By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: October 10, 2017 The U.S. House and Senate Intelligence Committees have asked executives from Google, Facebook and Twitter to appear at their respective public hearings on November 1. The hearings will seek testimony on evidence already turned over to the Committees by the companies on how Russia used social media accounts, bots, trolls and advertising to influence the outcome of the 2016 Presidential election. The New York Times reported yesterday that “On Facebook, fake Russia-linked accounts — in which fictional people posed as American activists — promoted inflammatory messages on divisive issues. Those accounts bought advertising to promote those messages and reach a bigger audience within the Facebook universe, while promoting the incendiary posts to different locations or people with established political leanings for maximum impact.” Facebook has turned over information on 3,000 Russia-linked ads that appeared on its network in the leadup to … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: October 9, 2017 Following a detailed investigative report that appeared on the front page of the New York Times last Friday, along with additional disturbing reports over the weekend, the powerful Hollywood producer, Harvey Weinstein, was fired yesterday by The Weinstein Company, the film studio he founded with his brother, Bob, in 2005. The two were previously the co-founders of Miramax Film Corp. It was sold to Disney in 1993. According to the Times and other reports that followed, Weinstein is a sexual predator who has harassed his own employees in the workplace as well as actresses seeking jobs during hotel interviews. Weinstein, like Fox News founder Roger Ailes, was said to have perpetrated his sexual misdeeds over many years without public disclosure by effectively creating his own private justice system – using private monetary settlements with gag orders for their accusers instead of … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: October 6, 2017 This morning’s September jobs data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) does not actually capture the extent of the economic misery in the U.S. mainland last month. The data showed a stunning loss of 33,000 jobs (the first time the U.S. has had a negative figure since 2010) while simultaneously reporting that the unemployment rate dipped to 4.2 percent from 4.4 percent in August. But here’s the quirky thing about how the U.S. government counts people as being employed: according to the official web site of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, an individual can be counted as employed even if they didn’t receive a dime in salary during the week the data is collected. The BLS explains its rationale as follows: (Italic emphasis added.) People are considered employed if they did any work at all for pay … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: October 5, 2017 According to Federal Reserve statistics, as of the end of the first quarter of this year, the U.S. municipal bond market consisted of $3.8 trillion of debt outstanding with retail investors owning 42 percent of the market. Life insurance companies, property and casualty insurers, banks, mutual funds and foreign buyers are also major holders of municipal bonds. Municipal bonds have performed well as a class over a century of booms and busts. They came through the Great Depression with an extremely low default rate. General obligation municipal bonds (GOs) are backed by the full faith and credit and taxing power of a jurisdiction like a state or county or city and GOs with AAA ratings are typically viewed as second in safety to issues of the U.S. government.  Municipal bonds issued to finance a project are classified as revenue bonds and … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: October 4, 2017  There was likely a collective gasp at OppenheimerFunds Inc. yesterday when President Donald Trump made another of those market-moving pronouncements, telling Fox News that Puerto Rico’s debt would have to be wiped out. The President’s remarks suggested he thought the losers would be Wall Street banks. The President stated: “You know they owe a lot of money to your friends on Wall Street. We’re gonna have to wipe that out. That’s gonna have to be — you know, you can say goodbye to that. I don’t know if it’s Goldman Sachs but whoever it is, you can wave good-bye to that.” The reality is that a large percentage of Puerto Rico’s debt is held in tax-free municipal bonds and municipal bond mutual funds, owned not by Wall Street banks or tycoons, but by mom and pop investors seeking tax-free income. (As … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: October 3, 2017 The point of having a President is that in times of crisis there is one leader who can speak quickly and directly to anxious citizens and rally their confidence and trust and optimism to push forward to create a better day for themselves and their country. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the embodiment of such a leader.  We have reprinted below his Christmas Eve message to the nation on December 24, 1941 as a much-needed reminder of how a President of these United States should conduct himself in a time of crisis. In the case of President Donald Trump, it took him four days to pull himself away from public bickering with NFL athletes and notice that an unprecedented humanitarian disaster was unfolding in Puerto Rico following the devastation unleashed there by a direct hit from Hurricane Maria. Then, over the next … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: October 2, 2017 With 3.4 million fellow American citizens undergoing an epic humanitarian crisis in Puerto Rico, a United States territory, as critically-needed food and water remain undistributed for lack of manpower and proper logistical coordination by the Trump administration, there is no better time than the present to assess how corporate welfare trumps the rights of individual citizens of the United States. President Trump, the man who ran on a so-called populist agenda, has Tweeted the following regarding the situation in Puerto Rico (italic emphasis added below): September 25: It’s old electrical grid, which was in terrible shape, was devastated. Much of the Island was destroyed, with billions of dollars owed to Wall Street and the banks which, sadly, must be dealt with. Food, water and medical are top priorities – and doing well. September 29: The fact is that Puerto Rico has … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: September 28, 2017 Rana Foroohar, an Associate Editor and Global Business Columnist for the Financial Times, penned an OpEd at the New York Times yesterday that was as audacious in its insults to the Times’ richest hometown industry, Wall Street, as it was brilliantly in touch with the abject dysfunction of the U.S. financial system. Foroohar’s thesis is this: “…there’s a core truth about our financial system that we have yet to comprehend fully: It isn’t serving us, we’re serving it.” Foroohar describes in specific detail what Wall Street On Parade has long described as Wall Street’s institutionalized wealth transfer system. (See our articles describing this system under the menu button above titled “Wealth Transfer Schemes.” You may find two particular articles of interest, here and here.) Just how high up the chain of command this “service” to Wall Street goes was deftly captured … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: September 27, 2017 Donald Trump’s pick for Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Jay Clayton, had good reason to be nervous yesterday morning as he prepared to testify before the U.S. Senate Banking Committee. The ranking member of that Committee, Senator Sherrod Brown, had previously made his feelings known about Clayton’s fitness to serve as Wall Street’s top cop prior to Clayton’s Senate confirmation. Brown had stated: “It’s hard to see how an attorney who’s spent his career helping Wall Street beat the rap will keep President-elect Trump’s promise to stop big banks and hedge funds from ‘getting away with murder.’ I look forward to hearing how Mr. Clayton will protect retirees and savers from being exploited, demand real accountability from the financial institutions the SEC oversees, and work to prevent another financial crisis.” Wall Street On Parade did further investigation of Clayton … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: September 26, 2017 A new study backs up a theory that many Americans have long suspected: the U.S. is no longer the land of opportunity, despite what national statistics would have us believe. Rather, America is now narrowly constrained to zip codes of opportunity. The new research comes from the Economic Innovation Group (EIG), a bipartisan public policy organization funded by successful tech entrepreneurs. The study provides detailed data on the economically distressed communities that have fundamentally changed the economic landscape of America. The authors write: “A remarkably small proportion of places fuel national increases in jobs and businesses in today’s economy. High growth in these local economic powerhouses buoys national numbers while obscuring stagnant or declining economic activity in other parts of the country. EIG’s prior work shows that this trend represents a fundamental shift in the geography of economic growth in the … Continue reading →