largest banks reported a broadly disappointing set of quarterly earnings, the first stumble after a yearlong spree of rising markets and softening regulations paid off handsomely for the finance set. Results at Bank of America, Citi, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo all fell short of expectations, and their shares fell. Troubles ranged from delayed merger deals (JPMorgan) to stubborn expenses (Citi) to questions about the efficacy of artificial intelligence tools (Bank...

4.5 minute video...Susan Kokinda explains how the British Financial system, along with Canada's, is impacted by Trump's actions in Venezuela. Very interesting...

In 2026, debt is no longer just a personal finance issue—it’s a defining force shaping household stability, career choices, and even mental health. After years of economic uncertainty, fluctuating interest rates, and the normalization of “buy now, pay later,” many people have grown accustomed to carrying debt as a permanent feature of life. You can even finance Taco Bell. But that acceptance comes at a cost. Paying off debt in 2026 isn’t about perfection or deprivation; it’s about reclaiming freedom in a world that increasingly profits from keeping people financially stretched. Debt comes in all shapes and sizes. Medical debt,...

The gold price is racing from one all-time high to the next. That’s good news for friends of the precious metal and bad news for anyone still hoping for a stabilization of global debt dynamics. Assuming the markets close out the year without major volatility, gold holders can look forward to an approximate 70 percent increase in value within a single year. This is remarkable -- not least because 2024 already ended with a 26 percent gain for the otherwise conservative asset class of precious metals. That amounts to a doubling of value in just two years -- a surge...

U.S. prosecutors charged top executives of bankrupt subprime auto lender Tricolor Holdings with what they described as a years-long, “systematic fraud” scheme that sent shockwaves through the banking sector earlier this year. In an indictment unsealed in Manhattan, prosecutors allege that from at least 2018 through September 2025, founder and CEO Daniel Chu and chief operating officer David Goodgame orchestrated a series of fraudulent schemes that let Tricolor obtain billions of dollars from lenders and investors by misrepresenting the value of its loan collateral. Tricolor sold used cars to customers with limited or poor credit in the south and southwest,...