Free Republic

By staff reporters Zhang Bing, Zheng Fei and Zhao Jingting 10.11.2011 14:36 Cash Crash for Wenzhou's Private Loan Network Everyone can win and everyone can lose in a Chinese city that plays a risky game of high-interest rate, private lending Dubbed the nation's capital of private financing, the city of Wenzhou offers a textbook example of how non-bank lending has fueled private sector prosperity – and risk-taking – in China. A recent central bank survey said about 60 percent of all local businesses and the vast majority of households are interconnected through the city's private lending system. a It's a...

There's encouraging news on that other Washington effort to force Americans into a government-run system. The White House plan to drive private lenders out of the market for student loans is igniting a backlash on campus and Capitol Hill. the administrators have been afraid to speak as the Department of Education pressured them to drop private lenders and embrace the department's own Direct Lending (DL) program. The pending bill, which has passed the House but is stalled in the Senate, would ban private lenders from making federally guaranteed loans after July 1, 2010. Congress has already enacted regulations in recent...