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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
The Koch Method Versus Crony Capitalism
By Pam Martens: September 12, 2012 At first I thought someone had emailed me a piece from The Onion, the on-line satire magazine; Charles G. Koch lecturing Americans on business integrity and crony capitalism – what else could it be but satire? So I went directly to the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal last Sunday evening and there it was – a piece by Charles G. Koch titled “Corporate Cronyism Harms America,” — the equivalent of Mitt Romney lecturing Americans on compassionate pet care. Koch puts forth the premise that when businesses collude with government and receive corporate welfare, we all lose. But along the way in this argument, he makes a number of highly hypocritical comments. Koch tells us that the role of business is to “act lawfully and with integrity.” Should someone with Koch’s baggage dare to make that assertion, and in a newspaper owned by … Continue reading
Homeless Children in New York City on Par With Great Depression as Wall Street Snubs Key Charity Helping Them
By Pam Martens: September 11, 2012 Will someone please wake up the Wall Street Scrooge crowd with the news that while they may still be munching on their Golden Osetra caviar and sipping Billinis, tens of thousands of fellow citizens of their city are experiencing the worst downturn since the Great Depression – and, for God’s sake, that includes innocent children who can’t be blamed by even the most Ayn Randian of cold hearts for their circumstances. According to New York City data and a report in the New York Daily News on Sunday, the number of homeless children sleeping in New York City shelters reached 19,000 last week. That’s on a par with the data for the Great Depression. The numbers are rising dramatically year after year and yet Wall Street’s response last year to a core charity easing the suffering of homeless children in its own city was … Continue reading
Will JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon Get Swallowed by the Whale
By Pam Martens: September 10, 2012 Last week the business media was buzzing about a newly ramped up investigation into the $5.8 billion in losses thus far reported by JPMorgan’s Chief Investment Office in what is now dubbed the London Whale trade. The Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Chaired by Carl Levin, is reportedly interviewing former personnel who worked in that division, based in London as well as New York. Levin’s powerful subcommittee has jurisdiction to conduct investigations into a wide array of issues, including fraud and abuse, and corporate crime. The real breaking news on this matter, however, occurred on May 13 of this year when Levin appeared on Meet the Press. Host David Gregory asked Levin what should be the price for what occurred at JPMorgan. Levin has this to say: “In terms of past activities, that’s in the hands of people who are assessing whether there was any criminal … Continue reading
Up the Down Staircase on Wall Street
By Pam Martens: September 8, 2012 The books coming out about Wall Street today reflect an incremental change in attitude: in the late 80s, it was a pack of phone throwing liars; by the 90s, they were thieves; today, devils. Liar’s Poker by Michael Lewis, Den of Thieves by James B. Stewart, All the Devils Are Here by Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera, show an evolution in sophistication of crime on Wall Street. While the public may not be able to recite the precise underpinnings of each securitized, high frequentized, internalized crime, it is now accepted wisdom that pigs, liars, thieves and devils inhabit much of Wall Street. Not surprisingly, this perception has led to an exodus of people willing to turn over their hard-earned life savings to the gluttonous crowd. An old saying on Wall Street was “where are the customers’ yachts.” Today, it’s “where are the customers.” That … Continue reading
Who Says Wall Street’s Not Backing Obama
By Pam Martens: September 7, 2012 It’s hard to imagine that a large number of the biggest, most powerful law firms representing Wall Street would be putting their money behind anything but a sure bet. So forget what you’ve heard about the Romney campaign getting the big bucks from Wall Street; here’s how the smart money is betting. The data was compiled from records at the Center for Responsive Politics and represents contributions made by employees of the law firms. It does not include funds given to PACs or Committees. DLA Piper LLP Obama: $308,165 Romney: $26,750 Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP Obama: $194,616 Romney: $47,160 Arnold & Porter LLP Obama: $127,687 Romney: $8,500 Debevoise & Plimpton LLP Obama: $111,176 Romney: $7,750 Covington & Burling Obama: $91,082 Romney: $36,000 Milbank, Tweed, Hadley, McCloy LLP Obama: $72,840 Romney: $54,000 WilmerHale Obama: $70,860 Romney: $15,250 Goodwin Procter LLP Obama: $67,410 Romney: $13,500 Simpson Thacher & Bartlett … Continue reading
Wall Street: Is the Corruption Getting Worse
By Pam Martens: September 6, 2012 To help answer the question posed in our headline, we have a two-part investigation appearing today and tomorrow over at the gutsy web site, AlterNet. If you participate in a public pension or own index funds in your 401(K) plan, chances are you are a long-term shareholder of Citigroup common stock. That means you’ve lost 90 percent in the value of those shares over the past five years while former Citigroup CEO Sandy Weill got an inside deal that reaped him a 29 percent gain in less than two years. But don’t feel too bad; even a powerful ally of the U.S. can’t get justice when it comes to Wall Street. This story should have been front and center in the excellent book by Neil Barofsky, Bailout: An Inside Account Of How Washington Abandoned Main Street While Bailing Out Wall Street. Barofsky was the crusading … Continue reading
Voices on Both Sides of the Atlantic Call for Restoring Glass-Steagall
By Pam Martens: September 5, 2012 Creating a timeline of some of the major voices and media that are now calling for the restoration of the Glass-Steagall Act, separating Wall Street trading firms from commercial banking, exposes interesting new insights. Most notably, the New York Times editorial page did not admit its mistake in supporting the repeal of the legislation, or offer an apology to the public, until Sandy Weill had effectively given the break-up of banks his blessing on CNBC. Why is it that the New York Times needed the nudge from Weill. Also insightful is the Bill Moyers’ interview with John Reed, who co-chaired Citigroup with Sandy Weill. Reed candidly confirms what many of us have suspected for a long time. Repealing the legislation that had kept the financial system safe for almost seven decades was motivated by visions dancing around in Weill’s head of getting very rich. And finally, we learn … Continue reading
Freedom of the Press Under Assault in New York City
By Pam Martens: September 4, 2012 The reality of what is happening in New York City has eclipsed the human capacity to absorb it. Four years after crippling the U.S. economy, Wall Street is still settling new cases of fraud each week by paying a fine and moving along to the next fraud and the next fine. Citigroup settled three cases just last week. This is the culture that landed the U.S. within a hairsbreadth of the second Great Depression and yet, incomprehensively, the coddling of the crime denizens continues while the media who attempt to cover protests against that culture are battered and jailed along with the protesters. Exhibit A on the list of New York City insanity is the spy center created by the NYPD to cohabitate with Wall Street using $150 million of taxpayer funds – the Lower Manhattan Security Coordination Center. Firms like Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, … Continue reading
Why Does Citigroup Still Have Shareholders
By Pam Martens: August 31, 2012 This week Citigroup, the serial settler of lawsuits on the cheap over wrongdoing, agreed to end litigation over its failure to disclose the full scope of its exposure to subprime debt. The settlement tab — $590 million. Between 2006 and November 21, 2008, the Friday before “Citigroup Weekend,” when the U.S. government had to step in to save the bank, Citigroup’s market value (the worth of all of its common shares in the marketplace) went from $250 billion to $20.5 billion. So the harm done to shareholders, in terms of loss of confidence, was more in the range of $229.5 billion, not $590 million. The lead law firm was Kirby McInerney LLP. It did a masterful job of compiling and exposing the subterfuge and who knew what and when at Citigroup. We have the Court system to thank for the diminished payout. Court precedents … Continue reading
Occupy Wall Street to Protest September 17: Why It’s Still the Most Important Thing In the World
By Pam Martens: August 30, 2012 Shortly after the Occupy Wall Street protests began in lower Manhattan in the Fall of 2011, Naomi Klein published a piece at The Nation, heralding the movement as “the most important thing in the world now.” To the chagrin of Wall Street, Klein succinctly explained to the populace what was coming next from the marauding wealth barbarians unless there was a demonstrative push back from the citizenry: “If there is one thing I know, it is that the 1 percent loves a crisis. When people are panicked and desperate and no one seems to know what to do, that is the ideal time to push through their wish list of pro-corporate policies: privatizing education and social security, slashing public services, getting rid of the last constraints on corporate power. Amidst the economic crisis, this is happening the world over. “And there is only one … Continue reading