Free Republic

U.S and world stock markets are slumping badly as intensified systemic risks from the Greek and European debt-default contagion continue to spread. Disciplinarian markets of stocks, bonds, gold, and currencies are signaling the inadequacy of European Union rescue plans and the global fear that economic recovery will be blunted. Europe is the main source of the current upheaval. Specifically, the biggest issue right now is short-term funding. Key funding risk indicators, such as LIBOR and various short-term swap spreads, are showing credit and liquidity stress in Europe. Interbank funding looks increasingly sloppy and worrisome. These are dangerous market signals. The...

World and U.S. stock markets are slumping badly as intensified systemic risks from the Greek and European debt-default contagion continue to spread. Disciplinarian markets of stocks, bonds, gold, and currencies are signaling the inadequacy of European Union rescue plans and the global fear that economic recovery will be blunted. Europe is the main source of the current upheaval. Specifically, the biggest issue right now is short-term funding. Key funding risk indicators, such as LIBOR and various short-term swap spreads, are showing credit and liquidity stress in Europe. Interbank funding looks increasingly sloppy and worrisome. These are dangerous market signals. The...

THE UNITED STATES has reacted swiftly and generously to Haiti's calamity, both with a colossal charitable response from individuals, enterprises and organizations and with a substantial commitment of troops, money, medical help and high-level attention from the government. But the Obama administration can and should do more, and quickly, to ease the vast burden of relief and rebuilding and to channel cash to Haitian families in dire need. Specifically -- and at a minimum -- it could accomplish those goals by allowing Haitians with relatives in the United States to join their families here as quickly as practicable. Instead, it...

We cannot confront the fallacies of conspiracy thinking in our political culture if we do not understand it. In recent weeks Van Jones, the President's Green Jobs Czar, lost his job because of his embrace of conspiracy thinking. More recently popular talker Glenn Beck has been smeared by his opponents as a conspiracy nut. We can only decipher these issues and win these intellectual fights if we know just what kind of thinking needs to be isolated from political life. Click here for Part IWhen we last left off our 9/11 Truther Crackpot was suggesting that surely his conspiracy theory...