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Recent Posts
- A Wall Street Regulator Is Understating Margin Debt by More than $4 Trillion – Because It’s Not Counting Giant Banks Making Margin Loans to Hedge Funds
- After JPMorgan Threatens to Sue, the Fed Cuts Its Capital Requirement on the 5-Count Felon from a Planned 25 Percent Hike to Less than 8 Percent
- Three Megabanks Had Loans Outstanding of $1.832 Trillion to Giant Hedge Funds on March 31
- Jamie Dimon’s Washington Post OpEd Gets Pummeled at Yahoo Finance
- In the Span of 72 Hours, Four People Tied to a Hewlett-Packard Criminal Case Died in Two Separate Events
- Crypto Took Down Another Federally-Insured Bank and Just Handed Its CEO a 24-Year Prison Sentence
- All the Devils from 2008 Are Back at the Megabanks: Leverage, Off-Balance-Sheet Debt, Over $192 Trillion in Derivatives, Shaky Capital Levels
- New Study Says the Fed Is Captured by Congress and White House — Not the Megabanks that Own the Fed Banks and Get Trillions in Bailouts
- Data from the Fed’s Emergency Funding Program Shows Spring 2023 Banking Crisis Was Far Deeper than Americans Were Told
- These FDIC-Insured Banks Have Lost 69 to 40 Percent of their Market Value Year-to-Date
- Exposure at Hedge Funds Has Skyrocketed to Over $28 Trillion; Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Are at Risk
- We Charted the Plunge and Rebound in the Nikkei Versus Nomura and Citigroup; the Correlation Is Frightening
- Former U.S. Labor Secretary Says Billionaires Have No Right to Exist Because their Wealth Comes from Five Illegal or Bad Practices
- Citigroup Is Having a Helluva Summer: A Protest on Thursday Will Turn Up the Heat
- Nikkei Has Biggest Drop in History: Here’s What’s Causing the Global Market Selloff
- JPMorgan Is Tapping Illiquid Assets in its Global Collateral Program; the New York Fed Is Paying for Its Services
- Bank Regulators Issue Warnings on Fintech and Banking as Disasters Pile Up
- Donald Trump Gives a Speech on Not Letting China Win the Crypto Race – Not Realizing China Banned Crypto Mining and Transactions Four Years Ago
- The New York Fed Has Contracted Out Key Functions to JPMorgan Chase; We Filed a FOIA and Got These Strange Invoices
- On the Eve of Netanyahu’s Address to Congress, Senator Bernie Sanders Delivers a Breathtaking Assessment of His War Crimes
- Trump’s Sit-Down with Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago Will Cost U.S. Taxpayers Millions While Profiting Trump’s Business
- Protecting Trump and His Jet-Setting Adult Children During His Presidency Cost Taxpayers Over $1 Billion
- A Congressman and a Doctor Reported a Woman Being Shot at Trump Rally: She’s Vanished from Official Reports
- Jamie Dimon Goes Missing from Earnings Call, After Dumping $183 Million of His JPMorgan Chase Stock Earlier this Year
- U.S. Senate Candidate Backed by Hedge Fund Billionaires Was Sitting in Front Row at Trump Rally as the Sniper Fired into the Bleachers
- Project 2025: The Fossil Fuel and Banking Money Behind the Madness
- The Fund Created to Unwind a Failing Megabank Has a Problem: There’s No Money in It
- Joe Biden Versus the New York Times
- Grand Jury Transcript in Jeffrey Epstein Case Is Released, Raising Questions about Epstein’s Darkest Secrets Being Protected in JPMorgan Cases
- The Supreme Court Crowns a King, Immunizing Future Criminal Acts Under Project 2025 – a Right Wing Manifesto
- The Debate Disaster and the Supreme Court’s “Chevron” Repeal Have a Money Trail Leading to Charles Koch
- Congressman Andy Barr Stacks a Hearing on the Fed’s Stress Tests with Lobbyists for Megabanks
- The Fed Posts Historic Operating Losses As It Pays Out 5.40 Percent Interest to Banks
- Goldman Sachs’ Bank Derivatives Have Grown from $40 Trillion to $54 Trillion in Five Years; So How Did Its Credit Exposure Improve by 200 Percent?
- The Fed and FDIC Wake Up Suddenly to the Threat of Derivatives, Flunking the Four Largest Derivative Banks on their Wind-Down Plans
- Is the Stock Market Setting Investors Up for a Tech Bust Similar to the Dot.com Bust?
- Chase Bank Customers Are Reporting a Wave of Wire Fraud in their Accounts; the Bank Won’t Make Good on the Looted Funds
- The Senate Race in Ohio Is the Sickest in U.S. History in Terms of Billionaire Money from Outside the State
- Sullivan & Cromwell’s Legal Work for Sam Bankman-Fried’s Crypto House of Fraud Is Getting a Closer Look in Two Federal Court Cases
- Crypto Tries to Recreate the Koch Money Machine to Pack Congress with Shills
- French Fears Ignite Selloff in U.S. Megabanks and Foreign Peers
- Crypto Just Got Exponentially More Dangerous: Meet Fairshake
- Nvidia Hit a $3 Trillion Market Cap Last Week; Dark Pools Are Making Over 300,000 Trades in the Stock Weekly
- The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Is Making Enemies in All the Right Places
- A Former Exec at Citibank Raises Alarm Bells in Federal Court Over Failed Risk Controls Inside the Bank
- Charles Koch’s Money Is Being Used in Elections in Ways Only Orwell Could Have Imagined
- Freakonomics and Frankenbanks: JPMorgan Chase Sucked Up 18 Percent of All Profits of 4,568 FDIC-Insured Banks in the First Quarter
- Academic Study Provides Hard Numbers to the Sick, Revolving Door Culture at Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Citigroup
- $244 Billion of Treasury Debt to Hit the Market Today and Tomorrow as Interest Rates Spike on Ballooning Supply
- CFTC Fines J.P. Morgan Securities — a Fed Primary Dealer — $100 Million for Failing to Surveil Potential Spoofing and High Frequency Trading for Eight Years
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Big Law Moves Big Time into Trump Administration – After Financing Hillary’s Campaign
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 25, 2017 President Donald Trump’s demands for loyalty from the individuals in his administration have been a hot topic for weeks in U.S. media. But what the media has yet to explain is how so many law partners from global corporate law firms that were outsized donors to Hillary Clinton’s presidential run last year, giving crumbs by comparison to Trump’s campaign, now hold seats of power throughout the Trump administration. Let’s start with the weirdest example of all: Jones Day. Wall Street On Parade reported earlier this year that on January 20, 2017 – the very day of Trump’s inauguration – Jones Day announced that a whopping 12 of its law partners were moving into the Trump administration. Among the 12, key slots went to Donald F. McGahn II as White House Counsel; Noel Francisco, first named as Principal Deputy Solicitor General and … Continue reading
As Trump Prepared to Meet Pope, Bernie Sanders Calls His Budget “Immoral”
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 24, 2017 It became clear yesterday why President Donald Trump needed thousands of miles between himself and Washington D.C. when his administration dropped its budget proposal on the American people. It immediately drew sharply negative reactions from both sides of the aisle and outright ridicule from mainstream media. Max Ehrenfreund, writing for the Washington Post, said the promise that the Trump budget would balance federal finances in a decade was based on “vague savings and unspecified sources of new revenue” consisting of over $2 trillion in “mystery money.” Jonathan Chait at New York Magazine said Trump’s budget assumptions contain a “$2 trillion basic arithmetic error” that is just downright “embarrassing.” Anger among Democratic leaders over the budget’s attack on Americans that are least able to sustain more financial pain boiled over on Capitol Hill yesterday. Senator Bernie Sanders, the Ranking Member of the Senate … Continue reading
Trump’s Justice Department Goes Easy on Citigroup Unit for Criminal Money Laundering
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 23, 2017 Citigroup, the Wall Street mega bank that taxpayers were forced to prop up in the largest bailout of a financial institution in U.S. history from 2008 to 2010, is also a recidivist lawbreaker that the U.S. Justice Department fails to tame regardless of who occupies the Oval Office. Under the Obama administration, Citigroup was repeatedly fined by its Federal regulators for serious abuses of the law and its customers but only once was a felony count leveled against the bank. On May 20, 2015, Citicorp, a unit of Citigroup, pleaded guilty to a felony charge in connection with the rigging of foreign currency trading. (Three other banks, JPMorgan Chase, Barclays PLC and the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) also pleaded guilty to felony charges in the same matter. UBS, at the same time, pleaded guilty to rigging the interest rate benchmark … Continue reading
Special Counsel Investigation of Trump Team Hits Headwinds
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 22, 2017 Robert Mueller, the former FBI Director who has been appointed as Special Counsel to oversee the investigation of ties between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 Presidential election may find out quickly that there is an obstacle course of roadblocks preventing him from doing his job. (Mueller served from September 4, 2001 to September 4, 2013 as FBI Director, under both Presidents George W. Bush and Obama. He is widely respected by both Congressional Democrats and Republicans in Washington.) On January 28, President Trump quietly and with little fanfare signed an Executive Order that bars an Executive Branch employee from participating “in any particular matter involving specific parties that is directly and substantially related to my former employer or former clients, including regulations and contracts.” This concept is further defined in the Executive Order to mean “matters in which … Continue reading
As Fiancée Looks On, Mnuchin Faces Hostile Senators on Banking Committee
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 19, 2017 If the plan was to soften the grilling by Democratic Senators at yesterday’s Senate Banking Committee hearing by bringing along his Stoic-faced fiancée Louise Linton, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin was disappointed. Neither Linton nor Mnuchin should have been surprised. Mnuchin had faced an equally hostile reception from Democrats at his January 19 confirmation hearing before the Senate Finance Committee. During yesterday’s hearing Mnuchin dispelled the lie that the Trump administration has fostered for months — that it was considering restoring the Glass-Steagall Act and breaking up the big banks on Wall Street. After Mnuchin attempted to say this had never been their position, Senator Elizabeth Warren called his testimony “bizarre,” “crazy,” and “like something straight out of George Orwell.” Mnuchin’s reception from Senator Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada was equally frosty. Masto, who previously served as the Attorney General of Nevada … Continue reading
Mnuchin Says Trump Administration Never Intended to Restore Glass-Steagall Act
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 18, 2017 At a time of growing loss of confidence in the credibility of President Donald Trump, his Treasury Secretary, Steven Mnuchin, declared today that the Trump administration never had any intention of restoring the Glass-Steagall Act and separating the taxpayer-backstopped insured commercial banks from the high risk Wall Street investment banks. Under intense questioning from Senator Elizabeth Warren at a Senate Banking hearing today, Mnuchin effectively said that his idea of supporting a 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act meant doing the opposite of what Glass-Steagall did: he would leave the commercial banks and investment banks under the same roof. The Glass-Steagall legislation enacted in 1933 did only two key things: it enacted Federal insurance on bank deposits to restore confidence in the country’s deposit-taking banks at a time of unprecedented defaults tied to Wall Street gambles and it barred those insured commercial banks … Continue reading
Dems Press Conference May Have Contributed to Naming of Special Counsel
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 18, 2017 Yesterday, an earnest group of House Democrats held a widely covered press conference to variously cajole and shame Republicans into signing legislation that would result in the appointment of an Independent Commission to investigate Russia’s involvement in the 2016 Presidential election. At the end of the day, there was no Independent Commission but there was the stunning news that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has signed an order naming the widely respected former FBI Director, Robert Mueller, to become Special Counsel for the inquiry. At the press conference, Congressman Elijah Cummings, the Ranking Member of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, chided the Committee’s Republican Chairman, Jason Chaffetz, for repeatedly threatening to use his “subpoena pen” but never actually getting around to doing so. Cummings said: “In March, just a month after the President allegedly pressured Director Comey to drop the … Continue reading
Four Big Banks Lose $37.60 Billion in Market Cap in Trump Fallout
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 18, 2017 Four of the largest Wall Street banks that were counting on a powerful President Trump to roll back Dodd-Frank financial reform regulations lost a combined $37.60 billion in their market capitalization yesterday. The worst hit in terms of percentage decline was Bank of America, parent of the giant brokerage firm Merrill Lynch, which fell 5.92 percent for a market cap loss of $14.14 billion. Goldman Sachs, which has become closely associated with President Trump as a result of a raft of its former partners and its immediate past President serving in his administration, fell an eyebrow-raising 5.27 percent yesterday for a market cap loss of $4.676 billion. JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup added to the carnage. JPMorgan Chase fell 3.81 percent with a hit to its market cap of $11.87 billion while Citigroup fell 4.02 percent, losing $6.91 billion in market cap. … Continue reading
A Crisis of Confidence in Government Can Harm U.S. Economic Growth
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 17, 2017 When the Commerce Department released its data on April 28 for Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the first quarter, it signaled the slowest growth in three years. The economy had grown at a tepid 0.7 percent annual rate as a result of weak consumer spending. The individual consumer matters greatly to growth in the U.S., accounting for more than two-thirds of economic activity. In the first quarter, consumer spending registered at a 0.3 percent rate, a pace not seen since the depths of the financial crisis in the fourth quarter of 2009. It is perhaps ironic that the 1 percent in America control Washington through lobbyists and a perverse campaign finance system but the 99 percent, the consumers, control the economic fate of the country. If consumers lose confidence in the country’s leadership, they will retrench from spending in order to … Continue reading
Covers of Murdoch Newspapers Silent on Trump Leaking Classified Intel
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 16, 2017 Front covers of the Washington Post and New York Times, along with numerous other international newspapers, are carrying above the fold news today that President Donald Trump leaked classified information to the Russians about a planned Islamic State operation. Curiously, three major newspapers controlled by the Rupert Murdoch family – the Wall Street Journal Europe, New York Post, and The Times U.K. – did not consider the bombshell worthy of their front covers. According to multiple media reports, the leak of the classified intel came last week when Trump held a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak. Reuters is adding further detail this morning, writing: “After Trump’s disclosure of the information, which one of the officials described as spontaneous, officials immediately called the CIA and the National Security Agency, both of which have agreements with … Continue reading