Search Results for: rap sheet

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: January 23, 2024 ~ Gerald Epstein is Professor of Economics and a Founding Co-Director of the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. A book he has spent the past decade researching and writing comes out today from the University of California Press: Busting the Bankers’ Club: Finance for the Rest of Us. Anticipation of this book’s release has caused some sweaty brows in the halls of Congress, on Wall Street, at Big Law, and in the economics community. That’s because Epstein is naming names – the names of the people who have sold out American democracy and the public interest by becoming sycophants for, or actual members of, the Bankers’ Club. The Chairman of the Bankers’ Club is the Federal Reserve, writes Epstein. That’s because the Fed has strongarmed its way to becoming both the supervisor of the Wall Street mega … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: January 16, 2024 ~ Jamie Dimon is the Chairman and CEO of the largest federally-insured, taxpayer-backstopped bank in the United States, JPMorgan Chase. Through much of Dimon’s tenure, JPMorgan Chase has also been designated as the riskiest bank in the United States by its regulators. And despite its unprecedented criminal history, the U.S. Department of Justice keeps handing the bank deferred-prosecution agreements or non-prosecution agreements with the casualness of a carnival barker tossing out penny candy. Dimon’s Board of Directors is too compromised itself to reform the bank and fire Dimon. (See here, here and here.) So all that remains as a potential restraint on this criminally-inclined banking behemoth is the bank’s federal regulators. On July 27 of last year, the Federal Reserve, FDIC and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) – JPMorgan Chase’s bank regulators — released a proposal to require higher capital levels … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: December 14, 2023 ~ Quietly, on December 1, the New York Fed published the following statement on its website: “The Norinchukin Bank, New York Branch, has been added to the list of Standing Repo Facility Counterparties, effective December 1, 2023.” The Standing Repo Facility (SRF) is a permanent $500 billion bailout facility created by the Federal Reserve and operated by the New York Fed – the private regional Fed bank where multi-trillion dollar Wall Street bank bailouts have become a regular feature of its operations. Without any action from the U.S. legislative branch (otherwise known as Congress), the Fed has unilaterally decided to become lender of last resort to Wall Street trading houses (whom the Fed prefers to call its “primary dealers”) and deposit-taking banks, including the uninsured New York branches of foreign banks like Norinchukin Bank. If you have never heard of Norinchukin Bank, … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: December 12, 2023 ~ There is a battle raging between the Wall Street mega banks and their federal banking regulators. The regulators want the mega banks to hold more capital against their high risk trading positions to prevent a replay of the bailouts in 2008 and repo bailouts in the fall of 2019. The mega banks have launched a deceptive ad campaign and public relations battle to thwart that from happening. The federal regulators’ efforts to raise capital are being undermined by Fed Chairman Jay Powell’s perpetual testimony to Congress that the U.S. banking system is safe and sound and adequately capitalized. Thus far, no member of Congress has thought to question Fed Chair Powell during public hearings as to why the Fed needs a new permanent bailout facility of $500 billion, on top of its century-old Discount Window, if the banking system is adequately … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: December 6, 2023 ~ To stem some of the whining by the CEOs of the eight largest Wall Street mega banks at a Senate Banking hearing today (where they are expected to gripe about newly proposed higher capital requirements and whimper that it will hurt their ability to make loans to the little folks) the Banking Committee released the CEOs’ 2022 total compensation and its ratio to their bank’s median worker. Among the most embarrassing and obscene pay packages was the 2022 compensation to Jamie Dimon, Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, which came in at $34.9 million. The ratio of Dimon’s pay to the pay of the median worker at JPMorgan Chase was 393 to 1, the highest among the eight CEOs at the hearing. (For more on the zombie Board at JPMorgan Chase that keeps rewarding Dimon for the bank’s serial criminal behavior, … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: November 1, 2023 The Attorneys General of 16 states and Washington, D.C. are challenging the settlement crafted by Big Law firm WilmerHale on behalf of JPMorgan Chase and by the high-profile lawyer, David Boies, on behalf of the sex-trafficked victims of the late Jeffrey Epstein. The class action settlement agreement was filed with the Federal District Court for the Southern District of New York in June. The court set a date of November 9 for the final Fairness Hearing – a legal requirement for class action settlements where the court must hear from any objectors impacted by the agreement. Depending on the strength of those objections, the Court could decide to reject the settlement as not “fair, adequate and reasonable” as required under Rule 23 for class actions, and ask the parties to go back to the drawing board. The state Attorneys General filing the objection … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: October 24, 2023 ~ Last Friday, the Federal Reserve published its Financial Stability Report, which takes a detailed look at U.S. financial stability through the second quarter of this year. Although the Fed does its best to put a rosy glow on the outlook, it’s not a pretty picture. We found the most disturbing sentence in the report to be the following: “Overall, estimated runnable money-like financial liabilities increased 3.4 percent to $20.3 trillion (75 percent of nominal GDP) over the past year.” Given that a handful of banks this past spring, with combined liabilities of less than $1 trillion, caused a full blown banking panic and bank runs, the Fed’s figure of $20.3 trillion of “runnable” money is not a comforting thought. The Fed elaborates as follows: “The banking industry maintained a high level of liquidity overall, but some banks continued to face funding pressures; meanwhile, structural vulnerabilities … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: October 3, 2023 ~ The Fed’s problem and the U.S. Treasury’s problem just became the problem of every American who has their retirement savings stuffed in the stock market via 401(k) plans or direct holdings. As the chart above shows in crisp terms, stocks do not like yields on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note rising to a level that is competitive with the return on stocks – especially since the principal on the Treasury note is guaranteed at maturity while the principal in the stock market is guaranteed to take one’s stomach on a roller coaster ride. Last evening, the 10-year U.S. Treasury note had spiked to a yield of 4.682 percent, its highest yield since 2007. As of early this morning, its yield had spiked even higher, to 4.738 percent, making a 5 percent handle increasingly possible. In response to the competition from Treasury … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: September 26, 2023 ~ According to Bank of America’s federal regulatory filing known as the Call Report, for the quarter ending June 30, 2023, it had $105.79 billion in unrealized losses on its held-to-maturity (HTM) securities. That figure is not only far beyond the realm of what its peer banks reported, but it represents a stunning 34 percent of all unrealized losses on held-to-maturity securities reported by 4,645 FDIC-insured commercial banks and savings institutions as of June 30, according to the FDIC’s Quarterly Banking Profile. For the quarter ending June 30, the FDIC reported that all 4,645 FDIC-insured financial institutions had $309.6 billion in unrealized losses on held-to-maturity securities. Held-to-maturity securities at the largest banks are made up predominately of federal agency mortgage-backed securities and U.S. Treasury bills, notes and bonds. The principal on these securities is federally guaranteed at maturity but their market value … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: September 25, 2023 ~ On March 30, 2022, two highly troubling events occurred: (1) Fed data showed that unrealized losses on available-for-sale securities at the 25 largest U.S. banks were approaching the levels they had reached during the financial crisis in 2008; and (2) the Fed simply stopped reporting unrealized gains and losses on these banks’ securities. As the chart above indicates, the Fed had reported this data series from October 2, 1996 to March 30, 2022 – and then, poof, it was gone and could no longer be graphed weekly at FRED, the St. Louis Fed’s Economic Data website. (See chart above from FRED.) On the same date, the Fed also discontinued the weekly data for unrealized losses or gains on available-for-sale securities at all commercial banks and small banks.) This data series was halted after the Fed had embarked on March 17, 2022 … Continue reading →