By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: July 15, 2024 ~ Dave McCormick, the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate from Pennsylvania, was sitting in the front row at Donald Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on Saturday and narrowly missed being in the line of fire according to an interview he gave to CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday morning. McCormick told Tapper that Trump had called out from the podium, asking McCormick to join him on the stage and he “started to walk up onto the stage” when Trump said: “No, no, I will have you up in a little bit. And then the shooting started a minute or two later. And so, had he not changed his mind, I think I would have been up on that stage.” According to the PBS video of Trump’s opening remarks at the rally, which also capture the gunfire, Trump called McCormick a “great, great … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: July 11, 2024 ~ Last week, Wall Street On Parade published an article with this title: The Supreme Court Crowns a King, Immunizing Future Criminal Acts Under Project 2025 – a Right Wing Manifesto. We began the article with this: “In the span of two business days, six of the nine justices on the U.S. Supreme Court have radically altered American democracy. On Friday, those six right-wing justices gutted the ability of federal government agencies to protect the waters Americans drink, the air they breathe, their ability to impose food and drug safety rules and worker protections. On Monday, the same six effectively crowned the President of the United States a king by immunizing the President from criminal prosecution for any conduct that can be construed as official acts.” This unprecedented action by six of the right-wing Supreme Court Justices appears to be laying the … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: July 9, 2024 ~ Last week the American Banker published an opinion article by Arthur E. Wilmarth, Jr., the Professor Emeritus of Law at George Washington University. Wilmarth is the man who wrote the seminal book on the continuing threat to financial stability posed by U.S. megabanks – the same ones that blew up Wall Street and the U.S. economy in 2008. The title of Wilmarth’s article (paywall) is: “The FDIC’s resolution plan for failed megabanks is an empty promise.” The thrust of the article is this: the Dodd-Frank Act was passed by Congress and signed into law in 2010 – 14 years ago. One of its primary goals was to prevent taxpayers from having to rescue megabanks, as occurred in 2008. A key component of that goal is Title II of Dodd-Frank, which provides an Orderly Resolution Plan to unwind failing megabanks that does … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: July 8, 2024 ~ When we heard that the scrappy, independent Senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders, was going to appear on “Face the Nation” yesterday, we figured he might have something to say about the New York Times’ unprecedented and relentless drumbeat to force President Joe Biden to step down as a Presidential candidate. We weren’t disappointed. Sanders said this: “I will tell you this, whether you’re a Republican, Democrat or Independent: the American people are disillusioned, they are angry, they think that government is busy paying attention to the rich and wealthy campaign donors. And by the way, I find it personally insulting that the New York Times and all these media organizations go out front page ‘This is what the billionaire campaign donors feel.’ Well, to hell with the billionaire campaign donors. Let’s worry about the working class of this country and what … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: July 3, 2024 ~ On Monday, the transcript of the July 19, 2006 grand jury proceedings involving sexual assaults and rape by Jeffrey Epstein against underage girls in Palm Beach County, Florida was released by a Circuit Court. The Palm Beach Post newspaper had sued in that court for release of the transcript in 2019 in order to shine more light on how Florida State Attorney, Barry Krischer, had ignored a powder keg of evidence against Epstein that had been developed by the Palm Beach Police and cut a sweetheart deal under pressure from Epstein’s attorneys. Florida legislation, signed into law by Governor Ron DeSantis, called for the transcript to be released on or after July 1, in response to the extensive public interest in the case. Despite police evidence that Epstein had sexually assaulted dozens of underage school girls, Krischer and the U.S. Department … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: July 2, 2024 ~ In the span of two business days, six of the nine justices on the U.S. Supreme Court have radically altered American democracy. On Friday, those six right-wing justices gutted the ability of federal government agencies to protect the waters Americans drink, the air they breathe, their ability to impose food and drug safety rules and  worker protections. On Monday, the same six effectively crowned the President of the United States a king by immunizing the President from criminal prosecution for any conduct that can be construed as official acts. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor issued a scathing dissent. (Scroll down to her dissent at this link.) To drive home the hubris of the majority’s decision, she read her dissent aloud in the courtroom, boldly enunciating her weightiest words. In her dissent, which was joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: July 1, 2024 ~ It took the New York Times Editorial Board less than 24 hours to assess the political landscape after the disastrous presidential debate last Thursday evening and call for President Joe Biden “to announce that he will not continue to run for re-election.” The Times called President Biden’s view that he is the only candidate that can beat Donald Trump “a reckless gamble.” But the New York Times is itself engaging in a reckless gamble with its unmoored bet that the Democratic Party would be able to amicably transition to a different presidential candidate who could win over the American people in the short span of four months left before the election. The Times is also gambling that this major disruption within the Democratic Party would not negatively impact down-ballot races and end up costing Democrats both the White House and control … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: June 27, 2024 ~ Yesterday the House Financial Institutions and Monetary Policy Subcommittee held a hearing titled “Stress Testing: What’s Inside the Black Box?” The hearing was convened to examine the manner in which the Federal Reserve conducts its stress tests of the megabanks. The witnesses called to testify included the following: an employee of the Financial Services Forum, a registered lobbyist for  banks; an employee of the Bank Policy Institute, a registered lobbyist for banks; Jonathan Gould, a lawyer from Jones Day, whose clients are banks; and one lonely soul, Greg Feldberg, Research Director of the Yale Program on Financial Stability, who was the only credible voice on the witness panel. The Chair of this Subcommittee is Andy Barr, a Republican from Kentucky whose largest four campaign donors are the following: employees of the Wall Street private equity firms Apollo Global Management and Blackstone … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: June 26, 2024 ~ According to Federal Reserve data, for the first time in its history, the Fed has been losing money on a consistent monthly basis since September 28, 2022. As of the last reporting date of June 19, 2024, those losses add up to a cumulative $176 billion. As the chart above using Fed data shows, the losses thus far in 2024 have ranged from a monthly high of $11.076 billion in February to a low of $5.674 billion in May. These losses are separate and distinct from the unrealized losses the Fed is experiencing on the debt securities it holds on its balance sheet. It does not mark those losses to market since it intends to hold the securities to maturity and their principal is guaranteed at maturity by the U.S. government. The losses shown in the above chart are actual cash … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: June 25, 2024 ~ Last Friday, Goldman Sachs Bank USA, the federally-insured, U.S. taxpayer-backstopped commercial bank that the international trading behemoth, Goldman Sachs Group, is allowed to operate, got a smackdown from two of its regulators, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the Federal Reserve Board (the Fed). The two regulators released a letter they had sent to David Solomon, Chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs Group, which revealed that the commercial bank had flunked its wind-down test known as its “living will.” Derivatives were specifically cited for the “shortcomings.” Of particular note, the regulators wrote that Goldman Sachs Bank USA “…did not demonstrate the ability to model its derivatives portfolio unwind by counterparty for segmenting the portfolio in resolution. In the [upcoming] 2025 Plan, the Covered Company should demonstrate the ability to view derivatives positions at a counterparty level within both the portfolio … Continue reading →