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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
After Being Criminally Charged for Rigging Precious Metals, JPMorgan Chase Controls 53 Percent of All Precious Metals Contracts Held by Banks

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: April 3, 2023 ~ According to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), there were 4,706 federally-insured banks and savings associations in the U.S. as of December 31, 2022. Of those, according to the quarterly report released last Friday from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), a little less than one-quarter found a reason to engage in derivative trading activities. As of December 31, 2022, just 1,139 FDIC-insured commercial banks and savings associations reported trading of derivatives in the fourth quarter of 2022, according to the OCC. Ostensibly, instead of running a derivatives casino, the other three-quarters of taxpayer-subsidized banks were doing what taxpayers want federally-insured banks to do: make business loans; provide affordable mortgage loans to homebuyers; provide checking accounts devoid of hacking, identity theft and predatory overdraft fees; and not blow up the bank by getting in bed with derivatives, crypto … Continue reading
Congress Sweats the Small Stuff as Four Wall Street Mega Banks Have a Combined $3.3 Trillion in Uninsured Deposits

Editor’s Update: The FDIC has confirmed that none of the $622.607 billion in deposits in foreign offices/branches of Citibank are FDIC insured. See the stunning information in the ninth paragraph below. By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 30, 2023 ~ On Tuesday, Martin Gruenberg, the Chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the federal agency that serves as both a bank regulator and the overseer of the federal insurance program for U.S. bank deposits, testified before the Senate Banking Committee. The dangers of U.S. banks holding large amounts of uninsured deposits came up repeatedly in his testimony. For example, Gruenberg’s written testimony included these details about the ongoing banking crisis: “…on Friday, March 10, a number of institutions with large amounts of uninsured deposits reported that depositors had begun to withdraw their funds.” And this: “The FDIC estimates that the cost to the DIF [Deposit Insurance Fund] of resolving … Continue reading
Weird Things Are Happening at Silvergate Bank and First Republic Bank

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 29, 2023 ~ Silvergate Capital, the parent of Silvergate Bank – which has lost 90 percent of its share price year-to-date and announced it is winding down and liquidating — is still running a website that is putting a rosy glow on the bank’s operations. For example, under the heading of “Banking for the future,” the Silvergate website shares this: “Silvergate Bank has served entrepreneurs in unique and niche industries for over 20 years. Recognizing digital currency’s potential during the sector’s infancy, we built strong relationships with pioneers who were turned away by traditional banks. This solidified our position as industry-leading partners and innovators which remains true today.” Wait. What? (What ever happened to the Federal Trade Commission’s Truth in Advertising Law?) Those so-called “strong relationships” with digital currency firms turned into highly-fickle hot money once markets learned that Silvergate had been doing highly … Continue reading
As Senate Banking Committee Convenes Hearing on Exploding Banks, an FDIC Chart Shows the Banking Crisis Is Far from Over

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 28, 2023 ~ Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH), the Chair of the Senate Banking Committee, will convene a hearing this morning at 10 a.m. to take testimony from federal bank regulators on why the second and third largest bank failures in U.S. history occurred within two days of each other this month. (A number of other regional banks have seen their share prices plunge this month.) The two banks that failed and were taken over by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) were Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and Signature Bank. Both had experienced bank runs in March and both had extreme exposure to uninsured deposits. One of the witnesses at today’s hearing, Martin Gruenberg, Chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), explains as follows in his written testimony for today’s hearing: “A common thread between the failure of SVB and the failure of Signature … Continue reading
The Banking Crisis Knock-On Effect Has Been a Stampede into Government Money Market Funds – Foiling the Fed’s Effort to Raise Market Interest Rates

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 27, 2023 ~ On Sunday, Financial Times reporters Brooke Masters, Harriet Clarfelt and Kate Duguid published an article under the headline: “Money market funds swell by more than $286bn as investors pull deposits from banks.” This article needs some important clarifications. First is the fact that money market funds had to be bailed out by the government during both the 2008 financial crisis and the more recent financial panic of 2020 stemming from the COVID pandemic. On September 19, 2008 (four days after Lehman Brothers was placed into bankruptcy), stocks were crashing and investors were in a panic, the Department of the Treasury announced that it would provide a guarantee for money market mutual funds, standing behind more than $3.5 trillion in money market fund assets. In mid-March 2020, as the share prices of mega banks on Wall Street were plunging in price and … Continue reading
Powell and Yellen Say the Banking System Is Sound as Another Global Bank Teeters

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 24, 2023 ~ The reassurances of Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen that the U.S. banking system is sound, stand in sharp contrast to what is happening in markets. This week, the shorts have found another easy new global bank target to try to take down after making a bundle of money betting against Credit Suisse, which was taken over for 82 cents a share on Sunday by its Swiss competitor, UBS. This time the global banking target is Deutsche Bank, a global behemoth we have warned about ad nauseum here at Wall Street On Parade. Deutsche Bank was a $120 dollar stock prior to the financial crisis in 2008. It closed yesterday at $9.65 in New York and is down another 10 percent in early morning trading in Europe. The weakness in Deutsche Bank is spilling over into … Continue reading
Citigroup’s Citibank Took the Largest Amount of Loans from the FHLB of NY in 2022, Reminiscent of FHLB Loans Taken by Silvergate, SVB, Signature, and First Republic Bank

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 22, 2023 ~ On March 13 we published the chart below, showing the ten financial institutions that had taken the largest loan advances from the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco as of year-end 2022. It’s a very ominous sign that the bank at the top of the list, Silicon Valley Bank, collapsed and is now under the control of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). Silicon Valley Bank had $212 billion in assets as of year-end 2022, making it the second largest bank failure in U.S. history. The largest failure was Washington Mutual in 2008, with approximately $300 billion in assets. The second bank on the list, First Republic Bank (ticker FRC), has seen its share price collapse, had its debt downgraded deeper into junk by S&P Global on Sunday, and is experiencing an exit stampede by depositors. The sixth bank on … Continue reading
At Year End, JPMorgan Chase Held Over $1 Trillion in Uninsured Deposits Versus $119 Billion at First Republic

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 21, 2023 ~ Jamie Dimon is the Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, the largest bank in the U.S., which is also ranked the riskiest global bank by its regulators. But instead of getting his own house in order in the midst of a banking crisis, Dimon has been peculiarly focused elsewhere. Over the past five days, Jamie Dimon’s legions of publicists have been burning up the phone lines with reporters, pushing the narrative that Jamie Dimon is some kind of financial wizard who needs to have a seat at the table to save the regional bank, First Republic Bank. (Scroll down here to see the exhaustive public relations effort that has gone into this narrative.) Last Thursday, news hit the wire services that Dimon had lined up 11 banks willing to place $30 billion in uninsured deposits into First Republic Bank. JPMorgan Chase, … Continue reading
UBS Was Quietly Bailed Out in 2008; Now It’s Getting a $173 Billion Backstop to Buy Credit Suisse at 82 Cents a Share

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 20, 2023 ~ Yesterday, the Swiss banking giant, UBS, agreed to a shotgun wedding with its collapsing long-time Swiss rival, Credit Suisse. Switzerland has committed $173 billion in loans and guarantees to the combined firm. A key player in this deal was the central bank of Switzerland, the Swiss National Bank. That’s the very same central bank that had quietly bailed out UBS during the financial crisis of 2008 with the assistance of dollar swap lines from the Federal Reserve (the “Fed”) – the central bank of the U.S. Yesterday, the Fed announced the return of those emergency dollar swap lines as the shotgun wedding of UBS and Credit Suisse failed to quell a spreading banking panic. The way this UBS bailout went down in 2008 was illuminated in the audit of the Fed’s emergency bailout facilities from December 2007 to July 2010 that was … Continue reading
JPMorgan’s High Risk Footprint; Bloomberg News as PR Agent for Jamie Dimon; and the Untold Story of the Failed “Rescue” of First Republic by the Mega Banks

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 17, 2023 ~ At 6:33 a.m. this morning, this big, bold headline appeared at the very top of Bloomberg News web page: “How Dimon and Yellen Helped Secure $30 Billion Lifeline for First Republic.” This headline is part of a very long, highly questionable promotion of Jamie Dimon by Bloomberg News as the wunderkind of Wall Street banking. In reality, under Dimon’s tenure as Chairman and CEO, JPMorgan Chase has been on an unprecedented crime spree, including being charged with five felony counts by the U.S. Department of Justice, and his bank is annually ranked by U.S. banking regulators as well as the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision as the riskiest bank on the planet. (See charts at this link at the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Financial Research. Give the page time to load the charts.) This morning’s headline at Bloomberg News was clearly … Continue reading