By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: September 9, 2021 ~ The highly respected and closely watched Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow forecast for the third quarter has been slashed by 41 percent since August 2 – from 6.3 percent GDP growth to a tepid 3.7 percent projected GDP growth on September 2. The next update to its forecast will occur tomorrow after the Producer Price Index (PPI) is released at 10 a.m. (The GDPNow update typically occurs within a few hours of a new data release.) The Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow model is the seasonally adjusted annual rate. It comes with the following caveat: “GDPNow is not an official forecast of the Atlanta Fed. Rather, it is best viewed as a running estimate of real GDP growth based on available economic data for the current measured quarter. There are no subjective adjustments made to GDPNow – the estimate is based solely on the mathematical results … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: September 8, 2021 ~ Natalie Mayflower Sours Edwards received her Ph.D. in 2007 from Virginia Commonwealth University. Her dissertation was titled: “Core Competences Required to Lead an Executive Level at the Department of Homeland Security.” On Friday morning, September 3, Edwards began serving a six-month sentence, to be followed by three years of supervised release, in the Federal Prison Camp known simply as “Alderson” in Alderson, West Virginia. There is currently a notice on the prison camp’s website that reads: “All visiting at this facility has been suspended until further notice.” This means that a woman who set out to help her country ferret out criminal money laundering now finds herself unable to even visit with her husband or her 16-year old daughter. Edwards is the heroic former Treasury official who tried in vain to get her superiors in the federal government to act on … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: September 7, 2021 ~ JPMorgan Chase has created its own digital coin called JPM Coin. The bank announced last October that the JPM Coin was being used commercially for the first time by “a large technology client to send payments around the world,” according to reporting at CNBC. According to JPMorgan’s website, the JPM Coin currently represents just U.S. dollars but the bank anticipates that it “will be extended to other major currencies, subject to market demand.” According to the trademark application for JPM Coin that was filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the JPM Coin is defined as follows: “Downloadable and recorded software for use in connection with transferring, managing and processing cryptocurrency, digital currency, virtual currency, and digital tokens based on blockchain technology.” JPM Coin runs on the Quorum blockchain, a network the bank developed as a private version of the … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: September 3, 2021 ~ Under the headline New York City’s Katrina Moment: Death Toll From Drowning Rises, on November 1, 2012 Wall Street On Parade reported the following about deaths in New York City from Hurricane Sandy: “Despite what the paper of record would have you believe, Hurricane Sandy was not about killer trees. Hurricane Sandy, like Hurricane Katrina, was about killer water. “The New York Times put it this way on Tuesday, before the death toll had climbed even higher: ‘There were 22 deaths reported in New York City, where the toll was heaviest, and 5 more fatalities elsewhere in the state. Most of all, it was the trees. Uprooted or cracked by the furious winds, they became weapons that flattened cars, houses and pedestrians.’ “Here’s the way those last two sentences should have read: ‘Most of all, it was the wall of water. … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: September 2, 2021 ~ Jim Himes, a Democrat from Connecticut, chairs the House Financial Services Committee’s Subcommittee on National Security, International Development and Monetary Policy. That Subcommittee has just announced a hearing slated for September 23 at 10:00 a.m. titled: “Lending in a Crisis: Reviewing the Federal Reserve’s Emergency Lending Powers During the Pandemic and Examining Proposals to Address Future Economic Crises.” The list of witnesses for this hearing has not yet been announced. There’s good reason for every American to be nervous about the real agenda of this hearing. For starters, Jim Himes is a 12-year veteran of Goldman Sachs. Second, he lives in Greenwich, Connecticut – the tony enclave of hedge fund billionaires. In addition, six of his top 10 donors over his career in Congress are the mega banks on Wall Street. (See chart below.) There is also the fact that Himes … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: September 1, 2021 ~ JPMorgan Chase is the bank that gambled with the bank deposits of moms and pops across America in 2012 by trading exotic derivatives in London and losing $6.2 billion in the process. It’s also the bank that admitted to two felony counts in 2014 for its role in facilitating Bernie Madoff ripping off the life savings of thousands of more moms and pops across America. Its rap sheet of ripping off the little guy reads like that of an entrenched crime family. But when the bank was indicted in France on April 16, 2015 for being complicit in tax fraud, it had the temerity to appeal the charges on the basis that its “human rights” had been violated, along with various codes of criminal procedure. Its argument boiled down to this: it hadn’t been advised that it had the right to … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: August 30, 2021 ~ As of this past Friday, August 27, the U.S. had 330 COVID-19 infections per 100,000 over the last 7 days, according to the Reuters COVID-19 tracker. Canada had 6.3 times fewer cases, reporting only 52 per 100,000 over the past 7 days. The U.S. stood at 62 percent of its prior peak of cases on Friday while Canada stood at 32 percent of its prior peak. The U.S. and Canada confirmed their first cases of the virus within a week of each other in January of 2020. Both countries began vaccinating their population at roughly the same time, in December of 2020. The majority of shots in both countries came from the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, which require two doses to be considered fully vaccinated. But the U.S. fell dramatically behind Canada in the early days of testing for the virus. … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: August 27, 2021 ~ For the past 19 years, China has been stonewalling U.S. regulators over access to the work papers of auditors of publicly traded companies that are based in China but listed on U.S. stock exchanges. China takes the position that these audit work papers hold state secrets and it prohibits audit firms from releasing the documents directly to U.S. regulators, effectively gutting U.S. law. Finally, last December, Congress addressed the long brewing problem. Both houses of Congress unanimously passed legislation called the Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act. The legislation requires that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) identify companies that are listed in the U.S. which the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) cannot “inspect or investigate completely because of a position taken by an authority in the foreign jurisdiction.” The legislation also requires the listed companies to provide documentation showing that … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: August 26, 2021 ~ JPMorgan Chase is unique among the mega banks on Wall Street – and not in a good way. It owns the largest federally-insured bank in the United States despite a rap sheet that would make the Gambino crime family jealous. It has been charged by the U.S. Department of Justice with five felony counts since 2014, admitting to all of them. Its Board of Directors has left the same man, Jamie Dimon, at the helm of the bank as Chairman and CEO, throughout those five felony counts. JPMorgan Chase is also the only American bank to ever be fined for using depositors’ money to gamble in derivatives in London and lose $6.2 billion of that money. (Jamie Dimon was Chairman and CEO at the bank then as well.) JPMorgan Chase is the only federally-insured bank in the United States to be … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: August 25, 2021 ~ Billionaire hedge fund titan Ken Griffin’s Citadel Advisors has had a stake in the biotech company, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, since at least December 31, 2011 – a decade ago. The same is true for billionaire Jeffrey Yass’ giant hedge fund, Susquehanna International Group. Both stakes have grown in size in recent years. As of the most recent 13F SEC filing for Citadel Advisors for the quarter ending June 30, 2021, it and its related entities held a stake in Regeneron of long call options and common stock with a value of $189.7 million versus a short position of puts with a value of $188.5 million. As of its filing with the SEC for the quarter ending June 30, 2021, Susquehanna International Group reported a long position of common shares and calls of 1,116,127 shares valued at $623.4 million versus a short position … Continue reading →