-
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
Bill Moyers, Matt Taibbi, Yves Smith: This Friday on PBS
By Pam Martens: June 21, 2012 On this week’s Moyers & Company, Rolling Stone writer and blogger, Matt Taibbi, and Yves Smith, creator of the finance and economics blog Naked Capitalism, discuss the nexus between Wall Street and Washington and how that’s killing democracy in the U.S. Moyers will also interview Peter Edelman, who discusses what it will take to keep the needs of poor people on the American political agenda. Edelman’s new book is So Rich, So Poor: Why It’s So Hard to End Poverty in America. Watch a preview here along with a time schedule for your local PBS. In the preview you’ll hear Taibbi say “vast criminality” — Smith links CEOs and corruption — Edelman says “screwed.” That ably sums up where we are.
Empty Senate Hearing a National Disgrace
By Pam Martens: June 20, 2012 The Senate Banking Committee’s subcommittee on Securities, Insurance, and Investment held a hearing from 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. this morning on a matter of national urgency: the failing process of bringing new companies to market, otherwise known as Initial Public Offerings or IPOs. The hearing was titled: “Examining the IPO Process: Is It Working for Ordinary Investors?” A more appropriate title would have been: “The Senate Hearing Process: Is It Working for the American People?” Out of an 18-member subcommittee, one Senator showed up for the hearing, Senator Jack Reed, Democrat from Rhode Island. Calls and emails to the press offices of the other members of the subcommittee turned up only one explanation (thus far) for this embarrassing slight to the panelists and to a subject that goes to the heart of creating jobs in America and to restoring confidence in the markets … Continue reading
Congressional Hearing Shows Loss of Public Confidence in Markets
By Pam Martens: June 20, 2012 The House of Representatives held a hearing at 9:00 a.m. this morning titled “Market Structure: Ensuring Orderly, Efficient, Innovative and Competitive Markets for Issuers and Investors.” The hearing was convened by the Capital Markets and Government Sponsored Enterprises Subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee. The panel included no one representing the public’s voice. Four of the panelists called attention to the loss of confidence that the public now has in the stock market. Those views are in stark contrast to the perpetually repeated statement by Jamie Dimon, Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, that “We have the widest, deepest and best capital markets in the world.” There are now 264,000 links at Google’s search engine to some variation of that statement by Jamie Dimon, e.g., “the best capital markets,” “the widest, deepest and most transparent capital markets.” The gap between Dimon’s statement and … Continue reading
JPMorgan: Too Big To Tell the Truth
By Pam Martens: June 19, 2012 The House Financial Services Committee was in hearing session for four hours today on JPMorgan Chase’s losses and the only thing that was materially different from last week’s Senate Banking hearing was the tie of Jamie Dimon, Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase. America’s mega banks that are too big to fail are now viewed as too big to manage, too big to regulate and the latest incarnation, too big to tell the truth to the American people for fear of a panic. Repeatedly during the hearing today, Chairman Spencer Bachus, Republican from Alabama, interrupted fellow members of the Committee who attempted to probe the size or specifics of the losses. The impression was that a deal had been made with JPMorgan’s lawyers that these subjects would be quickly shot down by the Chair. The House Financial Services committee also heard from the siloed regulators … Continue reading
JPMorgan To Provide Details of Second Quarter CIO Losses on July 13
JPMorgan Chase & Co. will present a review of second quarter results and an update on its losses in its Chief Investment Office on July 13 at 7:30 a.m. (Eastern). The presentation, including a question and answer session, are expected to conclude at approximately 9:30 a.m. (Eastern). The general public can access the conference call via the following numbers: (866) 541-2724 or (877) 368-8360 in the U.S. and Canada; (706) 634-7246 for international callers. Callers are requested to dial in 10 minutes prior to the start of the call. The live audio webcast and presentation slides will be available at www.jpmorganchase.com under Investor Relations/Investor Presentations.
SEC Releases Tomorrow’s Testimony on JPMorgan Losses
By Pam Martens: June 18, 2012 Mary Schapiro, Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, has released her written statement for tomorrow’s hearing before the House Financial Services Committee regarding JPMorgan Chase’s losses. Based on the text, a number of problematic areas may arise for Chairman and CEO, Jamie Dimon, who signed off on the firm’s first quarter financial filings with the SEC: Was there adequate disclosure of the credit default insurance sold to hedge funds and the ensuing income the firm was receiving from this high risk source; Was the potential for losses on all synthetic credit products adequately described; Did the firm properly detail the collateral calls that could arise on these synthetic credit derivatives. Why wasn’t the change to the VAR (Value at Risk) disclosed to investors? Read the full text of the statement here.
U.S. Chamber of Commerce Frets About JPMorgan Hearing Tomorrow
By Pam Martens: June 18, 2012 You didn’t really think the ubiquitous U.S. Chamber of Commerce would stay quiet for long regarding the JPMorgan Chase fracas on Capital Hill did you? They’ve got a post up today at their blog comparing JPMorgan’s Chief Investment Office to getting hit by a bus. While that’s exactly what it has felt like to shareholders who have lost a quarter of their investment in the stock since Bloomberg News first started reporting on the problem on April 5, the Chamber actually attempts to twist the bus analogy into an argument for giving JPMorgan a free hand to blow up depositors’ money as it sees fit. One suspects that someone connected to JPMorgan has asked the Chamber to trumpet a warning to frisky Congressmen on the House Financial Services Committee who will be probing Jamie Dimon, Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, tomorrow. After the … Continue reading
Wall Street Hearings Continue This Week
By Pam Martens: June 18, 2012 As you review the make up for the panels in these hearings, be sure to note that not one hearing has included representatives from the public or from consumer advocacy groups. “Examining Bank Supervision and Risk Management in Light of JPMorgan Chase’s Trading Loss” House Financial Services Committee Tuesday, June 19 9:30 a.m.; 2128 Rayburn House Office Building WITNESS LIST Panel I Thomas J. Curry, Comptroller of the Currency Mary Schapiro, Chairman, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Gary Gensler, Chairman, U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission Martin J. Gruenberg, Acting Chairman, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Scott Alvarez, General Counsel, Federal Reserve Board of Governors Panel II Jamie Dimon, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, JPMorgan Chase & Co. ~ “Market Structure – Ensuring Orderly, Efficient, Innovative and Competitive Markets for Issuers and Investors” House of Representatives Financial Services’ Subcommittee on Capital Markets and Government Sponsored Enterprises … Continue reading
Can You Trust This Banker
By Pam Martens: June 13, 2012 Jamie Dimon, Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, told the U.S. Senate Banking Committee today that “there are no off-balance sheet vehicles…” But JPMorgan Chase’s financial filings with the SEC for 2011 tell a different story. Those documents state: “Includes off–balance sheet risk-weighted assets at December 31, 2011, of $301.1 billion, $291.0 billion and $38 million…for JPMorgan Chase, JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. and Chase Bank USA, N.A., respectively.” Dimon was not asked to testify under oath today. In an exchange with Senator Bob Menendez, Dimon said he never criticized the new regulatory requirements for increased capital for banks. Senator Menendez said he did. Dimon said that was untrue. The Senator was referring to an interview Dimon gave to the Financial Times of London which was published on September 12, 2011. The Financial Times reported as follows: Dimon: “ ‘I’m very close to thinking the United States shouldn’t be … Continue reading
Moody’s to Lower the Boom on Wall Street By End of June
By Pam Martens: June 11, 2012 As Congress and a growing number of economic analysts rethink the mega bank model and the repeal of the depression era Glass-Steagall Act that walled off commercial banks holding insured deposits from high risk investment banks and brokerage firms, Moody’s is expected to raise more alarm bells within the next two weeks. It is anticipated based on previous statements from Moody’s that up to 17 global banks may see a ratings downgrade. Among the group, five of the largest U.S. banks could be negatively impacted, including, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America Corp., Citigroup, Goldman Sachs Group and Morgan Stanley. Morgan Stanley may see a multi-level downgrade; its corporate bonds are trading as if the downgrade has already occurred. This is not reassuring to the millions of brokerage clients in the firm’s Morgan Stanley Smith Barney unit. In 2009, Morgan Stanley purchased 51 percent of the … Continue reading