Free Republic

Full Title: "Did China or Jihadists try to bankrupt America? Pentagon report reveals financial terrorists may have triggered economic crash" Terrorists and other 'financial enemies' were likely responsible for the near collapse of the U.S. financial system in 2008, a new Pentagon report has concluded. The 2009 report, Economic Warfare: Risks and Responses, said financial terrorism by Jihadists or countries such as China may have cost the global economy $50 trillion in a series of co-ordinated strikes against the U.S. economy. In an astonishing conclusion, the report claims two unidentified traders deliberately devalued trillions of dollars' worth of stocks at...

Evidence outlined in a Pentagon contractor report suggests that financial subversion carried out by unknown parties, such as terrorists or hostile nations, contributed to the 2008 economic crash by covertly using vulnerabilities in the U.S. financial system. The unclassified 2009 report “Economic Warfare: Risks and Responses” by financial analyst Kevin D. Freeman, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Times, states that “a three-phased attack was planned and is in the process against the United States economy.” While economic analysts and a final report from the federal government's Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission blame the crash on such economic...

It's been two years since Lehman Bros. failed (Sept. 15, 2008) and we still can't conclusively answer this question: What if the government had saved Lehman? Its bankruptcy was pivotal. Until then, deteriorating housing and mortgage markets had triggered what seemed a serious — but not unprecedented — recession. Once Lehman failed, the economy went into a frenzied free fall. It's hard not to wonder whether some of the ensuing turmoil could have been avoided. Consider what happened after Lehman: • Credit tightened. Banks wouldn't lend to each other, except at exorbitant interest rates. Rates on high-quality corporate bonds went...

Russia proposed to China that the two nations should sell Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bonds in 2008 to force the US government to bail out the giant mortgage-finance companies, former US Treasury secretary Hank Paulson has claimed. The allegation is in his memoir On the Brink in which he also suggests that Alistair Darling, the UK chancellor, blocked a rescue takeover of Lehman Brothers by Barclays Bank when he refused to support special treatment by UK regulators. “Russian officials had made a top-level approach to the Chinese, suggesting that together they might sell big chunks of their GSE holdings...