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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
An Uncivil War Is Raging on Wall Street Among the Biggest Players
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: November 19, 2015 Until March 30, 2014, most Americans and even long-term veterans on Wall Street had no idea how the electrical plumbing responsible for transacting buy and sell orders at stock exchanges and other trading platforms actually worked. That all changed on March 30 when author Michael Lewis went on 60 Minutes and told its 12 million viewers that “The United States stock market, the most iconic market in global capitalism is rigged.” Lewis was promoting his new book, Flash Boys, which detailed in language the public could easily understand, (devoid of the intentionally cryptic acronyms used across Wall Street) how the stock exchanges, mega Wall Street banks and high frequency traders were conspiring through technology to front run orders from unknowing investors. In the 60 Minutes interview with Steve Kroft, Lewis drilled down to how the legalized theft had escaped the notice … Continue reading
One Chart That Should Make Americans Wake Up
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: November 18, 2015 Thanks to the Occupy Wall Street movement and more recent cross-country stumping by Senator Bernie Sanders, millions of Americans have awakened to the frightening reality that corrupted power in America is now fully engaged in running an institutionalized wealth transfer system cleverly masquerading as an economic model. As Senator Sanders has reminded the tens of thousands turning out to hear him speak: The U.S. has the greatest income and wealth inequality of any other major developed country; One percent of the population now controls a greater share of pre-tax income than at any time since the 1920s, (the last time Wall Street was legally allowed to gamble for the house with bank deposits); The top one-tenth of one percent of the super elite own almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent; Since Wall Street imploded under the weight of … Continue reading
Hillary’s Wall Street Money Taint Goes Viral
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: November 17, 2015 Everyone has been waiting for the next shoe to drop in the Clinton cash scandals but no one expected Hillary to be the one to drop the shoe. But after making the stunning assertions in last Saturday night’s Democratic debate that most of her donors are “small” and her Wall Street spigot of funding was turned on as a result of her helping New York to rebuild after 9/11 – Hillary, the perpetual Teflon candidate, has been pummeled from Twitter to cable to mainstream media. Elizabeth Bruenig, writing for the New Republic, pointed out that “large donations make up 81 percent” of Hillary’s current campaign donations, refuting the candidate’s misstatement that “most” of her funding is from small donations. (The chart below from the Center for Responsive Politics provides the actual breakdown.) Bruenig writes further that confidence in Hillary’s assistance in … Continue reading
The Dark Money Behind the Elizabeth Warren “Commie” Ad
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: November 16, 2015 The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the federal agency created after the 2008 crash to protect the little guy from Wall Street predators, which has done a top-flight job of it, was portrayed as a commie organization in a advertisement that ran repeatedly during the Republican Presidential debate on November 10. To enhance the communist theme of the ad (see full video below) giant banners of CFPB Director, Richard Cordray, and Senator Elizabeth Warren, who pushed for the creation of the agency, hang on the wall in a nod to Soviet dictators. The advertisement is grossly misleading, overtly suggesting that the job of the CFPB is to deny car loans and mortgages to regular folks seeking credit. The agency, in fact, has absolutely nothing to do with approving credit applications. Its job is to root out and punish financial institutions that … Continue reading
How Did the Taxpayer Make Out on the Wall Street Bailout?
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: November 12, 2015 Landing in our inbox this week was an 86 page report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) on the current status of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). The GAO is among a growing octopus of taxpayer-funded bodies attempting to reassure the American people that their tax dollars that were used to bail out Wall Street during the financial crash are being properly tallied up. The GAO report found the following: “While the total disbursed for TARP programs was $430.1 billion, OFS [Office of Financial Stability, an office in the U.S. Treasury Department] has collected $424.9 billion (or $442.4 billion if including the $17.5 billion in proceeds from the additional Treasury AIG shares) through repayments, sales, dividends, interest, and other income. As of September 30, 2015, only $714 million in bank investments remain outstanding.” Lumping dividends, interest and other income together … Continue reading
The Republican Debate: Almost Every ‘Fact’ About Wall Street Was False
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: November 11, 2015 Following the Republican Presidential debate in Milwaukee last evening, Senator Elizabeth Warren issued a blistering statement to supporters. It said, in part: “Did you see the attack ad about me during the GOP debate tonight? A right-wing group launched a full-scale assault on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau – the watchdog we set up after the 2008 financial crisis to fight back when big banks try to cheat people on credit cards, mortgages, and other financial products…If the Republicans want a fight over the CFPB, I say, ‘Bring it on.’” The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is one of the few positive outgrowths of the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation passed by Congress in 2010 after the epic financial crash in 2008. It’s a legitimate and real champion of the little guy. But because the agency has been exposing student loan frauds … Continue reading
Who Will Win Tonight’s Debate as Dissembler in Chief?
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: November 10, 2015 The fourth Presidential Republican debate will take place this evening in Milwaukee. The leading candidates (Donald Trump, Ben Carson, Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina, John Kasich, and Rand Paul) will take the stage at 9 p.m. ET. Lower polling candidates (Chris Christie, Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum and Bobby Jindal) will debate earlier at 7 p.m. ET. The event will be hosted by the Fox Business Network and the Wall Street Journal with a free live stream available for viewers at www.FoxBusiness.com. The 9 p.m. debate will be moderated by Fox Business News anchors Maria Bartiromo and Neil Cavuto with the Wall Street Journal’s editor, Gerard Baker. One person to watch as much as the candidates this evening is Maria Bartiromo for a pro-corporate/anti-government tone to her questions. Bartiromo has regularly sided with corporate bigwigs accused by the government … Continue reading
Ben Carson’s Other Credibility Problem: ‘Successful’ Siamese Twin Separations
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: November 9, 2015 Republican Presidential candidate, Ben Carson, came under media scrutiny last week over his longstanding claim that he had been offered a “full scholarship” to West Point, which turned out to have been a mere suggestion that he might qualify for one by persons whose names he could not remember. Politico broke that story while other media outlets have challenged the accuracy of his portrayal of himself in books he has authored as prone to violence as a young man, including an attempt to stab a friend, followed by turning his life over to God and going on to become a world renown neurosurgeon. The scenario of God’s redemption of Carson has greatly appealed to evangelical Christians who now form a large base of Carson’s supporters for his White House bid. One highly significant area of Carson’s life that has not come … Continue reading
Fed Officials Are Attending Big Bank Board Meetings? Is This Stockholm Syndrome?
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: November 5, 2015 According to the Random House dictionary, Stockholm Syndrome is “an emotional attachment to a captor formed by a hostage as a result of continuous stress, dependence, and a need to cooperate for survival.” Regulatory capture – where big banks are actually the ones calling the shots to their regulators – appears to have morphed into Stockholm Syndrome based on a Congressional hearing yesterday. House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling dropped a bombshell on Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen in opening questions yesterday on the Fed’s role of supervising the largest, most systemically dangerous banks. Hensarling queried if the Fed had crossed the line from being regulator to manager. We think the question should have been has the Fed devolved from regulator to emotionally-attached hostage. (There’s plenty of evidence for the latter as we’ll explain later in this piece.) The exchange … Continue reading
New York Times Discovers Courts Have Been Privatized – 20 Years Too Late
By Pam Martens: November 4, 2015 The New York Times has just completed a three-part investigative series on the evisceration across America of the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of a right to a jury trial under the Seventh Amendment, which mandates: “In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.” Just as corporate prisons and corporate charter schools are proliferating across the American landscape with attendant horror stories, the doors to the Nation’s taxpayer funded courts have been largely closed to the average citizen. Consumers of everything from credit cards to phone service to nursing homes cannot obtain the product or service without surrendering their access to the U.S. court … Continue reading