By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: February 18, 2020 ~ Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell sat through two days of grueling hearings before the House Financial Services Committee and Senate Banking Committee last week. At numerous times, the Fed and Powell were portrayed by Congressional members as sugar daddies for Wall Street while aloof to the financial suffering of the average American. (See Fed Chair Tells Congress There Is a 10-Year “Game Plan” to Deal with Financial Crisis But No Plan to Deal with Americans Left Devastated By It.) The House Financial Services Committee held its hearing on Tuesday. The Senate Banking Committee held its hearing on Wednesday. On Thursday, in a surprise move, the Fed announced that it would be trimming the $30 billion it has been making in 14-day loans (at about 1.60 percent interest) to Wall Street’s trading houses to $25 billion through March 12 and trimming … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: February 18, 2020 ~ HSBC has become the latest bank with a big Wall Street footprint to announce job cuts. After announcing that its 2019 profits fell by about a third, it said it would cut 35,000 jobs over the next three years. Some of the job cuts are expected to fall within its investment banking business in the U.S. The HSBC news comes amid a steady drumbeat of similar news on Wall Street. In July of last year, another European bank with heavy derivative ties to Wall Street, Deutsche Bank, confirmed plans to cut 18,000 jobs. In the same month, Bloomberg News reported that Citigroup would be cutting hundreds of trading jobs. Then in September Commerzbank announced it would trim 4300 jobs. That news was followed by CNN reporting in December that Morgan Stanley would cut 1500 jobs. This is by no means … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: February 17, 2020 ~ Billionaire Michael Bloomberg is used to getting his way. After serving two terms as New York City’s Mayor as a Republican, he used his own vast stash of cash to repeal term limits and give himself another four-year term, running as an Independent. Now he has promised to do the unprecedented: spend $1 billion of his own money to install himself as President of the United States, running on the Democratic ticket. Bloomberg’s campaign increasingly resembles an octopus with money gushing out of its tentacles into anything and everything that will inject Michael Bloomberg into the presidential dialogue on the local, national or social media stage. And there is an unusually dark curtain being drawn around the early days of that spending. While there has been much media ado about the first Federal Election Commission filing that Bloomberg made in … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: February 14, 2020 ~ Congresswoman Katie Porter opened a hornet’s nest on Tuesday during a House Financial Services Committee hearing where Fed Chair Jerome Powell answered questions. As we reported, Porter held up a photo of Powell in black tie attending a lavish party for billionaires and politicians at the Washington D.C. home of one of the richest men in the world, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. As it turns out, that wasn’t even the worst part of the story. The real jaw dropper is that the Bezos party was the after-party for a secretive private club’s annual dinner. The so-called Alfalfa Club is a 107-year old, invitation-only club that bars the press from attendance and banned membership of blacks and women for the bulk of its existence. Fed Chair Powell is a member of that club. More on that shortly, but first some background. … Continue reading →

 By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: February 13, 2020 ~ During his testimony to the Senate Banking Committee yesterday, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell let it slip out, for the first time, that the Federal Reserve has had a 10-year game plan to deal with the financial crisis. In response to a question on cyber threats from Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska, Powell stated the following: “They kind of pay us to be awake at night worrying about things. I would say that if you look at what happened in the financial crisis, we had a game plan there. We implemented it over the course of 10 years. I won’t say that it’s perfect or anything like that, but we have a plan that is meant to address those kinds of things.” “Those kinds of things?” The financial crisis, fueled by corruption and lax regulation of Wall Street banks, destroyed … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: February 12, 2020 ~ Senator Bernie Sanders is the acknowledged Democratic winner in yesterday’s New Hampshire primary, eking out a slim vote lead with 25.7 percent of the vote in the crowded field. Pete Buttigieg and Senator Amy Klobuchar came in second and third with 24.4 and 19.8 percent of the vote, respectively. The popular and respected Senator Elizabeth Warren, who hails from the neighboring state of Massachusetts, had an upset with just 9.3 percent of the vote, apparently losing ground among progressives to Senator Sanders. Former Vice President Joe Biden, who lost much of his support to fellow moderates Buttigieg and Klobuchar, registered in fifth place with a stunningly low 8.4 percent of the vote. All of the remaining candidates drew less than a 4 percent share. But Sanders’ win last night is far more significant than the vote percentages suggest. According to … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: February 11, 2020 ~ The most sizzling moment thus far today in the House Financial Services Committee hearing with Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell was a line of questioning by Congresswoman Katie Porter of California. Porter began by reminding Powell that he had “frequently spoken about wanting to maintain the independence of the Federal Reserve.” She then asked: “Do you still have that belief?” Powell said he did. Porter then held up a photo of Powell in black tie and asked where the photo was taken. He said it was at a party following the Alfalfa Dinner at the home of Jeff Bezos. Porter then made Powell indicate that the photo was recent, sometime in late January of this year. Porter looked squarely at Powell and stated: “Can you imagine how attending a lavish party at Jeff Bezos’ $23 million home, along with Jared and … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: February 11, 2020 ~ At 10:00 a.m. this morning, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome (Jay) Powell, will take his seat in the Rayburn House Office Building to deliver his semiannual testimony to the House Financial Services Committee and answer a multitude of questions on what the Fed has been up to lately. Powell will repeat the process again tomorrow before the Senate Banking Committee. The public already knows the kinds of questions Democrats are going to lob at Powell tomorrow because Senators Sherrod Brown, Elizabeth Warren, Jack Reed and Tina Smith sent a letter to Powell on February 6, listing the specific questions they want answers to in preparation for the hearing on February 12. The questions are exclusively focused on the Fed’s unprecedented repo loans to Wall Street’s trading houses that began on September 17 of last year and have been … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: February 10, 2020 ~ Pete Buttigieg, a 38-year old former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, a city with a population of 102,000, who has never held an elected federal office and was unknown to the majority of Americans last spring, has magically risen to the top ranks of the field of Democratic contenders for President – a field that includes three sitting U.S. Senators and a former Vice President. On top of Buttigieg’s lack of experience in Washington, Buttigieg has almost no support from the black community, which would be essential for winning the Presidency. So exactly why has Buttigieg raised $77 million from some of the smartest and richest people in America. According to our tally from the Federal Election Commission’s data, 10,599 donor entries for Buttigieg list their occupation as lawyer or attorney. On top of that, there’s a high correlation between … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: February 7, 2020 ~ On both days this week that the New York Fed offered its $30 billion in 14-day repo loans to 24 trading houses on Wall Street, there was far more demand than the New York Fed had preannounced it would provide. On Tuesday, the demand was for $59.05 billion while the New York Fed provided only $30 billion. On Thursday, the demand was for $57.25 billion while the New York Fed provided $30 billion. In short, there is a growing demand for long-term loans at affordable rates on Wall Street – meaning one or more trading houses has a borrowing problem. The Fed’s loans this week were made at a below-market interest rate of 1.60 percent. The demand for the 14-day loans came on the same days that the New York Fed also funneled huge amounts of money in one-day loans … Continue reading →