Seriously: what's going on with Elon Musk? And what happens when "free speech absolutism" runs up against the realities of running the nation's de facto digital public square? How has Joe Biden performed in his first two years in office? And what can Americans expect from Braver Angels in 2023? In the final episode of the year, Ciaran O'Connor convenes fellow Braver Angels leaders John Wood, Jr., Monica Guzman, April Kornfield, and Gabbi Timmis for a freewheeling roundtable discussion.
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A hidden financial crisis is emerging as private credit funds like BlackRock’s HLEND and Blackstone’s BCRED freeze withdrawals. Discover how geopolitical shocks, illiquid assets, and retail investor panic are exposing deep risks in the shadow banking system.
Getty Images, Yuichiro Chino
How the Iran Conflict Triggered a Private Credit Liquidity Crisis
Mar 20, 2026
While the world watches the harrowing escalation of the conflict in the Middle East and the volatility in the energy markets, a secondary, equally dangerous crisis is unfolding silently within the global financial architecture. The immediate shocks of any geopolitical crisis - soaring oil prices and fractured supply lines - are predictable, even expected. But what is currently occurring in the "shadow banking" sector is a classic "black swan" event, the true impact of which has yet to be fully grasped.
The news this week that investment behemoths have announced withdrawal freezes for some of their flagship private-credit funds (namely BlackRock’s $26 billion HLEND and Blackstone’s BCRED, which both activated redemption gates on March 7) is not a minor financial technicality. It is the definitive popping of a massive asset-class bubble and the end of the reckless era of "democratizing private equity."
For years, institutional managers sold these products on a powerful but fundamentally flawed promise: that retail investors could enjoy "private-equity-style, stable yields" with the "liquidity of a public market security." This proposition was inherently a mismatch. Private credit, which involves lending directly to private, typically medium-sized companies that are too small or debt-laden for public markets, is inherently illiquid. Loans often have tenures of three to seven years. A sudden dash for cash by retail investors leaves the fund manager with only two choices: sell assets at distressed "fire-sale" prices, crushing returns, or lock the exit gate. They chose the latter.
The Iran conflict did not create this problem, but it was the decisive catalyst that revealed the structural frailty of this entire market segment. Geopolitical shock waves are uniquely effective at stripping away liquidity. The conflict immediately sent WTI crude over $90, which, while not as high as some feared, was enough to ignite inflationary concerns and spook markets about a potential global growth slowdown.
Simultaneously, the domestic economic picture - which private credit managers were counting on to remain stable - began to show cracks. The March 8 Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow estimate was sharply revised down, and the Labor Department’s February data on March 6 reported a deeper-than-expected jobs contraction of 92,000, signaling that the economy was cooling faster than anticipated. This "Davis Double Kill" - the combination of falling earnings (due to the economic soft patch) and falling valuations (due to the war-driven panic) - struck right at the heart of the private credit model.
Retail investors, seeing the headlines of war and recession, did what they always do: they sought safety. They hit the "sell" button on their "stable yield" products, assuming their broker-dealer platform would provide instant liquidity. Instead, they hit a wall. As Bill Eigen of JPMorgan recently warned, "Bad news often comes in waves. The transparency and leverage in this sector are concerning."
This crisis exposes a significant regulatory and industry-wide moral failing. For the past decade, financial institutions have aggressively pushed complex, illiquid investment products to the "mass-affluent" or even ordinary retail investors, often by creating convoluted structures like Business Development Companies (BDCs) or other specialized funds. The goal was simple: to increase the pool of capital for lucrative, high-fee private-debt lending. But in doing so, they brought a naive, highly-reactive retail clientele into a complex "investment zoo," without sufficient safeguards or the necessary understanding that when you lend to a private business, your money is locked.
The regulatory environment also shares the blame. Policymakers and regulators have allowed these products to proliferate, perhaps too willing to believe that financial innovation had magically solved the liquidity-yield trade-off. This oversight failed to acknowledge that "democratizing access" is not the same as ensuring suitability, especially during a crisis. At this stage, market expectations for stability might be overly optimistic given the resurgence of inflation.
The lesson from this moment is clear, and it is one that both the financial industry and investors must learn. First, the industry needs to rethink how it packages and markets illiquid assets. True "democratization" cannot come at the expense of an investor’s understanding of and ability to access their capital. Transparency regarding the true illiquid nature of private assets must be paramount, not buried in small print.
For investors, the uncomfortable truth is that there is no free lunch in finance. The era of assuming that sophisticated-looking financial products offer only upside without significant liquidity risk is over. The next phase will be painful, as redemption requests will remain high and the true, possibly distressed, values of these underlying private loans are revealed. But a painful truth is always preferable to a comfortable illusion, and this "Retail Liquidity Trap" has definitively shattered one of the financial market's most seductive illusions.
Imran Khalid is a physician, geostrategic analyst, and freelance writer.
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I’m a Former Immigration Lawyer Turned Public School Teacher. Here’s How I’m Engaging Students in Civics.
Mar 20, 2026
During a recent civics class a student asked me why protests were happening around the country. This student wasn’t being partisan or argumentative. They were just trying to understand what is happening in our democracy right now.
When it comes to teaching civics through current events, the hardest part doesn’t involve breaking up disagreements. Rather, the hardest and incidentally most valuable component is helping students develop meaning from situations as change unfolds on their social media feeds in real time.
As a civics teacher, I am in a unique position to help them make sense of what’s happening in their community and in our nation. And in this current situation, as a teacher who specializes in Homeland Security and as a former immigration lawyer, I’m in an especially unique position.
But my role is the same as any and every teacher in this country - to present current events without advocacy. My legal background provides opportunities to develop civic lessons grounded in sound law, even as current events seem to press legal limits. My lessons are designed to help students develop their own opinions based on reliable evidence and factual information. And because I teach high school, it’s my ongoing responsibility to help students become responsible citizens through developing civic empowerment.
We need meaningful civics education that motivates the next generation to engage leadership roles and public service. Students today, however, won’t simply accept opinions first. They expect clarity. And providing clarity in contemporary civic learning is complex, because there are so many potential distractions. Social media especially holds an increasingly tight grip on students. Moreover, students enter the classroom with a wide range of backgrounds, beliefs and challenges.
My role is to identify where students are and then provide lessons that further the growth of reasonable civic thought, reflection and connection.
As partisanship divides us and adults seem to yell even louder, purposefully teaching civics in the classroom is about developing skills as opposed to pressing an agenda.
My role as a responsible civics teacher today is similar to being both the prosecution and defense attorney in the same first impression case with closing arguments that favor neither side. I focus on being a resource for students driven to develop their own reasoning abilities rather than to accept personal educator bias. My students are motivated to know what Constitutional rights exist, what limits exist, and how legal authorities make decisions. They need to be able to separate truth from fiction, develop arguments based on evidence and documents, and learn how to become responsible citizens. Valuable civic education is not about what to think – it’s about how to think.
A commitment to strong civic education is really the only sustainable solution to ensuring the US will always remain the greatest democracy in the world. Purposeful civic education teaches students how to problem solve within that democracy – and how to work together. Students need civic-focused reasoning to separate systems from sound-bytes. They must realize social media swipes in the present are not nearly as important as civic understanding over the long-term.
In my own classroom, civic learning extends beyond discussion and into meaningful action. This year, which is both the 250th Anniversary of the nation’s independence and the 25th Anniversary of 9/11, my students are organizing an inaugural 9/11 Flags of Remembrance Project for our community. We hope to have 2,977 US Flags sponsored and displayed at our school, one for each innocent victim of 9/11 - a dynamic symbol of the impact of that horrific day. The Project is about remembering and understanding why certain moments must continue to shape our civic life.
Our nation depends on civic-focused projects, engagements as well as lessons that resonate with students. Civic Learning Week (March 9-14) is an annual recommitment to civic-focused education, providing an ideal opportunity to remember democracy depends on informed participation. Civic Learning Week helps signal to students that their questions matter, supports teachers doing this difficult work, and encourages schools to prioritize civic literacy.
A student several months from graduating asked me how to register to vote, a simple question tied to arguably our most important civic responsibility. Such a question brought a smile to my face.
We need the next generation to appreciate that democracy isn’t taught once – it must be engaged with throughout entire lives. If we want informed citizens, we must be committed to valuable civic education. After all, while teaching the present may be challenging, a commitment to civic learning guarantees we teach it responsibly and prepare the next generation of citizens.
Adam Edward Rothwell is a tenured public high school Homeland Security teacher in Baltimore County, Maryland, and a licensed attorney. The views expressed are his own.
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What can the success of SEMATECH teach us about winning the AI race? Explore how a bold U.S. public-private partnership revived the semiconductor industry—and why a similar model could be key to advancing AI innovation today.
Getty Images, Andriy Onufriyenko
A Proven Playbook for AI Leadership: Lessons from America’s Chip Comeback
Mar 20, 2026
Imagine waking up to this paragraph in your favorite newspaper:
The willingness of the U.S. government to eschew partisanship and undertake a bold experiment -- an experiment based on cooperation as opposed to traditional procurement, and with accountability standards rooted in trust instead of elaborate regulations -- has led the U.S. to a position of preeminence in an industry which is vital to our nation's security and economic well-being.
You'd likely be incredulous, right? Private-public collaboration, as if! Bipartisan investment in a long-term project, sure! Redesigning out-of-date systems and ditching unnecessary regulations, in our dreams!
That is not a quote from a utopian novel.
I lifted that language from the Final Report to the Department of Defense on an initiative known as Sematech. In the late 1980s, the US recognized that it was in danger of missing a pivotal technological moment. Japan had seized a substantial advantage in semiconductor research and development. As of 1989, the US share of semiconductor equipment sales plunged from 69 percent in 1983 to just 51 percent in 1988. Over that same five-year span, Japan surged ahead--increasing its share from 25 percent to 40 percent. Rather than pursue a patchwork of state-driven approaches and in place of relying solely on private US firms to magically catch their Japanese rivals, a diverse set of stakeholders coordinated a national response.
Congress acknowledged that the status quo marked an "unacceptable situation" and formed SEMATECH--a private-public consortium of 14 private companies committed to putting the US back on the vanguard of this critical industry. In practice, this involved “developing, demonstrating and advancing the technology base for efficient, high yield manufacturing of advanced semiconductor devices.” The consortium embarked on research covering everything from lithography to plasma etch and deposition equipment. The idea was that this kind of basic research would lead to the US reclaiming its status as the market leader.
Such an intensive, ambitious, and cooperative research agenda would not have happened without a willingness for public and private participants to invest—literally and figuratively—in a more competitive, productive America rather than attempt to regulate our way back to the top. The deal required all stakeholders to put significant skin in the game. More specifically, each company pledged to pay one percent of their semiconductor sales revenue per year, albeit with a floor of $1 million and a ceiling at $15 million. The federal government threw in a cool $100 million of matching funds to help things along.
But the buy-in from the private side was far more than financial--as Chris Hughes explains in his book, “Marketcrafters.” Companies sent some of their top talent to Austin, home to Sematech’s state-of-the-art fab facility (which was built in just 32 weeks). Many of those brilliant engineers stayed for two years--demonstrating the importance of the cause as well as the esprit de corps that SEMATECH’s leaders managed to cultivate.
SEMATECH firms also agreed that the resulting research would be shared and commercialized, which meant that even non-members could experience downstream benefits from the project’s advances. Intel later reported that its cumulative $17 million in SEMATECH saved the firm $300 million via production efficiencies. On the whole, economists suspect that the return on investment was somewhere between $1.40 and $2.80.
We’re in dire need of a SEMATECH for AI. More than three years into the current generative AI revolution, there’s a shortage of basic AI research -- studying new AI paradigms beyond large language models, developing evaluations to test model capabilities, and generally advancing the AI frontier so that we can keep pace with geopolitical rivals and realize the technology’s potential to increase human flourishing.
It’s no secret that some of America’s greatest scientific and technological advances have come about through getting a bunch of really smart folks together in one place and charging them with an ambitious mission that’s personally meaningful, politically important, and, yes, lucrative. A SEMATECH for AI would reduce duplicative work that’s going on at the labs, across universities, and within nonprofits.
Two key lessons should be gleaned from the SEMATECH example: first, government should not pick winners or micromanage innovation; and, second, the state can sometimes do the most good by clearing space for voluntary coordination, aligning incentives, and then getting out of the way. A modern AI consortium should be narrow in scope, time-limited, and disciplined by real private capital—not a new regulatory superstructure, not a permanent bureaucracy, and not a vehicle for industrial policy. Its charge would be simple: fund pre-competitive research that the market undersupplies, share results widely, and sunset once its mission is complete. That approach respects what folks such as Nobel Laureate Joel Mokyr have long argued—that durable technological leadership comes from trust, experimentation, and decentralized problem-solving, not compliance checklists or precautionary bans.
Kevin Frazier is a Senior Fellow at the Abundance Institute, directs the AI Innovation and Law Program at the University of Texas School of Law, and is an Affiliated Research Fellow at the Cato Institute.
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Attendees hold signs advocating for voting rights and against the SAVE America Act at a rally to outside the U.S. Capitol on March 18, 2026 in Washington, DC.
Getty Images, Heather Diehl
SAVE America Act Debate Begins; Mullin for DHS Hearing
Mar 20, 2026
Both chambers of Congress are in session this week and next. The House will probably function about like it has been - lots of votes (often by voice) on uncontroversial bills; many fewer votes on Republican priority bills. Lots of hearings this week and a few legislator updates.
Committee Meetings
Both chambers have a busy week with 64 total committee meetings scheduled.
Mullin Hearing
One of those hearings is of particular interest because it'll be the committee hearing for current Sen. Mullin (R-OK) who has been nominated to be the next Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. We will be watching that Wednesday morning hearing as we put together a separate post on the nomination process for this nominee. For expectations management purposes: Mullin will almost certainly be confirmed. No Republican has voiced concerns about him and Sen. Fetterman (D-PA) has already said he'll vote for Mullin.
Scheduled House Votes
There were supposed to be a bunch of votes today on uncontroversial bills today, but weather has once again intervened. Presumably these votes will be moved to tomorrow, but it's not clear right now.
Of these bills, two will, should they pass the House without amendment, become law:
- S. 3971: Small Business Innovation and Economic Security Act. This bill would extend existing small business programs.
- S. 1884: Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act of 2025. This bill would limit defenses against returning art that are based on passage of time and other non-merits arguments.
Legislator Updates
- Rep. Kiley (R*-CA3) becomes an "independent" *We will update our database when it's official. But we've put independent in quotes because he'll still caucus with Republicans and he says himself that this is unlikely to change any votes he might cast. He says in the same interview that this change is basically to improve his election prospects now that his district has been redrawn to include more Democratic voters.
- Rep. Ogles (R-TN-5), along with a number of other Republican members of Congress, have been posting crudely Islamophobic content over the last week. Republican House Leadership is fine with this and has in no way rebuked these members.
SAVE America Act Process
We almost called this section "The @#$@#$ Filibuster" for reasons that will become clear below. We have mentioned many times that Senate procedure is usually either complex and intentionally slow or very simple and fast.
Unopposed unanimous consent is the classic simple and fast example.
The moderately slow/complex example is cloture, aka the vote to end debate or the filibuster. Why moderately slow/complex? Why is this called the filibuster?
- The cloture vote requires basically a two day waiting period between the filing of the cloture vote and the vote itself, so that's the slow part.
- It only ends debate; technically it doesn't pass or fail the bill the itself. But given the 53 Republicans/47 Democrats in the Senate, a failed cloture vote does effectively cause the bill to fail because the chamber can't get enough members to agree to end debate. That's the complex part.
- The requirement of a 3/5ths majority (60 votes if all Senate seats are filled) means that the minority party in the Senate holds considerable power to prevent legislation from getting out of the Senate. That's the filibuster part.
Cloture votes have become very common. Most of the time when someone talks about "the filibuster", this is what they have in mind.
But this week the Senate is going to do a different and more complicated and even slower version of a filibuster. The end isn't likely to change - the SAVE America Act does not have the 60 votes needed for cloture right now - but the path to get there is going to be unusual.
Recap of main elements of current SAVE America text:
- Requires proof of citizenship to register to vote
- Requires states to submit voter lists to the feds for citizenship reviews
- People voting by mail must include a copy of their photo ID
- Requires photo ID at the polls
So what will the Senate do?
- Vote on the Motion to Proceed - this can also be subject to a 3/5ths majority, but not in this case.
- Most Senate Republicans support the bill so this vote will likely pass with a simple majority.
- Then, debate begins. Amendments may be offered. They will likely include provisions on unrelated issues like transgender athletes because President Trump has now demanded that as well.
- Because debate is unlimited until the Senate manually votes to end it, SAVE America supporters are betting that opponents will get tired and want to move on so the goal is go on as long as possible.
Is this a "talking filibuster"? Not really. A talking filibuster is a tactic to prevent passage of a bill that is likely to pass as soon as the minority gives up control of the floor.
But it also sort of is, in that the majority is banking on minority party senators wanting to work on their own priorities and so as long as they don't move to cloture, minority party member priorities are held up too.
So, the theory must be that enough Democrats will agree to vote yes on cloture if their own priorities are held up long enough by the process for the SAVE America Act. This tactic doesn't seem likely to succeed, but who knows.
Nonetheless, as of Monday morning March 16, this is what the Senate majority has planned for the week with respect to the SAVE America Act. We'll see by the end of the week where things stand both the majority's and minority's appetite for staying on this bill.
SAVE America Act Debate Begins; Mullin for DHS Hearing was originally published by GovTrack and is republished with permission.
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Trump’s ‘Just for Fun’ War Talk Shows a Dangerous Trivialization