Category Archives: Uncategorized

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: June 10, 2016  A little noticed 2008 email from former Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke, raises serious questions about his official narrative on the collapse of Lehman Brothers. We’ll get to the email in detail, but first some necessary background.  A lot of eyes rolled on Wall Street last October when Ben Bernanke, who chaired the Federal Reserve in the lead up to and during the financial collapse in 2008, released his memoir of the financial crisis with the title: “The Courage to Act: A Memoir of a Crisis and its Aftermath.” Many Wall Street observers felt the title would have more correctly captured the facts on the ground had it read: “The Lack of Fed Courage to Supervise Mega Banks Led to an Epic Collapse.” (In the leadup to the crisis, the Fed allowed Citigroup CEO Sandy Weill and JPMorgan Chase CEO, Jamie … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: June 9, 2016  On June 23 the U.K. will hold a referendum to decide whether to exit the European Union, a vote dubbed Brexit. Debate on the vote has served to harden views, either favorably or unfavorably, across Europe. This week, the Pew Research Center released a survey which found that 61 percent of the French hold an unfavorable view of the EU, leading to speculation that there may be demands for a referendum (Frexit) in France to seek a vote on leaving the EU.  In fact, a French presidential candidate, Bruno Le Maire, wrote recently in the French publication, Le Monde, that if elected president, he would support holding a referendum vote on the issue. The Pew Research Center study, as well as corporate media, have focused the growing resentment of the EU on its handling of economic and refugee issues. The Pew … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: June 8, 2016  If Hillary Clinton was hoping for Bernie Sanders’ supporters to fall in line and join her corporate media coronation, that scenario has taken an abrupt turn off the page. Charges now flying by Sanders’ supporters on social media make the Politburo look like pikers when measured against the alleged conspiracy between the Clinton campaign and Associated Press. Here’s the timeline of the alleged conspiracy and sacking of a free election process: On Monday evening, June 6, on the very eve of presidential primaries in six states, the Associated Press released its survey findings that Hillary Clinton had enough superdelegate votes to clinch the Democratic Presidential nomination. This is how the Intercept’s Glenn Greenwald reported what happened: “Last night, the Associated Press — on a day when nobody voted — surprised everyone by abruptly declaring the Democratic Party primary over and Hillary Clinton the victor. The decree, … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: June 7, 2016 Hillary Clinton was not having a very good morning yesterday. The New York Post had devoted its full front cover to suggesting that Clinton has a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde personality disorder, based on an explosive new book by a former Secret Service agent who was stationed directly outside former President Bill Clinton’s Oval Office and is alleging outbursts and physical violence by the former First Lady. The book has shot to number one on the nonfiction bestseller list at Amazon.com, meaning more headwinds for the Clinton campaign. On top of that, news was swirling that Senator Bernie Sanders had a good shot of trouncing Clinton in the following day’s critical primary in California, where a massive 475 pledged delegates are at stake. (Five other states are also set to vote today in primaries: New Jersey, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: June 6, 2016  Tomorrow marks the final Super Tuesday of the primary season when voters in six states head to the polls: New Jersey, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, New Mexico and delegate-rich California, with 475 pledged delegates up for grabs in California alone. As the closely watched California showdown between Senator Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton approaches, with polls showing them running neck and neck, commentary in major newspapers continues to question if Clinton is the right person to lead her party. Last Tuesday, Douglas Schoen, who was actually a political adviser to President Bill Clinton, wrote in an article in the Wall Street Journal that was headlined “Clinton Might Not Be the Nominee” that a vote on changing the rules on superdelegates at the Democratic convention in July might flip the tables on a Clinton candidacy. Schoen wrote: “There is every reason … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: June 3, 2016  JPMorgan Chase’s perpetually controversial Chairman and CEO, Jamie Dimon, was in Bournemouth, Dorset on the south coast of England this morning to reassure his workers that he wasn’t there to tell them how to vote in the upcoming June 23 referendum on whether Britain should leave the European Union (the so-called “Brexit” or British Exit vote). He then proceeded to tell the sober-faced workers that if they voted for Brexit, he might axe upwards of 4,000 jobs across their country. Dimon first stated to the crowd of workers:  “I cannot and will not tell the British people how they should vote in this….” A few minutes later, he qualified that by telling the workers how many jobs he might have to cut if Brexit happened: “I don’t know if it means 1,000 jobs, 2,000 jobs, it could be as many as … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: June 2, 2016 In 1925 F. Scott Fitzgerald famously wrote: “Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me.” One thing that makes the rich different is that they will pay $5 for the May 30 issue of Barron’s, which is dispensing the peculiarly indecisive wisdom that “The Stock Market Won’t Crash – Yet.” The other thing that makes the rich different is that they’re the ones heavily invested in this stock market. According to the most recent 2013 Federal Reserve “Survey of Consumer Finances,” which is conducted every three years, the rate of direct or indirect stock ownership by the top income group “increased 3.9 percentage points from 2010 to 2013, reaching 92.1 percent, slightly above the 91.7 percent found in the 2007 survey.” According to a Gallup poll conducted between April 6-10 of this year, 46 … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: June 1, 2016  For the past three years, the Obama administration has snatched an idea directly out of the hit TV series, “West Wing.” That’s the Aaron Sorkin created fiction revolving around the beloved President Jed Bartlet (played by Martin Sheen) and the encyclopedic brains of his executive staff who toil 24/7 in a perpetual display of personal sacrifice on behalf of the country. West Wing ran on NBC from the Fall of 1999 to the Spring of 2006 – in other words, from the scandalous sexcapades in the Oval Office by President Bill Clinton and his catastrophic deregulation of Wall Street through the trumped-up invasion of Iraq by President George W. Bush. West Wing was, in other words, an anesthetic to the harsh reality of America’s actual Oval Office under a two-party system that had become grotesquely corrupt at the top. The Obama … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 31, 2016  Zurich Insurance Group has a terse statement on its web site today indicating that Martin Senn, its CEO who stepped down just five months ago, took his life last Friday. Senn was 59 years old. According to foreign news reports, Senn shot himself at the family’s vacation home in Klosters. Senn’s death comes less than three years after the sitting CFO of the same company, Pierre Wauthier, reportedly hung himself at his home near Lake Zug, Switzerland. Wauthier’s wife and two children were out of the country at the time and Wautheir was alone in the home, according to media reports. In the case of Wauthier’s death, police reported that he had left a typed suicide note, not a typical form of communication for one taking their life. On July 23, 2013, just five weeks before Wauthier is said to have … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 30, 2016  Goldman Sachs will interminably, thanks to Matt Taibbi at Rolling Stone, conjure up images of “a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.” The vampire squid has now popped up in the middle of a potential new scandal involving the Clintons, while uproar over its payment of $675,000 to Hillary Clinton personally for three speeches is still simmering. Clinton, a presidential candidate, has thus far refused to release the transcripts of those speeches, despite numerous editorials calling on her to do so. On May 10, the New York Times gently dropped a bombshell on the hedge fund investing world of New York’s one-percenters. Hillary and Bill Clinton’s son-in-law, Marc Mezvinsky, who married their only child, Chelsea, in an opulent 2010 wedding, was shuttering the Eaglevale Hellenic Opportunity Fund … Continue reading →