Category Archives: Uncategorized

By Pam Martens: October 10, 2012  Yesterday, eleven intrepid countries in Europe, led by the rallying cry of Germany and France, agreed to forge ahead on the imposition of a transaction tax on the trading of stocks, bonds and derivatives.   The specifics have not yet been ironed out but the original proposal called for taxing trading of stocks and bonds at 0.1 percent per transaction and derivative trading at 0.01 percent.  The transaction tax is referred to in Europe as the Tobin Tax, named after the American economist James Tobin who first proposed it over 40 years ago.  That forty year number is the operative term in this battle.  Another phrase comes to mind as well: when hell freezes over.  The prospect that either Wall Street or The City (London’s equivalent to Wall Street) would tolerate this tax without a mass exodus of business from the countries imposing it is … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: October 9, 2012  Obviously, back in 2008, when Wall Street was dumping millions into the campaign of Barack Obama, it didn’t ask for a prenup.  The honeymoon went smoothly for a while, with Wall Street quite content to have slap-on-the-wrist Mary Schapiro sitting atop the SEC and Tim Geithner, the former sugar-daddy of bailouts from the New York Fed, holding down the fort at the U.S. Treasury.   But then came Dodd-Frank, the Volcker Rule, regulation of derivatives, quips about fat-cats from the President and a big-money divorce.  Today, reports the Wall Street Journal, Wall Street and financial services firms have given a tepid $12 million to President Obama’s campaign versus the $43 million they gave in 2008.  Presidential candidate Mitt Romney has received over $24 million from the slimmed down fat-cats in this election cycle.  During the first presidential debate, Romney had this to say about the … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: October 8, 2012 Since August of last year, Nathan Sproul, the man at the center of the growing voter registration fraud investigations in 11 counties in Florida, as well as other states, has registered at least 10 limited liability companies at the address of 80 E. Rio Salado Parkway, Suite 817, Tempe, Arizona.  But in this photo taken on August 21 of this year, all that we see at this address are about a dozen volunteers making signs for Presidential candidate Mitt Romney in a big open space devoid of desks or anything else looking like a business. Various media have reported that the Romney campaign has said its relationship with Sproul ended in March of this year, but this photo was taken six weeks ago, according to the caption. Why are volunteers for Romney working out of Nathan Sproul’s office rather than out of the official … Continue reading →

  By Pam Martens: October 5, 2012 What happened to the party of a “thousand points of light” and a “kinder, gentler nation”?  Who ever thought we’d yearn for the days of George H.W. Bush?  First it was Newt Gingrich on the stump last November calling child labor laws “truly stupid.”  Now it’s the Republican Party’s Presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, promising in his first Presidential debate to kill Federal funding to PBS and put Big Bird, whose Sesame Street program airs on that station, on the endangered species list. Gingrich made his remarks at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, stating: “It is tragic what we do in the poorest neighborhoods, entrapping children in, first of all, in child laws, which are truly stupid.”  Gingrich goes on to add: “I tried for years to have a very simple model. Most of these schools ought to get rid of the unionized janitors, … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: October 4, 2012  Fifty-two years after the first televised Presidential debate, it’s stunning to see how little has changed.  The first debate was sponsored by the three corporate networks, ABC, CBS, NBC.  Those major networks still exist today.  The first debate was between candidates from the two major parties – Republican and Democrat – which still control elections today. And the content of the debate, 52 years later, still centers around a Democrat believing that government has a critical role in helping to improve the health, education and well being of its citizens and a Republican ensconced in the view that government is the problem.  In last night’s debate, Republican candidate Mitt Romney repeated his party’s mantra — “free people and free enterprises, doing things together.” He said President Obama had a policy that equated to “trickle-down government.”  Except for the sweat that dripped profusely from Richard … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: October 3, 2012 According to the Arizona Secretary of State archives, Nathan Sproul’s address at 80 E. Salado Parkway, Suites 814 and 817, in Tempe, Arizona, has been home to 27 companies. Those companies clearly show Sproul as the agent, principal, or member of the company.  Two other companies incorporated in other states use Sproul’s office address, but do not link him to the firm: Strategic Allied Consulting, registered in Virginia, and Grassroots Outreach LLC, registered in California and Nevada.   Strategic Allied Consulting has been linked to allegations of voter registration fraud in Florida and Colorado. Sproul has recently come forward to admit his involvement with the firm, indicating that he was asked to keep his association secret by the Republican National Committee (RNC) due to previous allegations of voter registration fraud in prior election cycles.  As allegations have spread to multiple counties in Florida, with credible … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: October 2, 2012  The voter registration firm secretly set up by the controversial Republican strategist, Nathan Sproul, has hired a top white collar criminal defense attorney, Frederick Petti, of the Phoenix, Arizona law firm, Petti and Briones.  Sproul’s voter registrations firms were investigated in the past for fraud but never prosecuted.  To blunt scrutiny, Sproul says he was asked by the Republican National Committee (RNC) to set up a front company with no connection to him for this election cycle.  According to state Republican committees, the RNC then turned around and recommended the firm, Strategic Allied Consulting, to Republican committees in swing voter states.  The ruse only came out because of a quick thinking blogger named Greg Flynn at BlueNC.com  who investigated the trail of Strategic Allied Consulting and found that the web site was registered to Sproul’s firm, even though the firm’s corporate filing in Virginia made no … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: October 2, 2012  Yesterday, Federal District Court Judge, Richard Sullivan, issued a 32-page smack down to the mass arrest practices of the New York City Police Department.  The Court ruled that the NYPD’s arrests of hundreds of peaceful protesters during the 2004 Republican National Convention in Manhattan were unlawful.   In one specific instance, on August 31, 2004, when the police arrested more than 200 peaceful protesters near Church and Fulton Streets, the Court had this to say:  “Moreover, even if [NYPD’s] Monahan’s dispersal order had been sufficiently loud to be heard by all, the marchers had no opportunity to comply with it. Monahan abruptly stopped the march within minutes of its beginning and ordered the marchers to move to the north side of Fulton Street against the St. Paul Cemetery fence. At that point, the police began to form a line that effectively corralled the marchers on the … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: October 1, 2012 There are growing allegations of widespread voter registration fraud from Florida to California.  Voters are being registered as Republicans when they are not and given fake or wrong addresses in the wrong voting precinct.  This could lead to widespread voter disenfranchisement on election day. The footprints lead to a long-time Republican strategist named Nathan Sproul who has run various companies out of a suite of offices at 80 East Rio Salado Parkway, Suite 814, Tempe, Arizona.  Sproul’s companies have been the target of voter registration fraud probes in prior years. The company at the center of the latest allegations is Strategic Allied Consulting. As Brad Friedman reports: “The firm, Strategic Allied Consulting, is the latest creation of Sproul, a longtime, high-level GOP operative whose companies — including Sproul & Associates and Lincoln Strategy Group — have been accused of destroying Democratic voter registration forms … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: September 28, 2012  U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is now three for three in the book world: the quintessential poster boy for regulatory capture who ended up as Citigroup’s bitch.  In Ron Suskind’s  Confidence Men, Geithner ignores a directive from the President of the United States to wind down Citigroup.  In Neil Barofsky’s Bailout, Geithner is the evil genius using the Home Affordable  Modification Program (HAMP) to “foam the runways” for the banks, slowing down the foreclosure stream so the banks could stay afloat, with no genuine goal to help struggling families stay in their homes.  Now Sheila Bair, the ultimate insider as former head of the FDIC during the crisis, has completed the microscopic job on Geithner in Bull by the Horns. The image that emerges is a two-headed monster: a regulator functioning as a Citigroup messenger boy and an insanely mismanaged bank that was somehow able … Continue reading →