Category Archives: Uncategorized

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: February 9, 2017 Jeb Hensarling is the Republican Chair of the Financial Services Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives. Despite the seriousness of that job, Hensarling displays amazing ignorance of the inner workings of Wall Street at the hearings over which he presides. Unlike Senator Bernie Sanders who stumped around the country for more than a year during his primary campaign, reinforcing to Americans what they already suspected, that “the business model of Wall Street is fraud,” Hensarling wants to kill the few restraints on this criminal cartel that currently exist. He has been well financed by Wall Street to get the job done. Among Hensarling’s largest donors for his 2016 re-election campaign were every major Wall Street bank, including two admitted criminal felons (JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup’s Citicorp) as well as those charged with market rigging and serial frauds against the investing … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: February 8, 2017 The price of gold (see above chart) has been rising and its volume spiking since President Donald Trump signed his infamous Executive Order on immigration on January 27. That action ushered in a new U.S. era of uncertainty in which thousands of agreements, such as Lawful Permanent Resident status known as a green card, can be casually broken by one man in the Oval Office signing an Executive Order and setting off pandemonium in lives and airports around the globe. It raises the fear of what other established laws or rights the President might attempt to sign away. Gold typically rises when there is fear in stock markets. But the stock market has not been following its typical relationship to gold by selling off. Since Trump’s presidential win in early November, the Standard and Poor’s 500 has been on a steady … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: February 7, 2017 While President Donald Trump is proving himself to be a divider not a uniter, the Attorneys General of Washington State and Minnesota are getting the unity job done. Their case against the President’s ban on immigrants entering the U.S. from seven majority Muslim nations – even those holding valid visas and, sporadically, legal permanent residents with valid green cards – has been a clarion call to fellow citizens to stop Trump now before his Executive Orders come for their own rights. On Friday, Judge James Robart blocked Trump’s order nationwide. The case is now under appeal at the Ninth Circuit Court and the docket already has 92 entries. Constitutional scholars, law professors, more than a dozen nonprofits, almost 100 tech companies, and 16 Attorneys General from other states are asking the court to keep Judge Robart’s order in place. The public … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: February 6, 2017 In 2008, when corrupt and insolvent financial firms on Wall Street were being bailed out by the U.S. taxpayer after a vote by Congress, the firms were simultaneously funneling millions of those bailout dollars as bonuses to the very executives who had played a role in the firm’s demise. The American people were told by our government that the bonuses had to be paid because they were part of a legally binding contract between the company and the employee and contract law is sacrosanct in the U.S. Now flash forward to President Donald Trump’s Executive Order of January 27, 2017. The President issued a wide-ranging travel ban that set off chaos at the nation’s airports; disrupted thousands of lives; and prevented lawful residents of the United States from returning to their families and homes after travel abroad. The President directed a … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: February 3, 2017 On the campaign stump in Charlotte, North Carolina last October 26, Donald Trump promised to bring back a 21st Century version of the Glass-Steagall Act as a means of reforming Wall Street’s casino culture. At around noon today, Trump will continue the Orwellian reverse-speak of his campaign promises and do the opposite of what he promised. According to leaks to the financial media, Trump will today sign executive actions ordering swift reviews aimed at rolling back the feeble safeguards on Wall Street that currently exist while replacing them with — nothing. There has been no further word from Trump on bringing back the core principles of Glass-Steagall which would force the formal separation of banks holding taxpayer-backstopped insured deposits from the high-risk, derivatives-peddling, hedge-fund-financing investment banks. Trump is expected to sign one executive action today ordering financial regulators to review rolling back … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: February 2, 2017 Johnny Depp, the celebrated film star internationally known for his Pirates of the Caribbean series of movies for Disney, is currently engaged in a nasty, highly publicized court battle with his long time business management company, TMG, run by the well known attorney brothers Joel and Robert Mandel. Depp’s lawsuit is over the Mandels’ 17-year financial management of his income and assets. Depp filed his lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court on January 13 alleging breach of fiduciary duty, fraudulent concealment, constructive fraud, unjust enrichment, wrongful foreclosure and myriad other charges. TMG filed a cross complaint on January 31, alleging they are owed money by Depp and portraying him as a “selfish, reckless and irresponsible” wild spender who is spreading “vile lies and frivolous allegations” against them, despite their constant warnings to him that he was living wildly beyond his means. The story went … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: February 1, 2017 The U.S. Treasury Secretary is one of the four most powerful posts in the U.S. government, overseeing a sprawling network of functions that impact the average American every single day. Putting a man or woman in that post who has exhibited impeccable integrity throughout their career should be the sworn duty of every member of the U.S. Senate, which oversees the confirmation hearing process. Yesterday, every Democratic Senator on the Senate Finance Committee upheld their duty and boycotted the vote on Steven Mnuchin, President Donald Trump’s nominee for Treasury Secretary. The boycott denied the Senate Finance Committee the ability to have a quorum and a final vote. Trump had pushed Mnuchin forward not because of his sterling credentials but because Mnuchin had helped to raise millions of dollars for Trump as his Campaign Finance Chairman. As the tawdry details of Mnuchin’s … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: January 31, 2017 In the midst of being skewered across media outlets yesterday for his chaotic rollout of an Executive Order that appeared to target Muslims, including those legally living in the U.S. as businessmen, doctors, university faculty and students — who were initially denied reentry after travel abroad — President Donald Trump tried desperately to change the subject. Following a plunge of over 200 points in the Dow Jones Industrial Average yesterday, Trump pivoted to something he thought would please his financial backers on Wall Street. He called the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation passed in 2010 by the Obama administration a “disaster” and promised to “do a big number” on it soon. The Dow closed down 122 points — now wary of Trump’s fire-ready-aim leadership on complex matters. The legitimate fear across Wall Street right now is that Trump’s zero-vetting approach to rule-by-Executive-Order … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: January 30, 2017 At 8:05 a.m. this morning in New York, futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average were showing a potential loss of 55 points when the market opens at 9:30 a.m. At least some of the market jitters can be traced to the weekend of chaos at U.S. airports where legal residents of the U.S. found themselves in a twilight zone, unable to get back into the country as a result of President Donald Trump’s hastily penned Executive Order. As media word spread of university faculty, Ph.D. candidates, medical students and business executives being denied reentry into the U.S. after visits abroad, spontaneous protests erupted at major international airports across the U.S. including San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, New York, Seattle, Los Angeles, and Dulles outside of Washington, D.C. The chaos resulted from an Executive Order signed by Trump on Friday that bans … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: January 27, 2017 During his first week in office, Donald Trump issued an executive order stating that it “is the policy of the executive branch” to “secure the southern border of the United States through the immediate construction of a physical wall on the southern border” with Mexico. Researchers have put the cost of the wall at $15 to $25 billion. That price tag would come to a nation with a staggering national debt of $19.9 trillion and a D+ rating on its critical infrastructure that plays an essential role in the country’s economic growth and ability to pay its debt. Every four years the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) releases a comprehensive assessment of the U.S. infrastructure. The last report was released in 2013 giving a D+ rating to U.S. infrastructure. (The next report is due in March of this year.) The … Continue reading →