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Recent Posts
- Trump and Paulson’s Proposal: U.S. Sovereign Wealth Fund (or Another Grifter Bailout)
- 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
Category Archives: Uncategorized
The Case Against New York as Home to Wall Street Regulation
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 16, 2015 There is now a movement in Congress to strip the Federal Reserve Bank of New York of its regulatory oversight of the biggest Wall Street banks. The movement has roots among both Democrats and Republicans who are fed up with the continuing unbridled abuses of the public trust by the unruly hooligans on Wall Street and their timid regulator, the New York Fed. The push for change is critically important for a number of reasons. Major among them is the perception that New York and its politicians are more concerned about what’s in the best interests of New York residents and less about what’s best for the country as a whole. Two trillion dollar too-big-to-fail banks may pose a systemic risk for the nation but they’re a handy source of quick, mega loans for the hedge funds and real estate interests … Continue reading
Hillary’s Email Mess Gets Messier
By Pam Martens: March 12, 2015 There’s an old adage that goes: “never pick a fight with anyone who buys ink by the barrel.” It’s generally interpreted to mean don’t go to war with the press. That would surely include syndicated reporters working for the Associated Press, which says in a lawsuit filed yesterday that it has “one billion readers, listeners and viewers.” Despite the sage advice, Hillary Clinton is now in a full blown war with the press over how she became the Decider in Chief over which government emails would be preserved from her time as Secretary of State versus the tens of thousands that she elected to erase, ruling them to be about personal matters. The Associated Press has filed its lawsuit against the U.S. Department of State because the Federal agency has defied the Freedom of Information Act and stonewalled AP reporters for as long as … Continue reading
Bank Stress Test Results at 4:30 Today: Will the Fed Whistle Past the Graveyard?
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 11, 2015 Results of the first leg of this year’s Federal Reserve stress tests, which measured capital adequacy of 31 of the most systemically important banks under a hypothetical market crash and deep recession, were released on March 5. Every institution passed that phase of the tests. At 4:30 p.m. today, the Federal Reserve will release its findings on the second leg of the tests: risk management capability, corporate governance and internal controls. Wall Street calls this element the “culture” test. For those who have been reading our columns since 2008, when the culture of Wall Street brought about the greatest U.S. economic collapse since the Great Depression of the 1930s, you might be thinking that the Fed’s concern over the culture on Wall Street is a day late and $14 trillion short. (The $14 trillion figure is the amount of secret loans … Continue reading
A 6-Year Bull Market in Stocks or a 6-Year ZIRP Wealth Transfer
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 10, 2015 Pundits were out in force yesterday celebrating the six-year anniversary of the bull market in stocks. Notably, no one was talking about the fact that the runup in stock prices has coincided with a six-year zero interest-rate policy (ZIRP) by the Federal Reserve, making the stock market a dandy casino to borrow low on margin and speculate high on risk; or, in the case of corporations, to issue tons of new debt and buy back their own stock. As mind-numbing as it is to comprehend, it was December 16, 2008 when the Federal Open Market Committee of the Federal Reserve released this statement: “The Federal Open Market Committee decided today to establish a target range for the federal funds rate of 0 to 1/4 percent.” And there we have stayed for six long, arduous years with nothing but periodic threats to … Continue reading
Barron’s Bill Alpert: There’s a Wealth Transfer from Wall Street to the Little Guy
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 9, 2015 There are theories floating around Wall Street that Barron’s Senior Editor and award-winning investigative reporter with a law degree from Columbia, Bill Alpert, has been kidnapped by evil forces on Wall Street and replaced with a look-alike. How else to explain this wacky story under his byline on February 28. Alpert’s article was quickly discredited by Eric Hunsader of Nanex in an article titled “Robber Barrons.” (We don’t think Hunsader meant to say “Barons” either.) Themis Trading, whose owners literally wrote the book on Broken Markets, weighed in with a detailed debunking. Alpert’s article starts out with this subhead: “Small investors actually get good prices from brokers and market makers.” It then moves to debunk the Michael Lewis book Flash Boys, which is effectively debunking 60 Minutes as well, since it vetted and aired the same material. Alpert writes: “In the furor … Continue reading
Two Prominent Judges Take Bizarre Action in Occupy Wall Street Case
By Pam Martens: March 5, 2015 The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) has a slogan: “The constitution won’t defend itself.” Today, the dedicated attorneys that battle for the little guy at PCJF must be thinking – “the constitution won’t be defended by flip-flopping judges either.” PCJF finds itself in a uniquely bizarre situation. Two prominent judges with brain-trust status on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, which is based in Manhattan, have overturned their own decision that they handed down just six months ago. That’s strange enough but what really has tongues wagging in legal circles is that they reversed themselves with no party asking them for a rehearing. The case had been accepted for an en banc (full court) hearing at the Second Circuit when the two suddenly reversed themselves. The case involves Occupy Wall Street – the largest protest movement against Wall Street bankers’ pillaging of the … Continue reading
Warren: Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch Received $6 Trillion Backdoor Bailout from Fed
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 4, 2015 Yesterday, the Senate Banking Committee held the first of its hearings on widespread demands to reform the Federal Reserve to make it more transparent and accountable. Senator Elizabeth Warren put her finger on the pulse of the growing public outrage over how the Federal Reserve conducts much of its operations in secret and appears to frequently succumb to the desires of Wall Street to the detriment of the public interest. Warren addressed the secret loans that the Fed made to Wall Street during the financial crisis as follows: “During the financial crisis, Congress bailed out the big banks with hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer money; and that’s a lot of money. But the biggest money for the biggest banks was never voted on by Congress. Instead, between 2007 and 2009, the Fed provided over $13 trillion in emergency lending … Continue reading
Companies Are Stampeding to Buy Back Their Own Stock: Just Like Before the 2008 Crash
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 3, 2015 On December 20, 2007, Bear Stearns held a conference call with analysts to review its fourth quarter earnings. During the call, the company revealed that “For the full fiscal year, the company repurchased 12 million shares of common stock at an aggregate cost of $1.7 billion.” Less than three months later, the company collapsed. On June 13, 2008, Michael Rapoport of Dow Jones Newswires wrote that Lehman Brothers had reported “in its most recent quarterly report in April that it had repurchased about $765 million worth of its stock during its fiscal first quarter, at an average price of $59.05 a share. That includes some shares tendered by employees as payment when exercising stock options.” Three months after Rapoport wrote those words, Lehman collapsed into bankruptcy, its shares effectively worthless. Then there was Merrill Lynch, the century old iconic retail brokerage … Continue reading
Suspicions About the Federal Reserve Spill Out in House Hearing
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 2, 2015 Fed Chairman Janet Yellen fielded questions last Wednesday before a combative House Financial Services Committee. Tempers flared, fingers stabbed the air, arms waved wildly as House reps expressed pent up frustrations with how the Federal Reserve is handling the economy. At times, Yellen answered curtly and at one point rolled her eyes at questioning from Congressman Scott Garrett (R-NJ) who insinuated that Yellen had politicized her office by meeting so frequently with President Obama and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew. The anger and frustration were evident from both sides of the aisle. Congressman Michael Capuano, (D-MA), was incensed that the largest, most dangerous Wall Street banks are still being allowed to fail their living wills. Capuano read a portion of a statement from FDIC Vice Chair, Thomas Hoenig, which stated that these living wills “provide no credible or clear path through bankruptcy … Continue reading
Reforming the Fed: Who’s Right; Who’s Wrong?
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: February 26, 2015 The Republicans are making good on their campaign pledge to turn up the heat on the Federal Reserve. Sparks flew in the House Financial Services Committee hearing room yesterday as Fed Chair Janet Yellen appeared to present her semi-annual testimony. At times, the exchanges between Yellen and Republican members of the Committee were sharp and tense. In his opening statement to the Committee, Jeb Hensarling (R-Tx), who chairs the Committee, blamed the “anemic” recovery on Obamacare, Dodd-Frank and regulatory costs. He went on to say that “Then there’s the doubt, uncertainty and regulatory burden that grows as more and more unbridled, discretionary authority is given to unaccountable government agencies. Although monetary policy cannot remedy this, it can help.” Republicans are locked in some kind of mind warp where the remedy for every problem is to deregulate. Despite six years of books, … Continue reading