Category Archives: Uncategorized

 By Pam Martens: February 28, 2013  The Obama administration pushed through the full Senate vote on the nomination of Jack Lew for Secretary of the Treasury late yesterday afternoon, just one day after the Senate Finance Committee voted to confirm the nomination. One suspects the rush was to prevent further details of Lew’s lavish pay packages, loans and other perks at his previous employers, New York University and bailed out bank, Citigroup, from gaining traction in the press.  But rest assured, this is no win for the President’s legacy or his party. The Democrats’ progressive base was just as adamant against Lew for U.S. Treasury Secretary as were most Republicans who took a careful look at Lew’s history.  Robert Scheer, writing at The Nation Magazine said:  “I suppose that he can’t be much worse than Timothy Geithner, but that should be scant cause for cheer over the news that the … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: February 27, 2013 As questions swirl as to why New York University, a nonprofit subsidized by the taxpayer, used endowment funds from its law school foundation to provide Treasury Secretary nominee Jack Lew with more than a million dollars in mortgage loans in 2001 and a $685,000 “severance” payment when he voluntarily left to accept a high paying job at Citigroup in 2006, the name of John Sexton has emerged as someone who was in the know about the dealings. As the document below confirms, Sexton, who has been President of NYU since 2001, signed off on the first $1,300,000 mortgage loan to Lew on August 22, 2001. The second mortgage loan by NYU to Lew in the amount of $150,000 was made later that same year. Lew has said in written testimony to the Senate Finance Committee that NYU forgave portions of the first loan and … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: February 26, 2013  The American people can rest assured that it’s still business as usual in Washington. Despite growing financial questions swirling around Treasury Secretary nominee, Jack Lew, the Senate Finance committee confirmed his nomination moments ago in a 19 to 5 vote. The full Senate must still vote and is expected to do so this week or next.  Senator Orrin Hatch, who said many questions about Lew’s time at two employers, New York University and Citigroup, remain unclear, failed to show the courage of his convictions and voted yes on the nomination, saying the President was owed deference in his selections.  Only Senator Chuck Grassley showed any courage in today’s hearing, asking to speak on the nomination and then voting no. Grassley said the Obama administration continues to criticize Congress when it is simply fulfilling its role of due diligence. He said Lew had real “eagerness … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: February 26, 2013  Today, an august body of the United States Senate will vote on President Obama’s nomination of Jack Lew to be the next Treasury Secretary, a post that oversees the paying of the country’s bills, collection of taxes, printing of the country’s currency, issuing the Nation’s debt securities and maintaining the stability of the financial system. The full Senate will likely vote in a matter of days thereafter.  And yet, the man who will be voted on by the Senate Finance Committee today will not give straight answers to the most basic of questions about $1.4 million in loans from his previous employer, New York University, and the assumption and modification of those loans by his next employer, the bailed out banking institution, Citigroup.  A mortgage loan is typically a straightforward matter that doesn’t require multiple rounds of written questions. But in Lew’s case, Senator … Continue reading →

 By Pam Martens: February 25, 2013  Have you ever landed a new job with a private employer who bought you a $1.3 million house and paid you a bigger salary than your boss. Did you ever have an employment contract that called for awarding you a bonus of $940,000 if you could somehow advance yourself from shepherding an insolvent bank to a “full time high level position with the U.S. government or regulatory body.” How about getting a deal where your company will leverage your investment in a Cayman Islands fund by chipping in $2 for every $1 you put in and let you keep all the winnings. Did you ever refinance a mortgage loan, take out $352,195 in new cash and not have to pay a legally mandated mortgage recording tax?    I don’t know of anyone in America who has these kinds of skeletons popping out of their closets … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: February 22, 2013 You know the President’s nominee for Treasury Secretary, Jack Lew, is in trouble when media from the left, right and center of the political spectrum are shredding the mild-mannered, bespectacled numbers cruncher. For good reason, I might add.  Lew will now have more embarrassing details to explain (or not, as has become his custom). We’ve dug out the details of his head-spinning mortgage deals with his two former employers,  New York University and Citigroup. This comes on the heels of the bombshell dropped by Senator Orrin Hatch in the confirmation hearing regarding Lew’s cozy employment agreement with Citigroup that paid him a bonus of $940,000 if he could somehow manage to secure a “full time high level position with the United States Government or a regulatory body.” The insolvent bank had just been bailed out by the taxpayer, making the $940,000 bonus accepted by Lew … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: February 21, 2013  President Obama covered so much ground in his February 12 State of the Union address that it’s easy to lose sight of the four words he failed to mention – even once: Wall Street and campaign finance. Nothing is going to materially change in America in terms of restoring fairness, opportunity, income equality and representative government until those two areas are radically reformed. Instead, the President offers platitudes and empty promises.  To confront the malignancy that is shriveling our democracy, Americans must begin to separate the symptoms from the disease. The diseases are Wall Street’s institutionalized wealth transfer system and the use of that unjustly created vast wealth by corporations and individuals to finance political campaigns.  The President can make endless promises about lifting up the middle class, eradicating poverty and leveling the playing field – but these are just the symptoms of the … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: February 19, 2013  The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has released a devastating appraisal of the financial toll the 2007 to 2009 Wall Street financial crisis has had on the U.S. economy and workers. According to the GAO, cumulative output losses could exceed $13 trillion with another $9 trillion in losses in household wealth through declines in home equity, bringing just those two areas of losses to potentially $22 trillion. The study notes that it can’t quantify losses in financial assets since the stock market has regained much of its lost ground but many people as well as portfolio managers of pensions and retirement assets locked in their losses by selling as the market dived.  The report indicates that the steep decline in home values during the financial crisis left homeowners collectively holding home mortgage debt in excess of the equity in their homes, marking a first since the … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: February 18, 2013 The President of the United States, who told us this past Tuesday evening in his State of the Union address how concerned he is with the middle class, disappeared into a millionaire’s enclave for a three-day bachelor vacation with  pals. According to the White House, Tiger Woods was among those playing golf with the President. First Lady Michelle, and daughters, Malia and Sasha, are skiing out west. While the President is certainly entitled to rest and relaxation, what he is not entitled to during the greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression is hypocrisy. Fresh from his State of the Union speech on Tuesday and a speaking tour focusing on how he plans to lift up the poor and middle class, the President flew on Friday evening to the Floridian Yacht & Golf Club in Palm City, Florida, a millionaire’s golfing enclave where cottages rent for … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: February 15, 2013 (This column, with updates, runs periodically at Wall Street on Parade. Please consider emailing it to friends and family members.)    A study conducted by Edward N. Wolff for the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College in March 2010 made the following findings:  The richest 1 percent received over one-third of the total gain in marketable wealth over the period from 1983 to 2007. The next 4 percent also received about a third of the total gain and the next 15 percent about a fifth, so that the top quintile collectively accounted for 89 percent of the total growth in wealth, while the bottom 80 percent accounted for 11 percent.  Debt was the most evenly distributed component of household wealth, with the bottom 90 percent of households responsible for 73 percent of total indebtedness.  Wealth concentration in too few hands while the general populace … Continue reading →