Category Archives: Uncategorized

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: November 12, 2020 ~ Last week, the New York Times’ Emily Flitter, Jeanna Smialek and Stacy Cowley provided an excellent rundown of the dangerous rollbacks of regulations on the big banks by federal regulators appointed by Donald Trump. Today, in preparation for a hearing with these regulators, the House Financial Services Committee has released a Memorandum that further outlines how the safety and soundness of the biggest banks have been impacted by changes to regulations. Many of the rollbacks or watering down of the bank rules have occurred quietly or without the attention of mainstream media. Taken together, the rule changes are striking in their reckless disregard for the safety and soundness of a sector that blew itself up just 12 years ago, taking the U.S. economy and U.S. housing market down with it, while getting propped up with the largest taxpayer and Fed bailout in U.S. … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: November 11, 2020 ~ The U.S. Senate Banking Committee held a virtual hearing yesterday that was benignly titled “Oversight of Financial Regulators.” It would be an understatement to say that there was nothing benign about the hearing. Fireworks went off throughout the hearing as Democratic Senators let it be known that they expected the crony relationship between the Fed and the Wall Street banks to be challenged by the incoming Biden administration. Senator Sherrod Brown set the tone for the hearing with his opening remarks, telling the panel of Trump era federal banking regulators the following: “We can get small businesses back on their feet. We can lift up the Black and brown communities that have been hit the hardest by this pandemic. We can keep people in their homes, make those homes more affordable, and bring down people’s energy bills. We can lead … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: November 10, 2020 ~ Each quarter publicly traded companies file a form known as the 10-Q with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The 10-Q filed by the largest bank in the United States, JPMorgan Chase, on November 2 carried a very disturbing paragraph that had not appeared in the 10-Q the bank filed on August 3. The paragraph reads as follows: “JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. has been advised by one of its U.S. regulators of a potential civil money penalty action against the Bank related to historical deficiencies in internal controls and internal audit over certain advisory and other activities. The Bank already has controls in place to address the deficiencies related to the proposed penalty. The Firm is currently engaged in resolution discussions with the U.S. regulator. There is no assurance that such discussions will result in resolution.” Why is this paragraph so … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: November 10, 2020 ~ Yesterday was the first trading day for the stock market since the networks called the presidential election for Joe Biden on Saturday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed up a whopping 834.5 points — which was actually near its lows of the day. The Dow was up 1,516 points shortly after the opening bell yesterday. The optimistic reaction in the Dow came from two pieces of news. Before the market opened, Pfizer announced that early data from it COVID-19 vaccine trial indicated that the vaccine may be 90 percent effective. That sent Dow futures soaring and a big move at the open of the market. The second piece of news being digested by the stock market was that the Democrats did not get the landslide victory that some polls had suggested. That suggested to the market, rightly or wrongly, that … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: November 9, 2020 ~ After successfully warding off barbarians outside the gates of the local election offices during the count of mail-in ballots, President-elect Joe Biden now has a new army of barbarians to deal with. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, using data collected by the Federal Election Commission, the industry category called “Finance, Insurance & Real Estate” donated a stunning $201,675,240 to Biden’s campaign and PACs supporting him. Add to that the category of “Lawyers and Lobbyists,” which donated $52,378,087, and you’re looking at a cool quarter of a billion dollars. The bulk of the $52 million that came from “Lawyers and Lobbyists” was donated by the lawyers and partners of the big law firms that represent the biggest Wall Street banks and securities firms. Big donors to Biden and the Democratic Party in the 2019/2020 cycle hail from such law … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: November 6, 2020 ~ Americans got a taste last night of how gracefully Donald Trump might hand over the reins of power if he loses this election. A number of networks chose to cut off his remarks from the White House last night as Trump said that he had won the election if you count the “legal” votes.  In Trump’s head, the votes legally cast by mail-in ballots by duly registered voters are “illegal.” Trump’s remarks came as his lawyers both threatened to file and did file lawsuits attempting to stop the counting of mail-in ballots in states where the Trump campaign is contemplating a potential loss. No one in the Trump campaign has produced any evidence of fraud in the election despite Trump’s statement on Wednesday that a fraud is taking place. Some of the threats have not been backed up with actual … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: November 5, 2020 ~ As Congress and 17 intelligence agencies of the U.S. government have investigated Russia engaging in interference in U.S. presidential elections, here is what has been going on right under the nose of the Senate Intelligence Committee, the Justice Department and all those intelligence agencies: one of the largest privately-owned companies in the world, Koch Industries, which has a massive financial interest in being allowed to continue to pollute the environment with its fossil fuels businesses, is allowed to simultaneously run a political campaign funding network as well as a political data mining and voter targeting operation on an unprecedented scale. The Chairman and CEO of Koch Industries, billionaire Charles Koch, sits atop this political juggernaut and has been given far too much cover by mainstream media. As television networks struggle to explain the spread of hate and divisiveness in America, … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: November 4, 2020 ~ Presidential candidate Joe Biden has called for Americans to have patience as states continue counting their legitimately filed ballots. Donald Trump, instead, attacked the legitimate counting of these votes in numerous states and declared himself the winner around 2:30 a.m. this morning from the East Room of the White House. Trump said he wanted all vote counting to stop and would be taking his case to the U.S. Supreme Court. Trump’s fit of pique over the continued counting of mailed-in ballots in Pennsylvania is like the defendant who has killed his parents and is now demanding that the Judge show him mercy because he’s an orphan. It was the Republican State Legislature in Pennsylvania that earlier this year refused the request by counties to be allowed, because of the pandemic, to begin counting the mailed-in ballots prior to election day. … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: November 3, 2020 ~ The eagerly anticipated and yet also dreaded day has finally arrived. In the interest of preserving this day lest post-traumatic-stress-disorder kicks in and eviscerates the nightmares of the last four years from our memory banks, we thought we would capture in photos the vibes of what the American presidential election has come to. The front cover of the New York Daily News, in the photo above, perfectly captures the queasy stomachs that the majority of Americans are experiencing today. But in an utterly bizarre action, at 6:50 a.m. this morning, futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average were suggesting that the stock market would open up more than 400 points. There is definitely some invisible hand buying up futures on maximum leverage to move the market higher this morning. If you need further evidence of fake market optimism for corporate … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: November 2, 2020 ~ The U.S. stock market, as measured by the Dow Jones Industrial Average, lost 1,833.97 points last week. The Dow was down every day except Thursday, when it eked out a gain of 139.16. The market was reacting to the following bad news: soaring cases of COVID-19 in the U.S.; a reemergence of the virus in Europe causing business shutdowns there; the failure of the U.S. Congress to pass a new stimulus bill; and a sharply lower price for West Texas Intermediate (WTI), domestic crude oil – which signals a further slowdown in economic activity. (At 7 a.m. this morning, WTI was down further, with a $34 handle.) The stock market’s losses would have likely been greater last week were it not for an intervention staged by the Federal Reserve at 11:00 a.m. on Friday. Here’s what happened and why Americans … Continue reading →