Category Archives: Uncategorized

By Pam Martens: February 11, 2019 ~ Wall Street, the epicenter of American capitalism, brought down economies around the globe in 2008, including a banking, housing and foreclosure crisis in the U.S. Why is it just now that fixing American capitalism is on everybody’s mind? One answer is that it will be a central focus in the 2020 presidential campaign while a more nuanced reading is that the current dystopian billionaire administration has everyone grasping for answers as to how we got here. Harper’s magazine did make a valiant effort to look at the problem at the height of the financial crisis in November 2008 with seven essays on how to fix American capitalism. But the public at that time was more focused on keeping their jobs, a roof over their heads and pulling what little funds they had left from sinking mutual funds and teetering banks. Then the Obama … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: February 5, 2019 ~ Remember that late 1930s play, “The Man Who Came to Dinner.” In the play (and later movie) the man slips on ice on the doorstep of his host, is injured, and never leaves. The question before the American people this week is if the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome (Jay) Powell, skidded on a slippery slope Monday evening when, on his 66th birthday, he chose to dine at the White House with the same President Donald Trump who has been bashing him for months in the press. Like the character in the play, will the Fed Chair now be thought of as the man confined to the House of Trump rather than as an independent central banker. The time line for Powell’s birthday dinner has the same rancid aroma of Trump’s favored weapon to try to bring people around to his way … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: February 4, 2019 ~ The new chair of the House Financial Services Committee, Maxine Waters of California, has held elected office for more than four decades. She has served in the U.S. House of Representatives since 1991. Prior to that, she served 14 years in the California State Assembly. She has been on the House Financial Services Committee for the past 28 years – a period in which she has witnessed the largest Wall Street banks dramatically expand their financial frauds against the public. But can even a knowledgeable, seasoned veteran like Waters tackle the herculean problem that Wall Street banks represent to the country today? Apparently, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon and Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon aren’t wasting any time trying to get a handle on the topics on which Waters intends to hold hearings. According to a report by CNBC in late January, both … Continue reading →

 By Pam Martens: January 29, 2019 ~ The U.S. is no longer in the top 10, or even the top 20, of least corrupt nations. Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index for 2018 was released today and the United States has fallen four points deeper into corruption than last year. The U.S. now ranks below Luxembourg, Estonia and France, coming in at number 22 on the chart. In the Americas region, only Canada came in among the top 10 least corrupt nations, earning a number 9 ranking. (View the full list here.) Zoe Reiter, Acting Representative to the U.S. at Transparency International said this about the report: “A four point drop in the CPI score is a red flag and comes at a time when the US is experiencing threats to its system of checks and balances, as well as an erosion of ethical norms at the highest levels of power. If … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: January 28, 2019 ~ There’s a new book coming on February 5 from the HarperCollins Leadership imprint – and it’s a critical subject for every American, even if you’ve never before thought about starting your own business. That’s because America is losing its dynamism in creating new businesses, as we’ll discuss later in this article. Written by Judy Robinett, Crack the Funding Code: How Investors Think and What They Need to Hear to Fund Your Startup is the how-to guide for young business owners to tap into private capital sources like angel investors or venture capitalists. There are key sections in the book on how to find the people who can help you, how to write a solid business plan, financial statement and projections, and a compelling pitch. Equally important for the unsophisticated but creative entrepreneur, the book offers sound advice on hiring a lawyer to evaluate … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: January 23, 2019 ~ There’s a troubling story out this morning at Bloomberg News indicating that the Federal Reserve “is examining how Deutsche Bank AG handled billions of dollars in suspicious transactions from Denmark’s leading lender [Danske Bank], according to people familiar with the matter, further intensifying what could be one of the biggest money-laundering scandals ever.” The story is troubling because (a) probing potentially criminal money laundering is the job of the Justice Department which can impose criminal charges, not the job of the Fed which cannot; and (b) the Fed is notorious for slapping knuckles and imposing small fines. The Fed’s New York regional bank, which plays an outsized role in the Federal Reserve system, is a deeply conflicted regulator. And, let’s not forget that it was the Fed that secretly funneled $16.1 trillion of almost zero interest loans to the global banks … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: January 21, 2019 ~ It is destined to go down as one of the greatest journalistic and regulatory failures of our time – the lack of serious attention by investigative business reporters and the U.S. Department of Justice to the glaring fact that the largest Wall Street banks continue to trade their own and each other’s bank stocks in their own Dark Pools. Dark Pools function as unregulated stock exchanges inside the bowels of the largest Wall Street banks. Making the situation even more dicey, some of the big banks own more than one Dark Pool, raising the possibility that there could be cross-trading between those pools to artificially inflate or depress stock prices. JPMorgan Chase owns two Dark Pools; Citigroup currently owns at least two although it owned a lot more in the past; Morgan Stanley owns three; and then there is the Dark Pool that … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: January 17, 2019 ~ The legendary John Bogle passed away yesterday in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. He was 89. Bogle was the founder of Vanguard Group. In announcing his death, Vanguard said that Bogle “introduced the first index mutual fund for investors and, in the face of skeptics, stood behind the concept until it gained widespread acceptance; and he drove down costs across the mutual fund industry by ceaselessly campaigning in the interests of investors.” We’ll always remember Bogle for the courage he demonstrated on April 23, 2013 when he appeared on the PBS program Frontline. Bogle dropped the bombshell that Wall Street has attempted to hide for half a century: If you work for 50 years and receive the typical long-term return of 7 percent on your 401(k) plan and your fees are 2 percent, almost two-thirds of your account will go to Wall Street. Bogle explained the math … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: January 15, 2019 ~ If you’ve ever mucked horse stalls full of smelly manure, you’re better prepared for this week. Yesterday, the inscrutable Citigroup ushered in the week of mind-numbing fourth-quarter earnings reports from the financial supermarkets/commercial banks/insurance companies/brokerage firms/investment banks/derivative warehouses that have combined under one highly combustible roof, using the simple moniker Wall Street bank. There is so much going on under one roof that you’d need your own team of 100 accountants to have any clue as to whether the bank is doing well or not. JPMorgan Chase, a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, was out with its disappointing earnings this morning. Goldman Sachs and Bank of America report on Wednesday, followed by Morgan Stanley on Thursday. Citigroup’s big reveal was that it had missed analysts’ revenue expectations by half a billion dollars – not exactly small change. The bank reported $17.1 … Continue reading →