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Recent Posts
- Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” Is a Grotesque Giveaway to Fossil Fuel Billionaires While Adding $3.3 Trillion to Nation’s Debt
- Senator Chris Murphy Charges that Trump “Has Opened a Channel for Bribery”
- Congressman Casten: Trump’s Assault on the Rule of Law Is Causing Capital Flight Out of U.S. by Foreign Investors
- Trump’s Approval Rating Drops to 80-Year Low; IMF Says U.S. Tariffs Now Exceed the Highs During the Great Depression
- Nasdaq Has Lost More than 3,000 Points Since Trump’s First Full Day in Office in 2025; the Pain Has Barely Begun
- The Bond Crisis Last Week Was a Global No-Confidence Vote in U. S. President Donald Trump
- Trump’s Tariff Plan Guts $5 Trillion in Stock Value in Two Days; Senator Warren Calls for Emergency Action Before Markets Open on Monday
- Trump’s Attacks on Big Law, Universities, and the Media Have a Common Goal: Silence Dissent Against Authoritarian Rule
- Trump Administration Gives All Clear to Laundering Money through Shell Companies and Bribing Foreign Officials
- Four Megabanks on Wall Street Hold $3.2 Trillion in Uninsured Deposits – Which May Explain Senator Schumer’s Pivot to the GOP to Stop a Government Shutdown
- Here’s What Came Crashing Down Yesterday for Trump’s “Genius” Guy, Elon Musk: Tesla Stock, Access to Twitter (X), His Years of Secret Calls with Putin
- After Banning the Associated Press, Trump Is Now Targeting Specific Journalists That He Wants to See Fired
- Closely Watched Atlanta Fed Model Predicts Negative U.S. Growth in First Quarter
- Trump’s Gangster Diplomacy Makes Front Page Headlines Around the Globe
- Who Benefits Alongside Elon Musk If He Succeeds in Killing the CFPB: the Megabanks on Wall Street that Underwrite His Tesla Stock Offerings
- In Trump 1.0, the State Department Used Taxpayer Money to Publish a Book Elevating Elon Musk to a Superhero; It Was Funded by USAID, the Agency Musk Wants to Quickly Shut Down
- News Host Joy Reid Raises Threat of Trump Selling U.S. to Putin; Ten Days Later Her Show Is Cancelled
- Elon Musk’s DOGE Appears to Be Violating a Court Order; It Has Taken Down Hundreds of YouTube Videos that Educate Americans on How to Avoid Being Swindled
- Barron’s Releases Audio of Jamie Dimon Cursing Out His Workers at a Town Hall, as Dimon Plans to Dump Another One Million JPM Shares
- There’s One Federal Investigative Agency that Neither Trump nor Elon Musk Can Touch: It Just Opened an Investigation into DOGE
- Elon Musk’s Companies Were Under Investigation by Five Inspectors General When the Trump Administration Fired Them and Made Musk the Investigator
- Donald Trump Gives the Greenlight to Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase to Return to Bribing Foreign Officials
- After Tech Geeks Built a Back Door to Loot Billions from FTX, Republicans Refuse to Investigate What Elon Musk’s Tech-Squad Did Inside the U.S. Treasury’s Payment System
- Former Prosecutor, Now U.S. Senator, Informs Tesla That CEO Musk May Be Violating Federal Law and to “Preserve All Records”
- Trump’s Hedge Fund Guy Is Now Overseeing the U.S. Treasury, IRS, OCC, U.S. Mint, FinCEN, F-SOC, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
- As Elon Musk Begins Shutting Down Payments to Federal Contractors, a Strange Money Trail Emerges to His Operatives Inside the U.S. Treasury’s Payment System
- JPMorgan Chase Charged by Yet Another Internal Whistleblower with Cooking the Books
- We Asked Google’s AI Search Model, Gemini, Questions About the Fed and Wall Street Megabanks: It Got the Answers Dead Wrong
- With Trump and Melania’s Crypto Coins Likely to Raise Legal Challenges, Why Didn’t Trump Fire the SEC’s Inspector General in His Purge of IGs?
- Fossil Fuel Industry Could End Up Paying Tens of Billions for LA Wildfires and Deceiving the Public on Climate Change for Decades
- It’s Being Called the Biggest Grift by a President in U.S. History: Trump and First Lady Launch their Own Crypto Coins
- Trump Plans to Install a Fracking CEO to Head the Energy Department and Declare a National Emergency on Energy to Gain Vast Powers
- Fossil Fuel Money Played a Role in the Los Angeles Fires and the Push to Install Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense
- When It Comes to Wealth Retention in Retirement, Concrete May Be the New Gold
- Wall Street Watchdog Warns “Clock Is Ticking on a Coming Catastrophic Financial Crash”
- Wall Street Is Sending the Same Message to Americans on Fossil Fuel Financing that It Sent on Cigarettes: Drop Dead
- In a Six-Week Span, this Dark Pool with a Curious Past Traded 3.7 Billion Shares
- Wall Street’s Lobby Firm Hired Eugene Scalia of Gibson Dunn to Sue the Fed for Jamie Dimon
- Postmaster General Louis DeJoy Made $561,051 in Compensation in 2024, as Mail Costs Spiked and Delivery Deteriorated
- Fed Chair Jay Powell Sends a Bold Message to Trump and Tanks the Dow by 1123 Points
- The Head of Fixed Income at T. Rowe Price Makes the Scary Case for the 10-Year Treasury to Spike to 6 Percent
- $663 Billion in Cash Assets Have Gone Poof at the Largest U.S. Banks
- Donald Trump to Ring Bell at New York Stock Exchange Today as Hit List Posters Appear in Manhattan Targeting Wall Street CEOs
- Trump Has a Slush Fund to Prop Up the Dollar – Will He Use It to Prop Up Bitcoin Instead?
- A CEO Assassination; a Billionaire Heiress/NYPD Commissioner; a Secret Wall Street Spy Center – Here’s How They’re Connected
- Despite More than 1600 Tech Scientists Signing a Letter Calling Crypto a Sham, Trump Names a Crypto Cheerleader for SEC Chair
- The Fed Rings a Warning Bell: Hedge Funds and Life Insurers Are Reporting Historic Leverage
- Trump’s Nominee for FBI Director, Kash Patel, Has Businesses Financially Intertwined with Trump
- Donald Trump Is at Risk of Getting Named in a Fossil Fuels Conspiracy Lawsuit
- Trump Is Having Difficulty Getting a Lawyer to Accept the Nomination for SEC Chair: Here’s Why
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Billionaire Larry Fink of BlackRock, Which Grabbed Fed Bailouts in 2020-2021, Lectures Struggling Seniors on Making More Sacrifices

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 27, 2024 ~ Yesterday, billionaire Larry Fink, Chairman and CEO of the giant investment manager BlackRock, released his annual letter to shareholders. In it, Fink revives the same ole trope that billionaires Kenneth Langone and Stanley Druckenmiller were taking on a road show in 2013. Back then the billionaire propaganda was called: “Generational Theft: How Entitlement Spending is Stealing Opportunity from America’s Youth.” Every time there is talk of raising taxes on the super-rich, some of whom pay less in taxes than plumbers and teachers through a tricked-up tax dodge known as “carried interest,” the billionaires launch a concerted effort to scapegoat struggling seniors living on an average monthly Social Security retirement benefit of $1772.51. The inability of younger Americans to save enough for retirement couldn’t possibly have anything to do with Wall Street gobbling up two-thirds of lifetime retirement savings in fees, as Frontline … Continue reading
Almost 10,000 U.S. Banks Have Disappeared Since 1985, Leaving 4 Mega Banks Controlling 39 Percent of Bank Assets

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 26, 2024 ~ According to Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) data, there were 14,417 federally-insured banking institutions in the U.S. in 1985. As of December 31, 2023, the FDIC reports there are only 4,587 remaining. The vast majority of the 9,830 banks that have disappeared since 1985 did not fail – they were merged with other banks. Today, just four banks control $9.3 trillion in consolidated bank assets or 39 percent of all bank assets. Those four banks are JPMorgan Chase with $3.395 trillion in consolidated assets; Bank of America with $2.540 trillion; Wells Fargo with $1.7 trillion; and Citigroup’s Citibank with $1.685 trillion. (All asset figures are as of December 31, 2023 and come from the Federal Reserve’s statistical release of the largest banks.) The political clout of these mega banks is such that one of them, JPMorgan Chase, has been allowed to commit … Continue reading
Wall Street’s Go-To Law Firm, Sullivan & Cromwell, Got in Bed with Crypto; Now Its Reputation Is Being Hammered

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 25, 2024 ~ Since January, the reputation of Wall Street’s go-to law firm, Sullivan & Cromwell, has been repeatedly hammered. It all stems from the law firm’s decision some years ago to involve itself in legal representations of crypto firms and/or their principals – an industry that 1,600 of the brightest scientific minds in technology have called a sham. On January 19, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals sharply rebuked the law firm’s position that it didn’t need an independent watchdog appointed by the U.S. Department of Justice to oversee the way it was handling the collapsed crypto house of frauds (known as FTX) in bankruptcy proceedings – despite it having significant conflicts of interests in the matter, such as previously providing legal representation to the mastermind of the fraud, Sam Bankman-Fried. On February 16, a federal lawsuit was filed against the law firm alleging civil conspiracy, … Continue reading
More Failed Banks and Office Building Demolitions Likely Before Real Estate Problems End, Warn Two Federal Agencies

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 21, 2024 ~ Federal banking oversight agencies are in agreement: U.S. banks are facing a potential tsunami of problems with commercial real estate loans in the office space sector. Last June 1, the Office of Financial Research (OFR), (the agency created under the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation of 2010 to warn about financial stability risks), explained why the vacancy rate in office buildings is in dramatic contrast to the actual occupancy rate, and thus bodes poorly for the future demand for renewing office leases. OFR writes as follows: “The health of the CRE [Commercial Real Estate] office sector is not only measured by the amount of space leased and rent paid today, but also by how much space will be required in the future. In addition to space available for sublease, we can estimate the amount of space currently occupied by employees by measuring card … Continue reading
During Spring Bank Panic of 2023, Liquidity Advances from FHLBs Topped Those of Q4 2008, when Wall Street Was in Collapse

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 19, 2024 ~ According to data from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and using a graph from the St. Louis Fed above, the liquidity crisis among banks in the spring of last year was far more dramatic than has been acknowledged by banking regulators. According to the data, during the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression (at the end of the fourth quarter of 2008 when Wall Street was in a state of collapse), banks had borrowed a total of $790 billion in advances from Federal Home Loan Banks (FHLBs). But during the bank panic in the spring of last year, those FHLB advances topped the Q4 2008 number, registering $804 billion as of March 31, 2023. According to data from the Congressional Budget Office, at the end of the quarter before the banking panic of 2023 (the quarter ending December 31, 2022) … Continue reading
JPMorgan’s Federally-Insured Bank Is Fined $348 Million for Losing Track of “Billions” of Trades

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 18, 2024 ~ On Thursday of last week, two of JPMorgan Chase Bank’s federal regulators fined the riskiest bank in the United States $348 million dollars for engaging in “unsafe and unsound banking practices” for failing to supervise “billions” of trades on at least 30 global trading venues. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) fined JPMorgan Chase Bank $250 million while the Federal Reserve fined the bank $98.2 million. The OCC said the misconduct occurred since at least 2019. The Fed said the bank had engaged in the misconduct over the span of nine years, from 2014 to 2023. The key outrage embedded in these charges – that mainstream media failed to point out in its coverage last week – is that this “trading” activity did not occur at the registered brokerage firm of JPMorgan, which has properly licensed traders and trading … Continue reading
Hedge Fund Titan John Paulson Made $1 Billion in an Illegal Goldman Sachs Deal; Trump Is Now Floating Him for Treasury Secretary

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 14, 2024 ~ According to headlines at Bloomberg News and Reuters this morning, Donald Trump is floating the notorious hedge fund billionaire, John Paulson, to be his next Treasury Secretary. Paulson has, apparently, earned consideration for the post the same way Steve Mnuchin, Trump’s former Treasury Secretary, got the job: by raising a lot of money for the Trump political campaign. Paulson has hosted multiple fundraising events for Trump in the current election cycle and in Trump’s failed run for reelection in 2020. Paulson is the founder and President of the hedge fund Paulson & Co. On April 16, 2010, the Securities and Exchange Commission had this to say about Paulson’s business morals when it announced formal charges against Goldman Sachs pertaining to the infamous 2007 ABACUS deal: “The SEC alleges that one of the world’s largest hedge funds, Paulson & Co., paid Goldman Sachs to … Continue reading
Wall Street Mega Banks Have Drawn a Law-Free Zone Around Themselves – The Media Is Complicit

By Pam Martens: March 13, 2024 ~ From revoking the American people’s right to a jury trial in matters involving Wall Street; to brazenly thumbing their nose at anti-trust law; to trading the stock of their own bank in the darkness of their own dark pools; to forming their own stock exchange; to committing serial felonies without being criminally prosecuted or having their bank charters revoked – Wall Street mega banks have drawn a law-free zone around themselves and are more dangerous today than they have ever been in U.S. history. The most dangerous eras for the American people versus Wall Street mega banks have been the late 1920s and 1930s; 2007 to 2010; and today. We know that today is the most dangerous era because we read 12,000 pages produced by the Senate Banking Committee of the early 1930s on the Wall Street corruption in the late 20s and 30s; we … Continue reading
A Financial Writer at New York Times Admits He’s Been Misrepresenting Bank Capital for 14 Years

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 12, 2024 ~ Yesterday, in an emailed newsletter to readers of the New York Times, financial writer Andrew Ross Sorkin effectively admitted that he has had no clue what bank capital actually is for the past 14 years so he just grabbed the phrase “rainy day fund” to describe it – notwithstanding that the phrase has no relationship to the factual definition of bank capital and serves only the interests of the banking lobby. Sorkin’s missive included this: “Andrew here. A year on since the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank renewed fears about the strength of the banking system, the debate about what should happen next continues. “But there is a more important, if perhaps prosaic, point that I want to address this morning: We’re thinking about ‘capital requirements’ — regulatory standards meant to protect banks against losses and runs on deposits, and whose levels have been a subject … Continue reading
FDIC Data Contradicts Fed Chair Powell: Shows Real Estate Problems Have Skyrocketed at Largest U.S. Banks, Not the Smaller Regionals

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 11, 2024 ~ On Sunday, February 4, the CBS program 60 Minutes aired a taped interview with Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. The actual interview had occurred three days earlier and was conducted by 60 Minutes interviewer Scott Pelley. Two noteworthy things happened in connection with that interview: First, CBS did not indicate above the transcript of the interview that Powell’s comments had been materially shortened in the program that aired on TV; secondly, Powell calls the real estate problem at the largest banks “manageable” while shifting the more serious real estate loan problem to “smaller and regional banks.” Below is what Powell had to say about problem real estate loans at U.S. banks in the 60 Minutes’ interview. The bracketed bold text is what is in the transcript but did not air in the broadcasted program on television. (Scroll to 8 minutes and 20 … Continue reading