Category Archives: Uncategorized

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 29, 2018 While Robert Mercer was donating $25 million to Republican campaigns in the 2016 election cycle and building a vast network of social media projects like Cambridge Analytica to digitally target voters “inner demons,” James Simons, the founder of the hedge fund, Renaissance Technologies, where Mercer made his billions, was working the other side of the street. Simons pumped $27 million into the coffers of Democratic candidates and related campaign committees. Included in that amount from Simons was $11 million that went into Priorities USA, a SuperPac supporting Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign for the presidency. What “hedge” funds do is hedge their bets in the markets. It’s common sense to think they would also hedge their political bets. Mercer and Simons have the following in common: both are computer scientists with doctorates who previously worked on military projects; both made billions of … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 28, 2018 After experiencing carnage at the end of last week, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 344.8 points yesterday or 1.43 percent of its value. But the tech-heavy Nasdaq closed down with a percentage loss of more than twice that amount at minus 2.93 percent. Individual tech stocks far outpaced the losses in the broader market with Facebook closing down 4.90 percent; Alphabet (parent of Google) closing down 4.57 percent; Microsoft ending the session with a loss of 4.60 percent; Amazon down 3.78 percent; and Apple losing a more modest 2.56 percent. Wall Street’s love affair with tech is rapidly turning into a “stormy” relationship. Back on August 27, 2015, we quoted Tan Teng Boo, the founder and CEO of Capital Dynamics, saying that just five U.S. stocks — Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and Amazon  — are worth more than the Frankfurt, … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 27, 2018 Christopher Wylie, the Cambridge Analytica whistleblower who has thus far exposed how Steve Bannon and his money-backer, billionaire hedge fund manager Robert Mercer, created Cambridge Analytica, which harvested private data from 50 million Facebook users to help Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, testified for almost four hours this morning before British lawmakers in the Commons Culture Committee. His testimony was explosive at times. Wylie is testifying before the British lawmakers because the same people and companies involved in the social media data mining and micro-targeting for Trump’s presidential campaign were also involved in the June 23, 2016 Brexit vote in the U.K. where citizens voted in a referendum to take the U.K. out of the European Union. Wylie testified that a Canadian company, AggregateIQ (AIQ), developed the software for Cambridge Analytica, describing it as a “proxy” firm and “money laundering operation.” He … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 26, 2018 At last we know why the New York State Attorney General’s office has decided to sideline the Securities and Exchange Commission and U.S. Department of Justice and become the self-appointed watchdog over Wall Street’s Dark Pools: it’s helping its hometown industry by doling out tiny fines and never digging too deep. This past Friday’s fine against Merrill Lynch’s Dark Pool marks the fourth time since 2014 that the office of New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has leveled a meaningless fine of less than $50 million against the Dark Pools of Wall Street’s mega banks that are making billions of dollars in profits each year through what Senator Bernie Sanders calls a “business model of fraud.” (Schneiderman’s office brought earlier charges against Barclays, Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank.) On Friday, Schneiderman’s office issued a press release on its $42 million … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 22, 2018 As front page news focuses more and more on the Russia-Trump investigation, there is rarely an in-depth journalistic investigation into the dangerous risks building up on Wall Street that makes front page news. And yet, as we know from the epic financial crisis of 2008, an unreformed Wall Street presents the gravest threat to America’s long-term vitality and economic might. Take, for example, what happened this past Monday. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) awarded a record $83 million to three whistleblowers from one of America’s largest retail brokerage firms, Merrill Lynch, part of the sprawling Bank of America. That bank holds $1.4 trillion in deposits, much of which is FDIC insured and backstopped by the U.S. taxpayer — the same taxpayer that bailed out Bank of America in 2008. The SEC maintains the confidentiality of whistleblowers who come to … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 21, 2018 Last evening, the Washington Post reported that Steve Bannon was the individual overseeing the earliest collection of Facebook data for Cambridge Analytica in 2014. The company is under investigation in both the U.S. and U.K. for data mining private information on more than 50 million Facebook users to target voters for the 2016 Trump presidential campaign. Bannon, with funding from billionaire hedge fund manager, Robert Mercer, was involved in the launch of Cambridge Analytica in 2013. Both Bannon and Mercer served on the Cambridge Analytica Board after its founding. Bannon is the former executive chairman of Breitbart News which also received funding from Mercer. Bannon also served as CEO of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and as senior counselor to the 45th president for the first seven months of his term until a falling out last year. Robert Mercer was a … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 20, 2018 For over a year, Carole Cadwalladr has been reporting in the U.K.’s Guardian newspaper about the bizarre overlap between the people and companies involved in Donald Trump’s rise to the Presidency in the U.S. and the June 23, 2016 Brexit vote in the U.K. where citizens voted in a referendum to take the U.K. out of the European Union. Now, one of those companies, Cambridge Analytica, is the subject of intense focus on both sides of the pond. Last evening in the U.S., cable news aired video of Alexander Nix, the CEO of Cambridge Analytica, speaking with undercover reporters about a political dirty tricks campaign the company could run. Nix cited an example of setting up hidden cameras to catch a politician saying he would accept a bribe or the company could send in girls to seduce the politician. Nix said: … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 19, 2018 According to news reports last Friday and over the weekend, Facebook has landed squarely in the middle of the next explosive leg of the Trump-Russia scandal. According to the Guardian’s Observer newspaper in the U.K., a digital data mining company known as Cambridge Analytica collected private information from approximately 50 million Facebook users in order to support Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016. Trump’s campaign hired Cambridge Analytica in the spring of 2016 and “paid it more than $6.2 million,” according to a Reuters report. A Cambridge Analytica whistleblower, Christopher Wylie, told the Observer that “We exploited Facebook to harvest millions of people’s profiles. And built models to exploit what we knew about them and target their inner demons. That was the basis that the entire company was built on.” According to the reports, the “inner demons” were unleashed through personalized … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 14, 2018 It now appears that a major contributing factor to the abrupt shutdown of the Russia-Trump probe by the House Intelligence Committee was a fear that the Committee was getting too close to Trump’s dealings with Deutsche Bank and Deutsche Bank’s dealings with Russia. The draft report released by the Democrats after belatedly learning that their Republican colleagues had abruptly ended the probe, included this paragraph: “Donald Trump’s finances historically have been opaque, but there have long been credible allegations as to the use of Trump properties to launder money by Russian oligarchs, criminals, and regime cronies. There also remain critical unanswered questions about the source of President Trump’s personal and corporate financing. For example, Deutsche Bank, which was fined $630 million in 2017 over its involvement in a $10 billion Russian money-laundering scheme, consistently has been the source of financing for … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 13, 2018 If Wall Street can glam up a story around a stock or a man or both, it can sell the hell out of the shares to the dumb money. If enough dumb money invests, the Dark Pools spring into action and drive the price even higher. That brings in hedge funds.  Pretty soon you’re talking about real money. This is how we got the 1929 stock market crash, the Great Depression, the dot.com bust in 2000, the Enron, Worldcom and Tyco flameouts, and whatever we end up calling the bust that lies ahead of the current brainless bubble market. Take yesterday’s market, for example. Boeing lost 2.91 percent of its value, driving the Dow lower, while Tesla gained 5.61 percent driving the Nasdaq higher. Boeing turned 100 years old on July 15, 2016. It has a half trillion dollars in back … Continue reading →