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Recent Posts
- Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” Is a Grotesque Giveaway to Fossil Fuel Billionaires While Adding $3.3 Trillion to Nation’s Debt
- Senator Chris Murphy Charges that Trump “Has Opened a Channel for Bribery”
- Congressman Casten: Trump’s Assault on the Rule of Law Is Causing Capital Flight Out of U.S. by Foreign Investors
- Trump’s Approval Rating Drops to 80-Year Low; IMF Says U.S. Tariffs Now Exceed the Highs During the Great Depression
- Nasdaq Has Lost More than 3,000 Points Since Trump’s First Full Day in Office in 2025; the Pain Has Barely Begun
- The Bond Crisis Last Week Was a Global No-Confidence Vote in U. S. President Donald Trump
- Trump’s Tariff Plan Guts $5 Trillion in Stock Value in Two Days; Senator Warren Calls for Emergency Action Before Markets Open on Monday
- Trump’s Attacks on Big Law, Universities, and the Media Have a Common Goal: Silence Dissent Against Authoritarian Rule
- Trump Administration Gives All Clear to Laundering Money through Shell Companies and Bribing Foreign Officials
- Four Megabanks on Wall Street Hold $3.2 Trillion in Uninsured Deposits – Which May Explain Senator Schumer’s Pivot to the GOP to Stop a Government Shutdown
- Here’s What Came Crashing Down Yesterday for Trump’s “Genius” Guy, Elon Musk: Tesla Stock, Access to Twitter (X), His Years of Secret Calls with Putin
- After Banning the Associated Press, Trump Is Now Targeting Specific Journalists That He Wants to See Fired
- Closely Watched Atlanta Fed Model Predicts Negative U.S. Growth in First Quarter
- Trump’s Gangster Diplomacy Makes Front Page Headlines Around the Globe
- Who Benefits Alongside Elon Musk If He Succeeds in Killing the CFPB: the Megabanks on Wall Street that Underwrite His Tesla Stock Offerings
- In Trump 1.0, the State Department Used Taxpayer Money to Publish a Book Elevating Elon Musk to a Superhero; It Was Funded by USAID, the Agency Musk Wants to Quickly Shut Down
- News Host Joy Reid Raises Threat of Trump Selling U.S. to Putin; Ten Days Later Her Show Is Cancelled
- Elon Musk’s DOGE Appears to Be Violating a Court Order; It Has Taken Down Hundreds of YouTube Videos that Educate Americans on How to Avoid Being Swindled
- Barron’s Releases Audio of Jamie Dimon Cursing Out His Workers at a Town Hall, as Dimon Plans to Dump Another One Million JPM Shares
- There’s One Federal Investigative Agency that Neither Trump nor Elon Musk Can Touch: It Just Opened an Investigation into DOGE
- Elon Musk’s Companies Were Under Investigation by Five Inspectors General When the Trump Administration Fired Them and Made Musk the Investigator
- Donald Trump Gives the Greenlight to Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase to Return to Bribing Foreign Officials
- After Tech Geeks Built a Back Door to Loot Billions from FTX, Republicans Refuse to Investigate What Elon Musk’s Tech-Squad Did Inside the U.S. Treasury’s Payment System
- Former Prosecutor, Now U.S. Senator, Informs Tesla That CEO Musk May Be Violating Federal Law and to “Preserve All Records”
- Trump’s Hedge Fund Guy Is Now Overseeing the U.S. Treasury, IRS, OCC, U.S. Mint, FinCEN, F-SOC, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
- As Elon Musk Begins Shutting Down Payments to Federal Contractors, a Strange Money Trail Emerges to His Operatives Inside the U.S. Treasury’s Payment System
- JPMorgan Chase Charged by Yet Another Internal Whistleblower with Cooking the Books
- We Asked Google’s AI Search Model, Gemini, Questions About the Fed and Wall Street Megabanks: It Got the Answers Dead Wrong
- With Trump and Melania’s Crypto Coins Likely to Raise Legal Challenges, Why Didn’t Trump Fire the SEC’s Inspector General in His Purge of IGs?
- Fossil Fuel Industry Could End Up Paying Tens of Billions for LA Wildfires and Deceiving the Public on Climate Change for Decades
- It’s Being Called the Biggest Grift by a President in U.S. History: Trump and First Lady Launch their Own Crypto Coins
- Trump Plans to Install a Fracking CEO to Head the Energy Department and Declare a National Emergency on Energy to Gain Vast Powers
- Fossil Fuel Money Played a Role in the Los Angeles Fires and the Push to Install Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense
- When It Comes to Wealth Retention in Retirement, Concrete May Be the New Gold
- Wall Street Watchdog Warns “Clock Is Ticking on a Coming Catastrophic Financial Crash”
- Wall Street Is Sending the Same Message to Americans on Fossil Fuel Financing that It Sent on Cigarettes: Drop Dead
- In a Six-Week Span, this Dark Pool with a Curious Past Traded 3.7 Billion Shares
- Wall Street’s Lobby Firm Hired Eugene Scalia of Gibson Dunn to Sue the Fed for Jamie Dimon
- Postmaster General Louis DeJoy Made $561,051 in Compensation in 2024, as Mail Costs Spiked and Delivery Deteriorated
- Fed Chair Jay Powell Sends a Bold Message to Trump and Tanks the Dow by 1123 Points
- The Head of Fixed Income at T. Rowe Price Makes the Scary Case for the 10-Year Treasury to Spike to 6 Percent
- $663 Billion in Cash Assets Have Gone Poof at the Largest U.S. Banks
- Donald Trump to Ring Bell at New York Stock Exchange Today as Hit List Posters Appear in Manhattan Targeting Wall Street CEOs
- Trump Has a Slush Fund to Prop Up the Dollar – Will He Use It to Prop Up Bitcoin Instead?
- A CEO Assassination; a Billionaire Heiress/NYPD Commissioner; a Secret Wall Street Spy Center – Here’s How They’re Connected
- Despite More than 1600 Tech Scientists Signing a Letter Calling Crypto a Sham, Trump Names a Crypto Cheerleader for SEC Chair
- The Fed Rings a Warning Bell: Hedge Funds and Life Insurers Are Reporting Historic Leverage
- Trump’s Nominee for FBI Director, Kash Patel, Has Businesses Financially Intertwined with Trump
- Donald Trump Is at Risk of Getting Named in a Fossil Fuels Conspiracy Lawsuit
- Trump Is Having Difficulty Getting a Lawyer to Accept the Nomination for SEC Chair: Here’s Why
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Ben Bernanke Starts a Bond Panic; Fed Pals Step In to Soothe Nerves
By Pam Martens: June 25, 2013 The frightening “L” word is now making the rounds on Wall Street, resurrecting fears of the early days of the 2008 financial crisis. According to Wall Street veterans, liquidity has dried up in finding buyers for what hedge funds are desperate to sell: large blocks of lower rated bonds. Since Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke held his press conference on Wednesday, June 19, of last week, hedge funds have been stampeding to unwind trades, driving down the value of not just bonds, but stocks, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and gold as well. Even U.S. Treasury notes, the typical safe haven amidst panic selling, have lost significant value. The Treasury selloff is likely a result of the liquidity of the instrument; when hedge funds must raise cash quickly to meet margin calls and there are no bids for some of their other asset holdings, they have no … Continue reading
The NYU Scandal Has the Same Cast of Characters as NYSE-Grasso-Gate
By Pam Martens: June 23, 2013 Three well known figures on Wall Street find themselves entangled in NYU’s mortgage-gate, exactly one decade after their roles were scrutinized in the biggest New York Stock Exchange scandal since the Senate hearings of the early 1930s exposed the shady dealings of its members. In 2003, Wall Street super-lawyer, Martin Lipton, was advising his friend, Richard (Dick) Grasso, CEO of the New York Stock Exchange, on a massive compensation plan while simultaneously serving as counsel to the Stock Exchange’s committee on governance and as Chairman of its Legal Advisory Committee. Joining Lipton in the unpleasant public spotlight was Kenneth Langone, Chair of the Exchange’s Compensation Committee, which had awarded Grasso $130 million in compensation and benefits for the three-year period of 2000 through 2002. That sum represented 99 percent of the Exchange’s net income for those three years according to then New York State … Continue reading
Stock Jitters: QE-Infinity Gets a Rethink
By Pam Martens: June 21, 2013 In the past two trading sessions, Wednesday and Thursday of this week, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has shaved 550 points out of investors’ pockets. Mainstream media is in lock-step agreement that the decline is owing to fears of slowing growth in China and the potential for the Federal Reserve to “taper,” or retrench from buying $85 billion a month in mortgage-backed securities and U.S. Treasuries. To borrow a phrase from H.L. Mencken, “When you hear somebody say ‘this is not about money,’ it’s about money.” There’s an old expression on Wall Street: bull markets eventually crumble under their own weight. That’s because, at some point, the value of the market is too big to drive higher. It has only one direction in which it can move and that’s down. It’s about money. According to the World Bank, the total value (or market capitalization) … Continue reading
Jack Lew and NYU Mortgages: What Did He Know and When Did He Know It
By Pam Martens: June 20, 2013 For the past two days, some of the priciest media real estate in America has been obsessing over the new signature that Jack Lew, the U.S. Treasury Secretary, is sporting on the nation’s currency. No less than the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, New York Daily News, CBS News and numerous other media outlets devoted space to this trivia about Lew’s squiggly signature getting a makeover. While this non-story was playing out, AlterNet and Wall Street On Parade co-published an investigation of New York University, where Lew served as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer from 2001 to June of 2006. The New York Times printed a similar investigation on its front page yesterday. Both investigations showed that in addition to questionable mortgage financing of primary residences for faculty, NYU was financing lavish vacation homes for both administrators and faculty. In some cases, it was … Continue reading
Stock Selection Is, Well, Everything
By Pam Martens: June 19, 2013 In years past, a prominent mutual fund company published an annual chart showing how each of the components of the Dow Jones Industrial Average had performed over the past 70 years versus the performance of its star fund. The chart was buried inside a flashy brochure. Over many years, I studied this chart, double checked it, marveled at it and theorized why there were these fascinating anomalies. I wasn’t curious about the mutual fund, mind you. I was astonished by the vast incongruities in the performance of those 30 stocks. One stock that was always among the top performers was Procter and Gamble. One stock that was always among the bottom performers was IBM. And yet, IBM was the legendary Big Blue; it was revered by millions as the quintessential blue chip stock. Each year I put the new chart in a plastic sleeve and … Continue reading
NYU’s Gilded Age: Students Struggle With Debt While Vacation Homes Are Lavished on the University’s Elite
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: June 17, 2013 A review of deeds and mortgages in some of the toniest towns on the East Coast reveals that not only is New York University financing luxury Manhattan brownstones and high rise condos for its faculty and administrators out of its nonprofit coffers, it has also been secretly financing country homes for a select group. These extravagances have fallen directly on the shoulders of financially struggling students. NYU ranks fourth in Newsweek’s 2012 list of the least affordable colleges. In September 2009, the New York Times published a remarkable exercise in inanity, profiling John Sexton, President of NYU, relaxing at his Fire Island beach house. Sexton calls his summer getaway a “rather large, wonderful house” in the interview. We learn what Sexton eats for breakfast (black coffee and yogurt), the name of his dog (Legs), how long it takes him to walk … Continue reading
The Consumer Has the Power to Fight Back Against Wall Street
By Pam Martens: June 17, 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 is … Continue reading
Over 1 Million Supporters Sign Elizabeth Warren’s Student Loan Legislation
By Pam Martens: June 14, 2013 MIT’s President is supporting the plan, but it doesn’t take rocket scientists to understand the crisis. On July 1, if Congress does nothing between now and then, the interest rate charged on subsidized Stafford loans to college students will double from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent. On May 8 of this year, Senator Elizabeth Warren introduced her first piece of legislation, the Bank on Students Loan Fairness Act, which would allow students to borrow at the same interest rate on their student loans from the government as big banks pay when they borrow from the Federal Reserve’s discount window – a rate currently set at .75 percent. The rate would last for one year to allow Congress to enact a long term solution. Congressman John Tierney introduced a corresponding bill in the House of Representatives. Fifteen organizations have signed on as supporters to the … Continue reading
Cleta Mitchell: Why the IRS Has Cause To Probe Her Clients
By Pam Martens: June 13, 2013 Cleta Mitchell is one of the attorneys suing the IRS on behalf of tax-exempt “conservative” groups – the word “conservative” having become a euphemism for corporate money masquerading as free speech. Her baggage is endemic to the real problem. The billionaire Koch brothers, majority owners of the big oil, chemicals and paper company, Koch Industries, fund the “conservative” tax- exempt group, Americans for Prosperity, which then morphs into an octopus of other “conservative” tax-exempt groups. The Cato Institute, a so-called conservative tax-exempt organization spewing out public policy research with a pro big business agenda, was secretly owned by Charles Koch for 35 years and by David Koch for 20 years, along with a few other men. The secret of billionaires owning a conservative tax-exempt organization, subsidized by you and me, while it pushes a corporate agenda, became public in the spring of last year. … Continue reading
ACLU: NSA Is “Snatching Every American’s Address Book”
By Pam Martens: June 12, 2013 The American Civil Liberties Union has acted swiftly against the revelation that the National Security Agency (NSA) is interpreting Section 215 of the Patriot Act to allow it to collect metadata on every phone call made and received in the United States. Calling it akin to “snatching every American’s address book,” the ACLU together with the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) filed a federal lawsuit yesterday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, challenging the lawfulness of the program and asking for the phone records to be purged from the government’s databases. The lawsuit was fueled by Edward Snowden, a 29-year old former contractor for the NSA, who turned over Top Secret documents showing the Obama administration is using Section 215 of the Patriot Act to broadly spy on Americans, rather than abiding by the limited scope the … Continue reading