Category Archives: Uncategorized

By Pam Martens: March 13, 2013 Americans learned for the first time on March 6 of this year that the highest law enforcement agent in our country, Attorney General Eric Holder, weighs economic interests when deciding whether to enforce our Nation’s laws against criminal wrongdoers like the too-big-to-fail banks. The spectacle of warped law enforcement grew worse today during the Senate Banking confirmation hearing of Mary Jo White to head the Securities and Exchange Commission. Under questioning by Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), White admitted that even the economy of a foreign country – like Japan – is taken into consideration before bringing a criminal indictment in the U.S.  Even worse, White was forced to admit that while working for the U.S. Department of Justice as the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York (from 1993 to 2002), she considered it appropriate to speak with Larry Summers (a Treasury Secretary … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: March 12, 2013    At a time when restoring trust in our financial system is critical to the Nation’s ability to grow, create jobs and restore consumer and investor confidence, President Obama has nominated two deeply conflicted individuals to head the U.S. Treasury Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Jack Lew has already been confirmed and sworn in as the new Treasury Secretary; Mary Jo White’s confirmation hearing will occur this morning before the Senate Banking Committee.  The process surrounding Jack Lew’s confirmation hearing appeared to have been stage-managed by an invisible hand to deny the public the right to learn of his mountains of questionable dealings in the private sector. Senator Orrin Hatch, speaking during debate by the full Senate on the confirmation of Lew, had this to say about the process:  “For well over a decade, the Finance Committee has followed a specified procedure when considering … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: March 11, 2013  At 10 a.m. tomorrow, Mary Jo White, President Obama’s nominee for Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), will take her seat in the Dirksen Senate Office Building while the Senate Banking Committee goes through the motions of weighing her worthiness to serve. If confirmed, this will mark White’s fourth spin over 36 years through the revolving door at her corporate law firm, Debevoise and Plimpton.  White’s husband, John W. White, has had only one-spin through the revolving door – but it tells us a great deal about why Wall Street remains unrepentant and continues to pillage and plunder. On March 5, 2005, John W. White, partner at the international law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP, which represents Wall Street firms and large corporations around the world, was not at all happy with Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.  That’s the part of … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: March 8, 2013  For years I’ve used the phrase “Frankenbanks” in my articles – those global banking behemoths created as a result of the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999 that allow the co-mingling of FDIC insured mom and pop savings accounts with investment banking activities that blow up things using the mom and pop savings accounts leveraged to the hilt. Now the U.S. Senate is making my case for me on the use of Frankenbanks as an appropriate soubriquet.  If we date the run up to the financial crisis as beginning in the summer of 2007, which the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency does, it is more than five years since Congress has been studying why Wall Street is very adept at blowing up things but adept at not much else – like its main job of fairly allocating capital to new companies that … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: March 7, 2013  Paul Craig Roberts is one of the most prolific economic writers in America today. As a former Wall Street Journal editor and former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, Roberts is a walking encyclopedia on monetary policy, economic theory and Wall Street history. After publication in Germany in 2012, his latest book, The Failure Of Laissez Faire Capitalism And Economic Dissolution Of The West, is now available in the U.S. as an eBook.  If you’ve read a Roberts’ column over the past few years, you know there’s nothing timid or constrained in his writing. The same can surely be said for this current work. Roberts expertly details how the one percenters have masterminded a political and economic takeover that just keeps on giving to the one percent as the economy wobbles, the U.S. debt explodes and the middle class is hollowed out.  Roberts sees the … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: March 6, 2013  Corporate media was falling over itself yesterday to report new stock market highs for the Dow Jones Industrial Average. At 2 p.m., this is what the New York Times was reporting as a lead story on its web site:  “Despite everything, the stock market is back at a record high…Since a low point in March 2009, the Dow Jones index has more than doubled, stunning even the most seasoned stock market watchers. ‘What’s amazing about this bull market is that people still don’t think it’s real,’ said Richard Bernstein, chief executive of Richard Bernstein Advisors, a money management firm. ‘We think this could be the biggest bull market of our careers.’ ”  The seductive words in this piece are “record,” “stunning,” and “biggest bull market of our careers.” It’s like subliminal interlineations beckoning one to dip one’s toes into the water, even though we … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: March 5, 2013  Just when one thinks the winks and nods between Washington and Wall Street couldn’t get any worse, there is growing evidence that the U.S. Justice Department knows that 20 banks engaged in the rigging of Libor but is intentionally delaying bringing charges against U.S. banks JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup.  Evidence is also stacking up that while the largest banks in the world were under intensive investigation for rigging Libor, they continued to rig it, while regulators remain dumbfounded about what to do.  And, in an Alice in Wonderland type of development, despite trillions of dollars of financial products resetting based on the Libor index, a key regulator says it’s become a fictional benchmark because the loans between banks that it’s based on have all but disappeared.  Libor is an acronym for London Interbank Offered Rate. It is supposed to be a reliable reflection of the rate at … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: March 4, 2013  Last November, one of Europe’s largest publications, the German news magazine Der Spiegel, splashed a terminally ill Uncle Sam on its front cover. Inside we are told that “Many developing countries are now looking to China instead of the US as a role model on how to structure a country. They are no longer seeking the light of the American beacon on the horizon.”  One of the reasons cited by the article for America’s decline is that our best and brightest no longer focus their talents and energies on enriching America’s future, but rush to Wall Street to line their own pockets: “About a third of the students in every graduating class at Harvard University accepts jobs in investment banking and consulting, or with hedge funds — that is, industries that produce one thing above all: fast money…” reads the article.  Last week, Wall Street’s … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: March 1, 2013  Each year, millions of Americans who inherit wealth or seek to start investing for the first time, struggle with how to go about finding a competent, honest and experienced financial advisor. Having painstakingly observed for the past two weeks how the U.S. Senate went about hiring Jack Lew to be the top financial advisor to the country as Treasury Secretary, I feel there is now a very simple example millions of Americans can follow in formulating a selection process of who should manage their money: do the exact opposite of those men in Washington.  Despite enough conflicts of interests, red flags, sleazy compensation deals to repulse anyone who looked closely, the U.S. Senate voted 71-26 Wednesday to hand the keys to the U.S. Mint to Jack Lew.    But simultaneously with that vote to install the country’s financial advisor at Treasury was a no-confidence vote … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: February 28, 2013  In several respects, Occupy Wall Street reminds me of the feminist movement. Corporate funded media has declared the women’s rights movement dead ad nauseam for four decades — and yet it thrives and reinvents itself. Similarly, corporate funded media has eulogized Occupy Wall Street from almost the moment of its nascent birth in the Fall of 2011.  If there is a common thread connecting these movements and the dire media prognostications of their demise, it is likely that when either one advances, entrenched power — and its iron grip on the wealth of a nation — loses.  Now, similar to the early court battles for women’s rights, Occupy Wall Street has tossed aside its encampments and bullhorns and donned its legal garb and pro hac vices. Occupy Wall Street’s brain trust, Occupy the SEC, just filed a Federal lawsuit that encapsulates the crony capitalist … Continue reading →