The Capitol Forum

Regulators fixed the problem shadow insurance was invented to solve a decade ago. Insurers kept doing it anyway.Today on Private Credit Crisis, Executive Editor Teddy Downey talks with Daniel Schwarcz, a University of Minnesota law professor who first wrote about "shadow insurance" in 2015. They get into how the practice started as a workaround regulators signed off on, why it kept growing after the rules were fixed, how private equity-backed insurers took it offshore to Bermuda, and Schwarcz's simple fix: stop letting US insurers reinsure with their own affiliates.

John Deere has agreed to pay $99 million to settle a class action over farmers’ right to repair their own equipment. But after lawyers and administrators take their cut, farmers could be left with a small slice of the pie.In this episode of Second Request, Executive Editor Teddy Downey sits down with Willie Cade, CEO of Graceful Solutions, to break down the settlement, dealer consolidation, and who should own farm equipment data.

Americans are furious about President Donald Trump’s role in driving up gas prices. With the midterm elections just weeks away, even Republican voters are souring on Trump over the cost of everything.In the first episode of our election series, TCF Investigates host Arjun Singh and senior correspondent Paul McLeod sit down with Capitol Forum reporter Max Berengaut to learn how refinery consolidation is pushing fuel costs even higher. Then they talk with pollster G. Elliott Morris to understand what’s driving voters.

The ratings agencies already failed investors in 2008. Are they about to do it again?Today on Private Credit Crisis, Executive Editor Teddy Downey talks with Rod Dubitsky, who rated subprime bonds at Moody's before the financial crisis. They discuss whether the high ratings on private equity-owned life insurers can be trusted, and what investors and regulators might be missing.

With a month until the midterms, the polls have Democrats favored to take the House and voters angry about high prices, especially at the pump.In this episode of Second Request, Executive Editor Teddy Downey, senior podcast producer Arjun Singh and reporter Paul McLeod sit down with G. Elliott Morris, a data journalist and pollster who writes the Substack Strength in Numbers. They dig into where the House and Senate races stand, how gas prices and the war in Iran are dragging down President Trump, and how to tell good polling from noise.Read Elliott's Substack here: https://www.gelliottmorris.com/

Corwin Zass, founder and consulting actuary at Actuarial Risk Management, brings 25+ years of life-insurance risk expertise. He explores how private equity-owned insurers handle opaque private-credit assets, reinsurance, funding agreement notes, and concentrated exposure. The conversation examines liquidity runs, uneven regulation, capital blind spots, and what happens when policyholder confidence collapses.

Karina Lubell, a former DOJ competition official now advising organizations at Brunswick Group, and Nicholas Cholas, a Wiley antitrust litigator and former DOJ trial attorney, examine Trump 2.0’s competition agenda. They discuss merger scrutiny, state attorneys general, congressional oversight, AI, the Robinson-Patman Act, and political risk in deal reviews. What does a second request really signal?

Kyeonghee Kim, a Florida State finance professor and former life-insurance investment professional, examines what happens when private equity enters the insurance world. They discuss offshore reinsurance, modified coinsurance, opaque private-credit holdings, affiliated fees, and how identical bonds can receive different risk ratings. The conversation also explores whether regulatory filings reveal enough about who controls insurers and where the assets really sit.

Ben Neumeyer, a privacy lawyer and former Meta data policy manager, examines DOGE’s pooling of federal records and the threat of reidentifying “anonymous” data. He discusses weak privacy safeguards, surveillance contractors, and data weaponization against political critics. The conversation also explores corporate data sharing, antitrust, telecom privacy, driver’s license storage, California’s leadership, and the risks of universal age verification.

Nick Niemann, an investor and writer of Mispriced Assets, investigates private credit’s hidden dangers. He explores how private equity-owned insurers move risk offshore, why opaque marks and weak capital rules could conceal losses, and how insurer runs might cascade through pensions, retirees, taxpayers, and commercial real estate. They also discuss regulation, rating agencies, and the growing scrutiny of insurance mergers.