Rand Paul Warns Of "Disastrous" Midterms For GOP If Iran War Continues

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a leading voice for non-interventionism within the Republican Party, warned Tuesday that prolonged U.S. military action against Iran could spell disaster for Republicans in the 2026 midterm elections.

In an interview on Fox Business with host Maria Bartiromo, Paul downplayed internal party divisions as the main risk, instead pointing to economic fallout from the conflict, which began with joint U.S.-Israeli strikes on February 28.

“How worried are you that a split Republican Party will only mean losses in the midterm elections?” Ms. Bartiromo asked. “How are you expecting the midterms to play out?”

“I don’t think split party is the problem. I think high oil prices will be a problem. I think the 2026 election’s already – we are behind the eight ball as far as the electoral process,” Mr. Paul replied. "I think if you add in high gas prices, high oil prices, and if we are still bombing Iran with kinetic action – people don’t want to call it war – but if there’s still kinetic action that causes oil to be over $100, I think you’re gonna see a disastrous election.”

Rand Paul: "The 2026 elections, already we are behind the 8 ball. If you add in high gas prices, high oil prices, and if we're still bombing Iran with kinetic action -- people don't want to call it war -- I think you're gonna see a disastrous election." pic.twitter.com/lILcS0TUaa

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 10, 2026

In what should set off alarm bells in the White House and the House Speaker’s Office, Polymarket’s “Balance of Power: 2026 Midterms” market shows Democrats have a 44% of sweeping Congress in the midterms.

The U.S.-Israel strikes killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the opening wave, along with dozens of senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps officials and other regime figures. Iranian sources reported 1,255 deaths and more than 12,000 injured. U.S. and Israeli assessments put Iranian military deaths at around 3,000. Iranian retaliatory missile and drone strikes killed 7 U.S. military personnel and 13 people in Israel.

The joint campaign has inflicted extensive damage on Iran's military infrastructure, including the sinking of over 30 naval vessels, destruction of ballistic missile launchers and production facilities, airfields, drone sites, key IRGC bases, and residual nuclear-related structures at sites such as Natanz and Isfahan. Air defenses were heavily degraded, limiting Tehran's ability to mount sustained retaliation, while allied proxy groups like Hezbollah sustained further losses.'

On Monday, President Donald Trump suggested that the war could end soon, describing the operation as a "short-term excursion" that was "very complete, pretty much.” Yet, the president warned of harsher military action should Iran attempt to disrupt oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz. The oil markets welcomed Trump’s dovish overtures as crude oil prices plunged as much as 10% on Tuesday morning, with Brent sliding around 8% to $91 a barrel and U.S. crude dropping 8.1% to roughly $87.

//--> //--> 2026 Balance of Power: D Senate, D House
Yes 45% · No 56%
View full market & trade on Polymarket Tyler Durden Tue, 03/10/2026 - 17:30

Loans To Non-Banks Threaten Banking Crisis

Authored by Christopher Whalen via DailyReckoning.com,

Last week, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp released the industry data for US banks for 2025.

On the surface, the numbers look reassuring, even strong. But beneath the calm headline figures lies a growing risk that investors should not ignore.

Domestic deposits increased for the sixth consecutive quarter in Q4 2025 by $318.3 billion or 1.8%, the FDIC reports. Loans grew by 2% in Q4 and almost 6% YOY. Foreign deposits grew 11%, but subordinated debt and FHLB advances each fell ~ 14% as banks shed excess capital and funding.

U.S. bank loan growth in 2025 was robust, with total loans and leases reaching $13.4 trillion by year-end, a sequential increase in Q4 and a 5.9% annual growth rate, driven by larger institutions. Personal loan balances hit $2.2 trillion, while credit card debt rose 5.5% annually but the utilization rate for credit cards is still less than 20% of the total credit available. Yet behind this placid picture is a growing threat to banks and financial markets. At first glance, this looks like a healthy banking system. But that placid picture masks a fast-growing vulnerability that could become the next major pressure point for banks and financial markets.

The fastest growing bank asset category is loans to non-depository financial institutions (NDFIs), a corner of the financial system that regulators have struggled to monitor and control, up 7% in Q4 vs Q3 and up 35% YOY to $1.4 trillion at year-end 2025. With growing signs of credit stress among nonbank companies, banks will eventually pull back from lending to NDFIs. The problem is timing. By the time banks tighten lending standards, many private companies dependent on this funding may already be heading toward collapse, and those failures will not stay confined to the shadow banking system.

They will hit bank balance sheets directly.

The latest default involving UK mortgage issuer Market Financial Solutions threatens a £930 million shortfall in collateral backing loans to Apollo, TPG, other Wall Street private credit sponsors that are heavily involved with lending to private credit and equity, and various speculative ventures involving the current “AI investment boom.”

“The collapse of MFS, which attracted backing from firms including Barclays Plc, Apollo Global Management Inc.’s Atlas SP Partners unit, Jefferies Financial Group and TPG, is the latest crisis to hit both banks and direct lenders, and puts a spotlight on asset-based financing,” Bloomberg reveals.

“Accusations of double pledging also emerged in the collapses last year of US auto parts supplier First Brands Group and sub-prime auto lender Tricolor Holdings.”

Accusations of double pledging collateral have also surfaced in recent failures such as First Brands Group and Tricolor Holdings, further highlighting the fragility of the system.

The fact that Apollo’s Atlas SP unit was caught unawares by the apparent collateral fraud at MFS is especially notable given the firm’s past experience. One of the leading providers of secured financing to nonbank mortgage companies in the US, Atlas SP was formerly owned by Credit Suisse and has been the advisor on numerous financing transactions for NBFIs. Yet two supposedly “secured” warehouse facilities backed by Atlas SP are now reported to be in default. If the lenders structuring these deals are surprised by collateral problems, investors should be asking deeper questions about how widespread these risks really are.

The collapse of American Car Centers in 2023, another Atlas SP client, provided advanced warning of a wave of corporate insolvencies that now threaten the US banking sector with contagion. U.S. corporate bankruptcies in 2025 surged to their highest level in 15 years, with over 700 companies filing for protection through November, marking a 14% increase over 2024. A large share of those failures involved private equity-backed firms.

Why is the rapid growth in bank lending to NDFIs a problem?

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell previously expressed that while non-depository financial institutions play a productive role in the economy, their growth outside the traditional regulatory perimeter poses risks to financial stability. We’re not talking here about mortgage companies with fully secured loans, but instead speculative credit and private equity schemes that are running out of cash.

The growth of private equity and credit is particularly problematic for banks. Many institutions are quietly masking early defaults through loan forbearance. When busted private equity firms cannot pay their debts, many seek to buy time by paying “in kind” with additional equity effectively issuing more of what the market already considers worthless. Paying “principal on original principal” or “POOP” (h/t Victor Hong) is one the thin canards used by private equity sponsors to conceal their financial malfeasance. In short: investors are being paid with more of the same failing capital structure.

In 2024, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell expressed concerns regarding the rapid growth of non-bank financial institutions and the shifting of financial intermediation outside the regulated banking perimeter. He emphasized the need for regulators to be “smart” about where risks are emerging in this sector, noting that non-bank lending could lead to an overall lack of economic stability.  But federal bank regulators have done little to address the explosion of lending to NDFIs. History shows that when a bank asset class grows significantly faster than the broader economy, it is usually a signal that systemic risk is building.

When you see a bank asset class growing far more quickly than the broad economy, this is a red flag that suggests potential systemic risk. But even more troubling that the high rate of growth in bank lending to NDFIs is the huge amount of undrawn loans available to these lightly capitalized companies involved in private equity and credit.

The FDIC does not yet disclose full loan category data on NDFI series, but we can infer from Other Loans line that banks currently have an estimated $2.8 trillion in unused loan commitments to NDFIs or exposure at default of 200% of current advances as defined by Basel III.  A non-bank firm can draw on these contracted credit lines and immediately default, causing a massive loss to the bank lender.  For every dollar of the $1.4 trillion in bank loans outstanding today to NDFIs, there are two dollars in undrawn loans or a total of $2.8 trillion, as shown in the chart below.

In practical terms:

• Banks have $1.4 trillion in outstanding loans to NDFIs

• They have another $2.8 trillion in undrawn commitments

That means for every dollar already lent, two more dollars are waiting to be drawn.

And a nonbank borrower can draw on those lines and default immediately, leaving banks with the loss.

Total potential exposure: roughly $4.2 trillion.

If stress spreads across private credit markets, that number becomes very important, very quickly.

Source: FDIC

The massive amount of bank lending to NDFIs is an approaching storm that has been largely ignored by federal regulators but is gaining growing attention from credit analysts. One public benchmark for the growing credit stress facing nonbanks is business development companies, which have seen an 18% decline in stock valuations over the past year vs an equal positive gain for the S&P 500. That divergence is not random. BDC investors are effectively voting with their capital that private credit risk is rising and rising quickly.

“UBS strategists say private credit could see default rates surge as high as 15% if artificial intelligence triggers an “aggressive” disruption among corporate borrowers,” the Swiss bank reports. 

“Direct lenders that financed software companies are exposed to AI’s impact, with some estimates suggesting 40% of all sponsor-backed loans are tied up in the software industry.”

A 15% default rate is 2x the highest level of bank loan delinquency seen in 2008.

Put that number in perspective. A 15% default rate would be roughly twice the highest level of bank loan delinquencies seen during the 2008 financial crisis.

If even a portion of that scenario materializes, private credit markets, and the banks financing them, will feel the impact immediately.

The year 2025 was an extraordinary period for many reasons, including low credit loss rates and soaring asset values. QE teaches us that high asset prices suppress the cost of default, until asset values fall. But Wall Street is still trying to spin the growing delinquency among private companies as being only a problem “on the margins.”

“A review of the 3,649 middle market (MM) corporate credit assessments completed in 2025 shows mixed signals,” notes Kroll Bond Rating Agency.

“Slowing growth is negatively impacting some companies’ credit quality, but overall, our portfolio remains stable. The growing divergence in performance is driven by challenged subsectors that we believe will contribute to the rising, yet contained, default rate in 2026.”

In other words: the cracks are visible, but the market is still hoping the damage remains contained.

In the 1920s, many observers believed that asset values had reached a “permanently high plateau,” That confidence did not age well. This despite warnings from some observers of an impending collapse. Sectors like private equity and credit, and AI, all promise higher credit costs ahead. But for lenders, the immediate implication may be something very different: higher credit costs. When credit costs rise, earnings decline and stocks follow. The sharp declines in bank stocks in January and February illustrate this tendency.

We expect bank stocks to underperform their strong 2025 performance and face several challenges in the coming year:

• Rising credit costs

• Elevated market volatility

• Higher operating expenses

Banks will benefit from falling funding costs, which should provide some support for margins.

But the outsized credit exposure to nonbank financial institutions may become one of the dominant financial narratives of 2026.

If stress spreads through private credit markets, investors may quickly discover that the shadow banking system is not nearly as “separate” from the traditional banking sector as many assume.

*  *  *

Investors who want deeper analysis of bank balance sheets and emerging credit risks can follow Christopher Whalen’s ongoing research and commentary.

Access to the index and detailed bank research is available via Institutional Risk Analyst.

Tyler Durden Tue, 03/10/2026 - 17:05

Peter Schiff: Printing Money Is Not the Cure for Cononavirus



In his most recent podcast, Peter Schiff talked about coronavirus and the impact that it is having on the markets. Earlier this month, Peter said he thought the virus was just an excuse for stock market woes. At the time he believed the market was poised to fall anyway. But as it turns out, coronavirus has actually helped the US stock market because it has led central banks to pump even more liquidity into the world financial system. All this means more liquidity — central banks easing. In fact, that is exactly what has already happened, except the new easing is taking place, for now, outside the United States, particularly in China.” Although the new money is primarily being created in China, it is flowing into dollars — the dollar index is up — and into US stocks. Last week, US stock markets once again made all-time record highs. In fact, I think but for the coronavirus, the US stock market would still be selling off. But because of the central bank stimulus that has been the result of fears over the coronavirus, that actually benefitted not only the US dollar, but the US stock market.” In the midst of all this, Peter raises a really good question. The primary economic concern is that coronavirus will slow down output and ultimately stunt economic growth. Practically speaking, the world would produce less stuff. If the virus continues to spread, there would be fewer goods and services produced in a market that is hunkered down. Why would the Federal Reserve respond, or why would any central bank respond to that by printing money? How does printing more money solve that problem? It doesn’t. In fact, it actually exacerbates it. But you know, everybody looks at central bankers as if they’ve got the solution to every problem. They don’t. They don’t have the magic wand. They just have a printing press. And all that creates is inflation.” Sometimes the illusion inflation creates can look like a magic wand. Printing money can paper over problems. But none of this is going to fundamentally fix the economy. In fact, if central bankers were really going to do the right thing, the appropriate response would be to drain liquidity from the markets, not supply even more.” Peter explained how the Fed was originally intended to create an “elastic” money supply that would expand or contract along with economic output. Today, the money supply only goes in one direction — that’s up. The economy is strong, print money. The economy is weak, print even more money.” Of course, the asset that’s doing the best right now is gold. The yellow metal pushed above $1,600 yesterday. Gold is up 5.5% on the year in dollar terms and has set record highs in other currencies. Because gold is rising even in an environment where the dollar is strengthening against other fiat currencies, that shows you that there is an underlying weakness in the dollar that is right now not being reflected in the Forex markets, but is being reflected in the gold markets. Because after all, why are people buying gold more aggressively than they’re buying dollars or more aggressively than they’re buying US Treasuries? Because they know that things are not as good for the dollar or the US economy as everybody likes to believe. So, more people are seeking out refuge in a better safe-haven and that is gold.” Peter also talked about the debate between Trump and Obama over who gets credit for the booming economy – which of course, is not booming.

We are living in crazy times. I have a hard time believing that most of the general public is not awake, but in reality, they are. We've never seen anything like this; I mean not even under Obama during the worst part of the Great Recession." Now the Fed is desperately trying to keep interest rates from rising. The problem is that it's a much bigger debt bubble this time around , and the Fed is going to have to blow a lot more air into it to keep it inflated. The difference is this time it's not going to work." It looks like the Fed did another $104.15 billion of Not Q.E. in a single day. The Fed claims it's only temporary. But that is precisely what Bernanke claimed when the Fed started QE1. Milton Freedman once said, "Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program." The same applies to Q.E., or whatever the Fed wants to pretend it's doing. Except this is not QE4, according to Powell. Right. Pumping so much money out, and they are accusing China of currency manipulation ? Wow! Seriously! Amazing! Dump the U.S. dollar while you still have a chance. Welcome to The Atlantis Report. And it is even worse than that, In addition to the $104.15 billion of "Not Q.E." this past Thursday; the FED added another $56.65 billion in liquidity to financial markets the next day on Friday. That's $160.8 billion in two days!!!! in just 48 hours. That is more than 2 TIMES the highest amount the FED has ever injected on a monthly basis under a Q.E. program (which was $80 billion per month) Since this isn't QE....it will be really scary on what they are going to call Q.E. Will it twice, three times, four times, five times what this injection per month ! It is going to be explosive since it takes about 60 to 90 days for prices to react to this, January should see significant inflation as prices soak up the excess liquidity. The question is, where will the inflation occur first . The spike in the repo rate might have a technical explanation: a misjudgment was made in the Fed's money market operations. Even so, two conclusions can be drawn: managing the money markets is becoming harder, and from now on, banks will be studying each other's creditworthiness to a greater degree than before. Those people, who struggle with the minutiae of money markets, and that includes most professionals, should focus on the causes and not the symptoms. Financial markets have recovered from each downturn since 1980 because interest rates have been cut to new lows. Post-2008, they were cut to near zero or below zero in all major economies. In response to a new financial crisis, they cannot go any lower. Central banks will look for new ways to replicate or broaden Q.E. (At some point, governments will simply see repression as an easier option). Then there is the problem of 'risk-free' assets becoming risky assets. Financial markets assume that the probability of major governments such as the U.S. or U.K. defaulting is zero. These governments are entering the next downturn with debt roughly twice the levels proportionate to GDP that was seen in 2008. The belief that the policy worked was completely predicated on the fact that it was temporary and that it was reversible, that the Fed was going to be able to normalize interest rates and shrink its balance sheet back down to pre-crisis levels. Well, when the balance sheet is five-trillion, six-trillion, seven-trillion when we're back at zero, when we're back in a recession, nobody is going to believe it is temporary. Nobody is going to believe that the Fed has this under control, that they can reverse this policy. And the dollar is going to crash. And when the dollar crashes, it's going to take the bond market with it, and we're going to have stagflation. We're going to have a deep recession with rising interest rates, and this whole thing is going to come imploding down. everything is temporary with the fed including remaining off the gold standard temporary in the Fed's eyes could mean at least 50 years This liquidity problem is a signal that trading desks are loaded up on inventory and can't get rid of it. Repo is done out of a need for cash. If you own all of your securities (i.e., a long-only, no leverage mutual fund) you have no need to "repo" your securities - you're earning interest every night so why would you want to 'repo' your securities where you are paying interest for that overnight loan (securities lending is another animal). So, it is those that 'lever-up' and need the cash for settlement purposes on securities they've bought with borrowed money that needs to utilize the repo desk. With this in mind, as we continue to see this need to obtain cash (again, needed to settle other securities purchases), it shows these firms don't have the capital to add more inventory to, what appears to be, a bloated inventory. Now comes the fun part: the Treasury is about to auction 3's, 10's, and 30-year bonds. If I am correct (again, I could be wrong), the Fed realizes securities firms don't have the shelf space to take down a good portion of these auctions. If there isn't enough retail/institutional demand, it will lead to not only a crappy sale but major concerns to the street that there is now no backstop, at all, to any sell-off. At which point, everyone will want to be the first one through the door and sell immediately, but to whom? If there isn't enough liquidity in the repo market to finance their positions, the firms would be unable to increase their inventory. We all saw repo shut down on the 2008 crisis. Wall St runs on money. . OVERNIGHT money. They lever up to inventory securities for trading. If they can't get overnight money, they can't purchase securities. And if they can't unload what they have, it means the buy-side isn't taking on more either. Accounts settle overnight. This includes things like payrolls and bill pay settlements. If a bank doesn't have enough cash to payout what its customers need to pay out, it borrows. At least one and probably more than one banks are insolvent. That's what's going on. First, it can't be one or two banks that are short. They'd simply call around until they found someone to lend. But they did that, and even at markedly elevated rates, still, NO ONE would lend them the money. That tells me that it's not a problem of a couple of borrowers, it's a problem of no lenders. And that means that there's no bank in the world left with any real liquidity. They are ALL maxed out. But as bad as that is, and that alone could be catastrophic, what it really signals is even worse. The lending rates are just the flip side of the coin of the value of the assets lent against. If the rates go up, the value goes down. And with rates spiking to 10%, how far does the value fall? Enormously! And if banks had to actually mark down the value of the assets to reflect 10% interest rates, then my god, every bank in the world is insolvent overnight. Everyone's capital ratios are in the toilet, and they'd have to liquidate. We're talking about the simultaneous insolvency of every bank on the planet. Bank runs. No money in ATMs, Branches closed. Safe deposit boxes confiscated. The whole nine yards, It's actually here. The scenario has tended to guide toward for years and years is actually happening RIGHT NOW! And people are still trying to say it's under control. Every bank in the world is currently insolvent. The only thing keeping it going is printing billions of dollars every day. Financial Armageddon isn't some far off future risk. It's here. Prepare accordingly. This fiat system has reached the end of the line, and it's not correct that fiat currencies fail by design. The problem is corruption and manipulation. It is corruption and cheating that erodes trust and faith until the entire system becomes a gigantic fraud. Banks and governments everywhere ARE the problem and simply have to be removed. They have lost all trust and respect, and all they have left is war and mayhem. As long as we continue to have a majority of braindead asleep imbeciles following orders from these psychopaths, nothing will change. Fiat currency is not just thievery. Fiat currency is SLAVERY. Ultimately the most harmful effect of using debt of undefined value as money (i.e., fiat currencies) is the de facto legalization of a caste system based on voluntary slavery. The bankers have a charter, or the legal *right*, to create money out of nothing. You, you don't. Therefore you and the bankers do not have the same standing before the law. The law of the land says that you will go to jail if you do the same thing (creating money out of thin air) that the banker does in full legality. You and the banker are not equal before the law. ALL the countries of the world; Islamic or secular, Jewish or Arab, democracy or dictatorship; all of them place the bankers ABOVE you. And all of you accept that only whining about fiat money going down in exchange value over time (price inflation which is not the same as monetary inflation). Actually, price inflation itself is mainly due to the greed and stupidity of the bankers who could keep fiat money's exchange value reasonably stable, only if they wanted to. Witness the crash of silver and gold prices which the bankers of the world; Russian, American, Chinese, Jewish, Indian, Arab, all of them collaborated to engineer through the suppression and stagnation of precious metals' prices to levels around the metals' production costs, or what it costs to dig gold and silver out of the ground. The bankers of the world could also collaborate to keep nominal prices steady (as they do in the case of the suppression of precious metals prices). After all, the ability to create fiat money and force its usage is a far more excellent source of power and wealth than that which is afforded simply by stealing it through inflation. The bankers' greed and stupidity blind them to this fact. They want it all, and they want it now. In conclusion, The bankers can create money out of nothing and buy your goods and services with this worthless fiat money, effectively for free. You, you can't. You, you have to lead miserable existences for the most of you and WORK in order to obtain that effectively nonexistent, worthless credit money (whose purchasing/exchange value is not even DEFINED thus rendering all contracts based on the null and void!) that the banker effortlessly creates out of thin air with a few strokes of the computer keyboard, and which he doesn't even bother to print on paper anymore, electing to keep it in its pure quantum uncertain form instead, as electrons whizzing about inside computer chips which will become mute and turn silent refusing to tell you how many fiat dollars or euros there are in which account, in the absence of electricity. No electricity, no fiat, nor crypto money. It would appear that trust is deteriorating as it did when Lehman blew up . Something really big happened that set off this chain reaction in the repo markets. Whatever that something is, we aren't be informed. They're trying to cover it up, paper it over with conjured cash injections, play it cool in front of the cameras while sweating profusely under the 5 thousands dollar suits. I'm guessing that the final high-speed plunge into global economic collapse has begun. All we see here is the ripples and whitewater churning the surface, but beneath the surface, there is an enormous beast thrashing desperately in its death throws. Now is probably the time to start tying up loose ends with the long-running prep projects, just saying. In other words, prepare accordingly, and Get your money out of the banks. I don't care if you don't believe me about Bitcoin. Get your money out of the banks. Don't keep any more money in a bank than you need to pay your bills and can afford to lose.











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The Financial Armageddon Economic Collapse Blog tracks trends and forecasts , futurists , visionaries , free investigative journalists , researchers , Whistelblowers , truthers and many more

The FBI released a summary of its file from the Hillary Clinton email investigation on Friday, showing details of Clinton's explanation of her use of a private email server to handle classified communications. The release comes nearly two months after FBI Director James Comey announced that although Clinton's handling of classified information was "extremely careless," it did not rise to the level of a prosecutable offense. Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced the next day that she would not pursue charges in the matter. "We are making these materials available to the public in the interest of transparency and in response to numerous Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests," the FBI noted in a statement sent to reporters with links to the documents. The documents include notes from Clinton's July 2 interview with agents, as well as a "factual summary of the FBI's investigation into this matter," according to the FBI release. Throughout her interview with agents, Clinton repeatedly said she relied on the career professionals she worked with to handle classified information correctly. The agents asked about a series of specific emails, and in each case Clinton said she wasn't worried about the particular material being discussed on a nonclassified channel.