By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: January 4, 2024 ~ William (Bill) Dudley served as President of the New York Fed from 2009 to 2018. (He was previously an executive at Goldman Sachs.) During Dudley’s tenure at the New York Fed, it secretly oversaw the largest and darkest bailout of Wall Street mega banks in global banking history. A Bloomberg News reporter, the late Mark Pittman, battled in court for years to get the details of those bailouts released to the public. Today, the former kingpin of darkness at the New York Fed, Bill Dudley, had the audacity to pen an opinion column for Bloomberg News, urging – wait for it – more transparency at the Fed. The ironic title of Dudley’s column is (paywall): “If Only We Knew the Problems Facing America’s Banks.” (We do. See Federal Agency Study Contradicts Fed Chair: Finds Banking System Is Ripe for Another Crisis and … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: January 3, 2024 ~ Over the past week, more than a dozen of the biggest mainstream news outlets have published articles about the possibility of scandalous news breaking this week from the unsealing of documents in a federal court case involving the sex trafficker of minors, Jeffrey Epstein. Typically, responsible news outlets wait for the actual news to break before hyping the possibility of it breaking. At 5:59 a.m. this morning, Newsweek updated the story as follows: “Some on social media are speculating that the public disclosure of more than 150 names associated with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has been delayed. “Judge Loretta A. Preska signed an order on December 18 for the public release of the identities of more than 150 people mentioned in court documents from a now-settled 2015 civil lawsuit filed by Virginia Giuffre that centered on allegations that Epstein’s associate and former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell facilitated her sexual … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: January 2, 2024 ~ Following the second, third and fourth largest bank failures in U.S. history in the spring of last year, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell gave his semiannual monetary policy report to the House Financial Services Committee and the Senate Banking Committee in June. During both appearances, Powell stated the same thing: “The U.S. banking system is sound and resilient.”  But according to a report last week from the federal agency whose mandate is to keep federal regulators apprised of the true condition of the U.S. banking system, it is actually ripe for another crisis and its condition is “fragile and uncertain.” The federal agency whose researchers are taking the latter position is the Office of Financial Research (OFR). The agency was created under the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation of 2010 to prevent another 2008-style financial crisis by providing federal regulators with ongoing analysis and … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: December 28, 2023 ~ The year 2023 will go down in U.S. banking history as the year in which the fastest bank runs in U.S. history occurred, producing the second, third and fourth largest banking failures in U.S. history in the span of seven weeks.  Losses of more than $32 billion from these failed banks hit the Federal Deposit Insurance Fund (FDIC). Adding to the regulatory hubris, the largest and riskiest bank in the U.S., JPMorgan Chase, was allowed by its compromised regulators to become even riskier by gobbling up the failed First Republic Bank while JPMorgan Chase got an unexplained $50 billion 5-year loan from the FDIC at an undisclosed interest rate to sweeten its purchase of the failed bank. And, what good is a banking crisis if the Fed can’t pony up yet another bank bailout fund, this time with loans of up to … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: December 26, 2023 ~ On July 20, 2021 the U.S. Senate voted 56-44 to confirm Kenneth Polite (pronounced Po-leet) to head the most powerful criminal law enforcement office in the United States, the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. The vetting of this candidate immediately raised red flags at Wall Street On Parade. Despite Polite owing more than $1.5 million in debts according to his financial disclosure form and public mortgage records; paying over 18 percent interest on an outstanding balance on a credit card; 19.99 percent interest on a personal loan; and then accepting a job where his income was going to be slashed by approximately 77 percent – not one Senator on the Senate Judiciary Committee asked a single question about Polite’s unusual financial obligations during his confirmation hearing on May 26, 2021. In addition, Polite was coming from the law firm of Morgan, … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: December 20, 2023 ~ Jerome Powell became the Chairman of the Federal Reserve on February 5, 2018 after being nominated by then President Donald Trump and passing his Senate confirmation. Powell was sworn in again on May 23, 2022 for a second term as Chair. His second term runs until May 15, 2026.  Unlike most Fed Chairs, Powell has no economics degree. He has a law degree from Georgetown University. For more background on Powell, see our May 18, 2020 article: The Fed’s Chair and Vice Chair Got Rich at Carlyle Group, a Private Equity Fund with a String of Bankruptcies and Job Losses. Powell’s tenure as Fed Chair has been mired by the biggest trading scandal in the Federal Reserve’s 110-year history. That scandal has yet to be resolved in a manner that meets the test of accountability. See our October report: After Two Years, … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: December 19, 2023 ~ From 2010 through 2014, the most intractably corrupt industry in America – Wall Street – was the perpetual focus of the Senate Permanent Subcomittee on Investigations. The late Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) Chaired that Subcommittee throughout that span of time. Then Levin retired from the Senate in January 2015 and Wall Street’s name disappeared from hearings of that critical Subcommittee from 2015 through 2023 – a span of nine years. Wall Street did not become less corrupt from 2015 through 2023 to warrant it falling off the hearing schedule of the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. In fact, Wall Street became more corrupt. Financial watchdog, Better Markets, wrote the following in its detailed report in October on Wall Street mega banks’ unending crime spree: “For years, Better Markets has been tracking the enforcement actions against the nation’s six largest banks (the … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: December 18, 2023 ~ At recent Congressional hearings on federal bank regulators’ newly proposed rules to force the largest banks in the U.S. to hold more capital against their riskiest trading positions (so that taxpayers aren’t on the hook for more bailouts), the banks and their sycophants holding Senate and House seats made it sound like it’s the American farmers who will be hurt because the derivatives they use to hedge against crop failures or price swings in their crops will become more expensive.. We knew this was a completely bogus argument because the latest data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture indicates that “agriculture, food, and related industries contributed roughly $1.264 trillion to U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) in 2021….” In other words, U.S. farmers need to hedge less than $2 trillion while just three mega banks on Wall Street were holding $157.3 trillion … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: December 15, 2023 ~ A Wall Street cartel of lobbying groups has launched their fiercest anti-regulation battle with Congress since it was in the midst of writing the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation of 2010. That legislation hoped to address the worst Wall Street abuses and corruption that brought on the crash of 2008 – the most devastating financial meltdown since 1929 and the Great Depression. (See our report: Meet the Banking Cartel that Is Planting the Seeds for the Next Banking Panic and Bailout.) One tentacle of the cartel is the Financial Services Forum, whose total membership consists of the CEOs of the eight Wall Street mega banks: Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase; Brian Moynihan of Bank of America; Charles Scharf of Wells Fargo; Jane Fraser of Citigroup; David Solomon, Goldman Sachs; James Gorman, Morgan Stanley; Robin Vince, Bank of New York Mellon; and Ronald … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: December 14, 2023 ~ Quietly, on December 1, the New York Fed published the following statement on its website: “The Norinchukin Bank, New York Branch, has been added to the list of Standing Repo Facility Counterparties, effective December 1, 2023.” The Standing Repo Facility (SRF) is a permanent $500 billion bailout facility created by the Federal Reserve and operated by the New York Fed – the private regional Fed bank where multi-trillion dollar Wall Street bank bailouts have become a regular feature of its operations. Without any action from the U.S. legislative branch (otherwise known as Congress), the Fed has unilaterally decided to become lender of last resort to Wall Street trading houses (whom the Fed prefers to call its “primary dealers”) and deposit-taking banks, including the uninsured New York branches of foreign banks like Norinchukin Bank. If you have never heard of Norinchukin Bank, … Continue reading →