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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
Libor Cheats: On This Side of the Pond, Who Had the Most to Gain
By Pam Martens: July 9, 2012 The big money to be made from cheating on Libor was from exchange traded interest rate contracts and over-the-counter interest rate swaps. According to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, as of March 31, 2012, U.S. banks held $183.7 trillion in interest rate contracts. Just four firms represent 93% of total derivative holdings: JPMorgan Chase, Citibank, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs. A criminal investigation by the Canadian Competition Bureau into the rigging of Libor has implicated JPMorgan Bank Canada, Citibank Canada, HSBC Bank Canada, Deutsche Bank AG, and the Royal Bank of Scotland N.V. (RBS). UBS is cooperating with the probe and providing documents. The Bureau’s demand for production of documents at each of the banks suggest that their derivative traders used emails and instant messaging to communicate artificially high or low bids to the bank’s staff who were submitting rate … Continue reading
Another Day, Another Probe of JPMorgan
By Pam Martens: July 6, 2012 A five day chart of JPMorgan Chase shows what shareholders think of the company. (The market was closed Wednesday for the July 4th holiday.) Taxpayers have no reason to cheer either. Each day seems to bring another tax-payer funded investigation of potentially serious wrongdoing at the firm. The latest probe involves an investigation into JPMorgan for manipulating electric markets in California and the Midwest through its commodities business. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued subpoenas to JPMorgan in April and May. FERC wanted emails pertaining to its investigation. JPMorgan is now being sued by FERC in Federal Court in Washington, D.C. to turn over 25 emails it has withheld. The dispute has erupted into the public spotlight over the incredulous claim by JPMorgan that the emails are subject to attorney-client privilege. FERC says the emails are between bankers. How JPMorgan hopes to convince a Federal court … Continue reading
Avoiding Prison, Wall Street Style
By Pam Martens: July 5, 2012 Gary Foster, a former low level Vice President of Citigroup, pleaded guilty to embezzling over $22 million from the firm between 2003 and 2010. Last week, Foster was sentenced to 8 years in prison. Compare Foster’s 7-year take to former Chairman and CEO of Citigroup, Sandy Weill’s, 5-year haul from the firm. In just one year, 2000, Weill cashed in $196.2 million in stock options and received a bonus of $18.4 million. His total take in a five year period: $785 million. There have been no clawbacks of Weill’s pay, despite the near bankruptcy of the firm and the taxpayer bailout owing to tens of billions of toxic assets hidden off the balance sheet. So how did Weill avoid the fate of Foster? It’s all about getting a sycophant Board of Directors to rubber stamp your actions, filing the details with regulators, and making sure … Continue reading
House Panel Scores an F on Ethics
By Pam Martens: July 3, 2012 It is a violation of ethics rules for any member of the House of Representatives to use government equipment or property for political purposes, but the Republican Chair of the House Financial Services Committee, Spencer Bachus, is co-opting the taxpayer funded web site, that is part of the legislative branch of Congress, as a political machine against President Obama and House Democrats. A steady campaign of bashing the President and the Democrats is on display. A provision of the Members’ Handbook “permits the incidental personal use of House equipment and supplies when such use is negligible in nature, frequency, time consumed, and expense. However, this policy applies only to incidental personal use of those resources, and not to their use for campaign or political purposes.” (Emphasis in original.) Under rules issued by the Committee on House Administration and detailed in the Members’ Handbook and … Continue reading
Wall Street Flacks Have Their Knickers In a Twist Over Restoring Glass-Steagall
By Pam Martens: July 2, 2012 We’ve received some snarky comments about our article at AlterNet today (and here) on the factually challenged reporting at the New York Times, suggesting anyone who wants to restore the Glass-Steagall Act is a raging socialist. (Interestingly, the attackers are silent on the boatload of misreported “facts” in the New York Times.) Yes, those wild-eyed socialists at the Dallas Federal Reserve and Thomas Hoenig, FDIC director and recent director of the Kansas City Federal Reserve and John Reed, former CEO of Citibank, don’t know what they’re talking about either when they say the big banks must be broken up. I recall a veteran activist telling me once, you can gauge the strength of the challenge by the degree of the backlash.
Financial Services Chair Bachus: “This Is How the System Is Supposed to Work” [Is This Man on Bath Salts?]
By Pam Martens: July 1, 2012 Spencer Bachus is the Chairman of the powerful House Financial Services Committee. On June 19, 2012, Bachus issued a press release that carried his opening remarks for the hearing on JPMorgan’s $2 billion (and growing) losses. The final sentence of that prepared text read as follows: “Before closing, once again I want to re-emphasize the point that JPMorgan and its shareholders – not the bank’s clients, and more importantly, not the taxpayers – are the ones paying for the bank’s mistakes. This is how the system is supposed to work.” This is how the system is supposed to work? Maybe for the Russian Mafia or in some dystopian universe where only descendants of the Koch brothers are permitted to live. But here in America, those who have not yet had a Fox News lobotomy, believe this is exactly how the system is not meant to … Continue reading
JPMorgan’s Other Big Gamble
By Pam Martens: June 29, 2012 Recent settlements by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) have sent a dangerous message to Wall Street: feel free to lie freely to investors and shareholders as long as you have deep pockets. In 2007, Citigroup told investors it had $13 billion in subprime exposures, knowing the figure was in excess of $50 billion. It got caught and on July 29, 2010 paid $75 million to settle charges with the SEC. Its CFO, Gary Crittenden, was fined a puny $100,000 and the head of its Investor Relations Department, Arthur Tildesley, was fined an even punier $80,000. That sent a clear message to Wall Street, lying about the risks you are taking or what’s on your balance sheet results in a slap on the wrist and some chump change. Lying has now morphed into its own profit center. Also in July 2010, Goldman Sachs settled … Continue reading
Supreme Court’s Health Care Headlines With Flashbacks From the Past
By Pam Martens: June 28, 2012 As networks battled to break the news first, today’s U.S. Supreme Court decision which upheld President Obama’s health care reform, was initially misreported as being overturned on the individual mandate issue by both Fox News and CNN. CNBC did not misreport the outcome but spent what seemed like an eternity attempting to interpret snippets from Reuters. CNBC then switched to a constitutional law expert who had to admit he did not know yet how the decision had come down. ?
Mark Ames: How the ACLU and Human Rights Groups Quietly Exterminated Labor Rights
Mark Ames, at Exiled Online, has a must read piece, The Left’s Big Sellout: How The ACLU & Human Rights Groups Quietly Exterminated Labor Rights. Here’s a snippet: “Progressive intellectuals have been acting very bipolar towards labor lately, characterized by wild mood swings ranging from the ‘We’re sorry we abandoned labor, how could we!’ sentiment during last year’s Wisconsin uprising against Koch waterboy Scott Walker, to the recent ‘labor is dead/it’s all labor’s fault’ snarling after the recall vote against Gov. Walker failed.”