Free Republic

The Trump administration adopted a new rule to prevent big banks from denying services to gun manufacturers and other industries in a rebuke of an Obama-era financial program. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) rule, which was finalized on Thursday, will instruct large financial institutions to only deny services to specific clients on a case-by-case basis instead of making industry-wide blacklists. The regulation came as a rebuke to Operation Choke Point, which sought to pressure big banks to cut ties with businesses disfavored by the Obama administration, including the gun and payday lending industries. Operation Choke Point—coupled...

Dear Madam Speaker: (Dear Mr. President:) Pursuant to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.) (IEEPA), the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.), and section 301 of title 3, United States Code, I hereby report that I have issued an Executive Order taking further steps to deal with the threat posed by the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) increasing exploitation of United States capital to resource and to enable the development and modernization of its military, intelligence, and other security apparatuses which continue to allow the PRC to directly threaten the United States homeland...

More big businesses continued a boycott on Sunday of Republican members of Congress who followed Donald Trump's demands and voted to overturn the election. JPMorgan Chase said that it will pause all contributions from its political action committee for at least the next six months, saying 'the focus of business leaders, political leaders, civic leaders right now should be on governing and getting help to those who desperately need it most right now. There will be plenty of time for campaigning later.' U.S. digital payments company Stripe is to also stop processing payments for Trump's campaign website following the riot,...

Word to the wise. While being in debt is not normally a good thing, sometimes it can be wise. Take for instance the Communist Democrats being in power means that inflation will rise. With inflation comes higher prices, which means you need to reconsider certain aspects of your finances to deal with the oncoming higher cost of living.It's inevitable, because of the Democrat's social agenda of higher taxes, increased regulations, higher Federal minimum wage, and their war on the fossil fuels, because of their 100 trillion dollar Green New Deal plans. That is just the things the Democrats are promising...

You think that Chief Justice Roberts is going to stop the federal government from looting your IRA? One of the common memes in our racist-sexist-homophobe world is that Conservatism Inc. betrayed us. They never stood their ground, always caving to the libs, whether on race, on spending, on deficits, and now on election fraud, Chief Justice John Roberts. But this assumes that we Americans are actually in control of our fate. You think? SNIP And so the Democrat strategy is to pile on more government loot by administrative trickery and Lawfare in the courts; they have to because nobody is...

The surface transportation construction industry has long had to rely on Washington for its prosperity. We spend most years holding our breath and hoping we will receive more Federal funding to fix our crumbling roads, bridges and highway systems. Currently in the United States, 7 percent of bridges are structurally deficient, and 19 percent of major highway pavements have deteriorated. Yet, our existing financing structure has few tools to address the looming reconstruction challenges facing existing infrastructure. In 2020, Congress passed a one-year extension of the Fixing America's Surface Transportation (FAST) Act. While the one-year extension of the FAST Act...

The latest indicator of China’s economic woes is the number of credit bonds nationwide that could not be repaid on time—164 of them, involving a sum of 160 billion yuan (about $24.43 billion).Borrowers include state-run enterprises who were previously rated AAA by Chinese bond rating agencies.The Chinese market has three types of bonds: government bonds that were issued by different level governments; credit bonds issued by companies; and convertible bonds, issued by listed companies and which can be converted into shares of common stock in the issuing company or cash of equal value.Chinese state-run media Economic Observer reported the latest...

I recently discovered that Google and Facebook were two of the largest stock holdings in one of the mutual funds that I hold in retirement accounts. I sold that mutual fund and am looking for a "patriot" friendly mutual fund. Any recommendations?

A new white paper from the globalist International Monetary Fund (IMF) is calling for dissidents to have their credit score lowered if they view websites that are arbitrarily deemed to be harmful. The plan is outlined in a blog written by Arnoud Boot, Peter Hoffmann, Luc Laeven and Lev Ratnovski. They are pitching the Orwellian notion as a breakthrough in financial technology (Fintech). “Recent research documents that, once powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning, these alternative data sources are often superior than traditional credit assessment methods,” they wrote, claiming that “the type of browser and hardware used to access...

Last month, China released details of its 14th five-year plan, the outline for how it will double its GDP by 2035, rebalance its economy, attain technological self-reliance, transition to a sustainable economic model, and stage a green industrial revolution to boot. Good luck. In the short time since the plan’s announcement, the country’s biggest-ever IPO (for Jack Ma’s Ant Financial Group) has collapsed, several strategic tech firms have run into financial trouble, and now the country’s national champion chipmaker, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC), has been thrown into turmoil by the (apparent) shock resignation of its CEO. China has started...

Nowadays, one of the few issues that can unite Republicans and Democrats in Congress is the effort to hold Communist China accountable. In early December, the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously passed legislation that would ban trading shares of Chinese companies whose audit papers aren’t inspected by U.S. regulators for three consecutive years. The same legislation was approved with bipartisan support in the U.S. Senate in May and President Trump is likely to sign it into law in the coming days.This effort is long overdue. Chinese companies have enjoyed open access to U.S. capital markets for years and collectively raised...

Didi Taihuttu and Family =========================================================== Didi Taihuttu, his wife, and three kids bet all they have on bitcoin. In 2017, CNBC spoke to the Dutch family of five when they were in the process of liquidating their assets — from a profitable business and 2,500-square-foot house, to their shoes — and trading it all in for the popular cryptocurrency and a life on the road. Nearly four years and 40 countries later, Taihuttu and his family still don’t have bank accounts, a house, or all that much by way of personal possessions. All of the family’s savings remain tied up...

Ten local Black Lives Matter chapters accused the movement’s national arm, BLM Global Network, of providing no acceptable financial transparency surrounding the “unknown millions of dollars” it has received since 2013. “[M]ost chapters have received little to no financial support from BLMGN since the launch in 2013,” the local chapters said in a statement Monday. Multiple founders of the BLM Global Network have said the local BLM chapters are the ones responsible for carrying out the work of the movement. The Daily Caller News Foundation reported in June that BLM Global Network spent $4.5 million on consultants, travel and compensation...

I think it is safe to say that 2020, so far, has been a tumultuous year. I think it is also safe to say that many globalists view these tumultuous times as an opportunity to enact vast public policy changes that would upend the current world order. Exhibit A of my premise: The Great Reset. At this point, you may be thinking, “What is the Great Reset?” Well, where do we begin? For starters, let us venture to the origin of the Great Reset: The World Economic Forum (WEF). According to the WEF, “There is an urgent need for global...

Elizabeth Warren wants to be Joe Biden's Treasury secretary and will make her case for it if he wins next week, according to three Democratic officials who have spoken with her inner circle. “She wants it,” two of them said matter-of-factly.

WASHINGTON - A climate advocacy group comprised of high-profile backers of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden on Tuesday urged the former vice president to consider using U.S. financial regulation as a tool to fight global warming if he is elected. Evergreen Action, a group of former staffers of Washington Governor Jay Inslee and Senator Elizabeth Warren who have advised the Biden campaign on a range of issues, handed the campaign a policy memo detailing how he could use the U.S. financial system to counter climate change within his first 100 days in office if he defeats Republican President Donald Trump....

The coronavirus crisis presents an opportunity for a “new kind of capitalism” and “great reset” of global economies, politics, and societies, according to World Economic Forum (WEF) founder and executive chairman Klaus Schwab. Schwab claims neo-liberalism is dead and with it traditional notions of economic capitalism. In their place is a set of “Stakeholder Capitalism Metrics” the WEF says enables the world to progress under one set of overarching rules as drawn up by it, with “social justice” a key component of this brave new world. He foresees the coronavirus crisis as too good an opportunity not to “re-evaluate sacred...

In early 1973, as Joe Biden was settling into his new job in Washington, DC, Ralph Nader published a deconstruction of what made the freshman Democratic senator’s state of Delaware, the most anodyne of states, so exceptional. The answer, The Company State explained, had to do with the unique relationship between government and commerce: Delaware was less a democracy than a fiefdom, contorting its laws to meet the demands of its corporate lords. Preeminent among them was the chemical giant DuPont. Nader took readers to Rodney Square, in the heart of Wilmington. There was the ritzy Hotel du Pont, housed...

Sky News host Rowan Dean says the next World Economic Forum in Davos has morphed from a “jet-setter climate gabfest” into a sinister “anti-democratic enterprise designed to destroy your job, steal your prosperity and rob your kids of a future.” “It’s a hardcore leftist eco-horror show replete with quasi-fascism,” he said. Mr Dean highlighted what he described as a “disturbing trend among many of the world’s left-wing elites to increasingly conflate COVID-19 with climate change. Many are going so far as to suggest that all the measures applied to the coronavirus, the lockdowns, the destruction of businesses, the suppression of...

... A new wave of government expansion is cresting. It poses a threat not just to our economic well being, but to our freedom — social, political and economic. 1. A will to power Consider the economic agenda proposed by the Democratic presidential candidates: A government takeover of health care. Taxpayer bailout of student loans. Necessarily, after that, government funded and administered college. An immense industrial-planning and regulation effort in the name of climate. Government jobs for all. “Basic income” transfers on top of social programs. Confiscatory wealth, income, estate and corporate taxation. Government and “stakeholder” control of corporate boards....