Category Archives: Uncategorized

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: July 21, 2016 On July 14, when America’s biggest bank by assets reported its second quarter earnings, this headline ran at the New York Times: “JPMorgan Chase Has Strong Quarter as Earnings Top Estimates.” CNBC, a unit of NBCUniversal, used the same criteria in its headlines to report the earnings of Citigroup, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley — putting a positive spin in the headline because the earnings had topped what analysts were expecting – rather than the far more meaningful, and traditional, measure of whether earnings had beaten the same quarter a year earlier. CNBC’s headlines read: Citigroup earnings handily top Wall Street expectations: CNBC-July 15, 2016 Bank of America earnings top expectations: CNBC-July 18, 2016 Morgan Stanley solidly beats earnings expectations: CNBC-July 20, 2016 This is hubris of the highest order. Publicly traded companies simply guide research analysts toward lowered expectations on their upcoming quarterly earnings so that the … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: July 20, 2016 Richard Cordray and the Federal agency he heads, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), have been in the cross hairs of right wing Republicans and the corporations they front for since the agency opened its doors in 2011 to confront the abuses exposed in the financial crisis of 2008. The agency’s work to level the playing field for all Americans and stop the vicious wealth transfer system that the deregulation era of the 90s has unleashed on the financially unsophisticated has fueled unprecedented backlash. During the Republican Presidential debate on November 10 of last year, a corporate-funded front group, the American Action Network, with ties to the Koch brothers, repeatedly ran an advertisement portraying the CFPB as a communist group. (See our detailed report here.) The CFPB presents multiple threats to the financial looters. The CFPB has made it easy for consumers to file … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: July 19, 2016 Breaking up the dangerous banks on Wall Street that are gambling with their taxpayer-backstopped insured deposits by restoring the Glass-Steagall Act is now a part of the newly adopted platforms of both the Democrat and Republican parties. Under a restored Glass-Steagall Act, banks holding insured deposits would not be allowed to affiliate with Wall Street investment banks and brokerage firms that regularly underwrite risky securities and engage in trillions of dollars of derivative gambles. It would effectively put an end to the idea that these complex banks are too-big-to-fail because the life savings of small savers holding insured deposits in the bank would be at risk. Bernie Sanders’ supporters pushed the Democratic Party to include the provision in its platform. Today’s media spin is that Trump & Company added it in hopes of picking up some Sanders’ supporters who have vowed … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: July 18, 2016 In what feels like scenes from an edgy political satire film, New York media are now alternately casting either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton as the most dishonest presidential candidate in the annals of political history. Tragically for the country, there are legitimate grounds for making either case. On the very eve of the Republican National Convention, where the party of Lincoln is expected to choose real estate billionaire Donald Trump as their candidate for the highest office in the United States, the New York Times ran a front page article yesterday in its highest circulation Sunday edition, characterizing Trump’s career as an “operatic record of dissembling and deception.” Staring up at Republican convention goers in the lobbies of their Cleveland hotels, under the byline of New York Times reporter David Barstow, was the following: “As Mr. Trump prepares to claim … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: July 15, 2016 The problem with stereotyping Republicans is that when they are screaming from the rooftops about a legitimate fraud, Democrats don’t believe them — even when the evidence is overpowering that they are right. For years now, Republicans have been screaming that the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act that was signed into law in 2010 by President Obama is a fraud on the public. Few have examined Dodd-Frank’s failed promises as carefully as Wall Street On Parade. The legislation promised to rein in derivatives – it didn’t. It promised to end the future need for taxpayer bailouts of too-big-to-fail banks. It didn’t. It promised to institute the Volcker Rule to prevent banks from gambling with insured deposits. It didn’t. It promised to reform the practices of the ratings agencies that played a pivotal role in the 2008 collapse. It … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: July 14, 2016 According to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), as of March 31, 2016, there were 6,122 FDIC insured financial institutions in the United States. Of those 6,122 commercial banks and savings associations, 4,701 did not hold any derivatives. To put that another way, 77 percent of all U.S. banks found zero reason to engage in high-risk derivative trading. Citigroup, however, the bank that spectacularly blew itself up with toxic derivatives and subprime debt in 2008, became a 99-cent stock during the crisis, and received the largest taxpayer bailout in U.S. financial history despite being insolvent at the time, today holds more derivatives than 4,701 other banks combined which are backstopped by the taxpayer. The total notional amount of derivatives sitting at Citigroup’s bank holding company is $55.6 trillion according to the March 31, 2016 report from the Office of the Comptroller … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: July 13, 2016  The two greatest periods of wealth inequality in the United States (the 1920s and today) have one critical element in common – there was no Glass-Steagall Act. The absence of the Glass-Steagall Act allows Wall Street banks to use the savings of small depositors across the United States to fuel risky speculation on Wall Street and create the super rich. After the Wall Street crash of 1929 and the onset of the Great Depression, the Glass-Steagall Act became law and put an end to this institutionalized wealth transfer system from the legislation’s enactment in 1933 until its repeal in 1999 under the Presidency of Bill Clinton. Today’s banking system is a perfect reflection of U.S. society. Just six banks (one-tenth of one percent of the 6,000 insured-depository banks in the U.S.) control the bulk of total assets while, as Senator Bernie … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: July 12, 2016  Since FBI Director James Comey’s press conference on July 5 and his House Oversight Committee testimony two days later, Hillary Clinton has come under withering attack for gross misrepresentations to the American people about her handling of classified material while she served as Secretary of State. Now, new questions are arising over what role her attorney, David Kendall of law firm Williams & Connolly, played in misleading Congressional investigators. There are also questions as to whether Comey himself has come clean about the full extent of Clinton’s negligence. The FBI has declined to provide Wall Street On Parade with the official FBI report on the matter, even though the investigation is now closed. Comey has indicated that Clinton was not put under oath nor did she have her testimony recorded when she was interviewed by FBI agents who were conducting a … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: July 11, 2016 The U.S. Justice Department’s Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, has already released her written statement that she will deliver in person to the House Judiciary Committee at 10:00 a.m. tomorrow. It says nary a peep about the private, half-hour meeting with Bill Clinton that she held on her plane on the tarmac in Phoenix just eight days before her FBI Director, James Comey, would hold a surprise press conference and opine that no responsible prosecutor would bring criminal charges against Hillary Clinton, while Comey simultaneously fleshed out a boatload of falsehoods that Hillary Clinton had told to the American people about her handling of Top Secret and other classified material. In announcing tomorrow’s hearing, House Judiciary Committee Chair Bob Goodlatte said, in part: “…the recent announcement by FBI Director Comey that he does not recommend criminal charges be brought against Hillary Clinton … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: July 11, 2016 If it’s any comfort, and it likely won’t be, markets are now even more bizarre than the situation of the two presumptive candidates for the President of the United States: one is escaping indictment for treating above Top Secret material with the seriousness of a drunken frat boy at an all-night party while the other is hurling adolescent insults on his Twitter page. This in a country where the Commander in Chief will oversee more than 7,000 nuclear warheads. On Friday, the Standard and Poor’s 500 Index traded intraday at a new high of 2131.71, beating its prior closing high of 2130.82. It closed a tad lower at 2129.9 but still up 1.53 percent on the day. A rally in the stock market would normally drain money from U.S. Treasury notes, since a stock rally means confidence in a growing economy … Continue reading →