The Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee works to identify and analyze developing trends and ongoing events that promise to affect the efficiency and safe operation of sectors of the financial services industry; explore the spectrum of short- and long-term implications of emerging problems and policy changes; help develop private, regulatory and legislative responses to such problems that promote efficiency and safety and further the public interest; and to assess and respond to proposed and actual public policy initiatives with respect to the impact on the public interest.

The reality is that we simply do not know how efficacious most  drugs really are. 

More than 30 years after the Islamic Revolution, Iran remains a black hole for American analysts. The unknowns regarding Iranian command, control, and capabilities represent an intelligence failure the likes of which make the Central intelligence Agency's 2002 false findings regarding Iraq weapons of mass destruction program look like small potatoes.

Oil production, made possible by the combination of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, is unlocking vast supplies of energy from the North Dakota's Bakken formation and putting it on an economic trajectory that is unmatched elsewhere in the country.

As memory of past tragedies fade, many Australians question their participation in the war on terror. Whereas three years ago, the Australian mission in Afghanistan was relatively popular, polls now show almost two-thirds of Australians want their troops withdrawn from Afghanistan.

Yesterday the Treasury Department designated six al Qaeda members as global terrorists. These operatives form a network that funnels money and personnel from the Gulf to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan via Iran and is tied to other enemy groups. Al Qaeda's safe haven in Iran is not unlike the militant sanctuary in Pakistan.

As with murder and arson, serious charges of sexual assault should be left to the police and the courts.

The U.S. is not immune to lethal failings in the quality of pharmaceutical drugs. With little realistic oversight, and more importantly, little ethos of business integrity in China, a major tragedy in the U.S. from a Chinese export is likely in the near future.