Category Archives: Uncategorized

By Pam Martens: May 15, 2013  We now know that the U.S. Department of Justice spied for two months on over 100 Associated Press reporters, secretly obtaining their work, home and cell phone records showing the phone numbers of their sources. The records covered phone calls made in April and May 2012 in AP bureaus in New York City, Washington, D.C., Hartford, Connecticut and the House of Representatives. No advance notification was given to the Associated Press.  Yesterday, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press issued a stern critique of the Justice Department action, writing:  “The scope of this action calls into question the very integrity of Department of Justice policies toward the press and its ability to balance, on its own, its police powers against the First Amendment rights of the news media and the public’s interest in reporting on all manner of government conduct.”  Gary Pruitt, President … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: May 14, 2013  For years now, journalists have been doing the heavy lifting in investigations of Charles and David Koch using their billionaire status to fund faux grassroots groups to push their far right agenda on the country —  an agenda that effectively boils down to deregulation of corporations to the detriment of the working class, the environment and wealth equality in America. It’s about time the IRS investigated.  According to the 2013 Forbes List, Charles and David Koch are each worth $34 billion. Their wealth derives from Koch Industries, a private global conglomerate with a presence in over 60 countries. The company’s business interests include oil, refining, pipelines, paper products, chemicals, fertilizer and trading. Because the company is not publicly traded, despite the Koch brothers’ stated devotion to free markets, we have no idea what goes on in the sprawling Koch enterprises because they are not … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: May 13, 2013  Did you just find out your 401(k) is leaking 8 percent in a hodgepodge of Wall Street management fees, transactions costs, sales commissions, and marketing schemes. Maybe you did the math and realized your account value, without your new additions, is still where it was in 2007. Or did you just check BrightScope and find out that your 401(k) is so abysmal that you’ll need 18 additional years of work to make up for the $215,500 in lost retirement savings. Or maybe you tuned in to the April 23 Frontline documentary on PBS to learn that it is quite possible for Wall Street to gobble up two-thirds of your retirement savings in your 401(k) while keeping you in the dark for the next 50 years. If so, there’s no reason to seethe in silence. The U.S. Department of Labor wants to hear from you … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: May 10, 2013  President Obama adds to the rising stench of his nominations to the U.S. Treasury and Securities and Exchange Commission with the nomination of the billionaire Hilton Hotel heiress, Penny Pritzker, to be the next U.S. Commerce Secretary.  With the confirmed nominations of Mary Jo White as Chair of the SEC, Jack Lew as Treasury Secretary and now the nomination of Pritzker to lead Commerce, the President is sending the chilling message to the Nation’s young people that it’s legal if you can get away with it; and if you get away with enough and get rich enough, the President of the United States admires that and you can join the power elite. Building a career through honesty and hard work is for suckers.  Jack Lew, the President’s pick for Treasury, was paid millions as Chief Operating Officer for the very division of Citigroup that collapsed … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: May 9, 2013 That shady offshore tax haven known as Ugland House in the Cayman Islands strikes again. After consuming a chunk of Jack Lew’s Senate confirmation hearing, with Senators grilling Lew on why he owned an investment housed in this offshore tax dodge while working for the Obama administration, the Cayman Islands’ address has surfaced once again in the foreclosure settlement scandal. On April 30 of this year, just 18 days after the first wave of checks from the Federal government’s settlement of the so-called Independent Foreclosure Review began arriving in the mail – and bouncing – Citigroup Venture Capital International (CVCI), Lew’s former Ugland House investment, bought a large stake in the company that was mailing the checks, SourceHOV, parent of Rust Consulting. As reported by Naked Capitalism, the ownership stake was made despite Citigroup being one of the banks in the foreclosure settlement. After correcting the humiliating problem … Continue reading →

 By Pam Martens: May 7, 2013 Yesterday, New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said his office would bring suit against Bank of America and Wells Fargo for “flagrant” violations of last year’s National Mortgage Settlement – a deal signed onto by 49 state attorneys general which promised to reform the shady mortgage servicing practices of five of the largest mortgage lenders in the U.S. The question that arises is why the Monitor of the National Mortgage Settlement had not already brought a lawsuit in Federal Court to stop the violations. During his press conference yesterday announcing the lawsuit, Schneiderman said his office has logged 210 complaints against Wells Fargo for violations of the settlement and 129 involving Bank of America. Those figures, however, are dwarfed by the findings of Joseph A. Smith, Jr., the man put in charge of monitoring the settlement and bringing enforcement actions to the Federal … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: May 6, 2013  U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, whose loan dealings with New York University and acceptance of $940,000 in bonus money from taxpayer bailout funds paid to the insolvent Citigroup in early 2009 rendered him a scandalous choice for the high treasury post in the Obama administration, is fully living up to his past reputation.  Last Thursday, May 2, the U.S. Treasury released its “Daily Treasury Guidance” which lets the public know what the U.S. Treasury Secretary will be doing each day on behalf of the taxpayer who is paying his salary and on whose behalf he is supposed to be working.  The guidance for last Thursday noted that Secretary Lew would be departing Washington for New York in the afternoon “where he will attend a roundtable with business leaders hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) to discuss the state of the U.S. and global economies. This … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: May 1, 2013  If you’ve spent any time at all on this web site, you know that a seven word poster – “It’s Not a Crisis, It’s a Scam” – neatly sums up what myself, Matt Taibbi, Paul Craig Roberts, Yves Smith, Ellen Brown, and Mike Krauss have devoted millions of words attempting to convey to the American public. Barry Ritholtz has also greatly advanced the topic as have many others. Despite the veracity of the poster, a number of protesters from among the May Day marchers in New York City today were cuffed and jailed by the NYPD as they marched behind the sign. The police will not, at this time, give the tally of arrests.   The same group of protesters, calling themselves the Anti-Capitalists, sang out as they marched: “One, two, three, four — I declare a class war; five, six, seven, eight — eat the rich and smash the … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: April 30, 2013  Last week we reported on a PBS Frontline program showing that a 2 percent mutual fund management fee can gobble up two-thirds of your nest egg for retirement over a span of 50 years of saving. Now comes an equally ugly truth.  Since at least 1998 the U.S. Department of Labor, which oversees the nation’s 401(k) plans, has known that fee gouging was eroding the ability of workers to adequately build wealth for retirement in 401(k) plans. It took more than a decade for the Federal agency to pass a regulation mandating that 401(k) recipients receive fee disclosure in an annual mailing. Leading the charge against full disclosure was a coalition of trade associations dominated by Wall Street.  On April 13, 1998, the U.S. Department of Labor published a “Study of 401(k) Plan Fees and Expenses,” noting the following:  “Expenses of operating and maintaining … Continue reading →

 By Pam Martens: April 29, 2013 This Wednesday is May Day, the day that labor traditionally gives its state of the union address – not in the lobbyist filled chambers of Congress but in the homeless filled streets of the richest 1 percent on earth. Thanks to the Occupy Wall Street movement (that growing, ever-evolving movement that corporate media keeps telling us is dead) there will be coast to coast marches, rallies, protests and street theatre. Other countries will be participating as well. As with last year’s May Day rallies, the demands for change are broad-based, covering immigration, a living wage, the environment, Wall Street’s continuing unbridled greed, the corporate theft of elections, and the growing wealth and income gap in America and around the world. Below is a tiny sampling of activities planned in New York City and elsewhere: Occupy Wall Street in New York City: May Day Student Convergence: Students … Continue reading →