By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: January 9, 2017 During his political campaign, Donald Trump repeatedly railed against Wall Street with a specific focus on Goldman Sachs. In the final days of his campaign, Trump released an advertisement (see video below) that featured his opponent, Hillary Clinton, shaking hands with Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein. As the image flickers on the screen, Trump does a voice over, stating: “”It’s a global power structure that is responsible for the economic decisions that have robbed our working class, stripped our country of its wealth, and put that money into the pockets of a handful of large corporations and political entities.” As the ad ends, Trump bares his soul: “I’m doing this for the people and for the movement and we will take back this country for you and we will make America great again.” How did a candidate who repeatedly demonized Goldman … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: January 6, 2017 Northwest Ohio supporters of Senator Bernie Sanders in his run for President have launched a nationwide push to enlist other organizations to send it letters and take to social media to endorse a demand that President-elect Donald Trump fulfill a campaign pledge. Trump made the pledge on October 26 of last year in a speech he delivered in Charlotte, North Carolina, promising to enact a 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act to reform Wall Street. Such legislation has been sitting dormant in both the House and Senate for years. If enacted, it would separate the deposit-taking, taxpayer-insured commercial banks from the globe-trotting, high-risk trading casinos known as investment banks on Wall Street. The 1933 Glass-Steagall Act kept the financial system of the United States safe for 66 years until its repeal in 1999 during the Bill Clinton presidency. It took only nine years … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: January 5, 2017 The rationale for Donald Trump’s selection of Jay Clayton, a law partner at Sullivan & Cromwell which has represented Goldman Sachs since the late 1800s, to be the next SEC Chairman grew exponentially fuzzier after Wall Street On Parade reviewed political donation records at the Federal Election Commission. FEC records show that 59 of Clayton’s fellow lawyers at the firm made over $900,000 in donations to the Hillary Victory Fund while one lone lawyer, Donald Korb, made two $2700 donations to Trump’s primary and general election campaign. Donations from three other lawyers at the firm, Justin Decamp ($2700), Robert Giuffra ($25,000), and Diane McGimsey ($5,000) to the Trump Victory committee came after Trump was already elected President, according to images of receipts filed with the FEC. In addition to the more than $900,000 that went to the Hillary Victory Fund, tens … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: January 4, 2017 Over the span of the last two weeks, President-elect Donald Trump’s U.S. Treasury Secretary nominee, Steven Mnuchin, has been the subject of multiple, scathing investigative reports by the media; earned a web site established by Senate Democrats dubbing him the “Foreclosure King” and soliciting complaints from the public; garnered a television ad campaign directed against him; and has been skewered by a devastating document leaked by someone currently or formerly connected to the California State Attorney General’s Office, indicating that the bank Mnuchin ran from 2009 to 2015, OneWest, repeatedly violated California foreclosure law, including backdating documents and making illegal bids, in order to throw thousands of vulnerable people out of their homes. Mnuchin is also a former Goldman Sachs partner and hedge fund operator who has never held public office before. His rapid rise to nominee for one of the … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: January 3, 2017 Just 17 days from today, Donald Trump will be sworn in as the nation’s 45th President and deliver his inaugural address. Trump is expected to announce priorities in the areas of education, infrastructure, border security, the economy and curtailing the outsourcing of jobs. But Trump’s agenda will be derailed on all fronts if the big Wall Street banks blow up again as they did in 2008, dragging the U.S. economy into the ditch and requiring another massive taxpayer bailout from a nation already deeply in debt from the last banking crisis. According to a report quietly released by the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Financial Research less than two weeks before Christmas, another financial implosion on Wall Street can’t be ruled out. The Office of Financial Research (OFR), a unit of the U.S. Treasury, was created under the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: December 30, 2016 We have noticed throughout this past year that when the Standard and Poor’s 500 index of stocks sold off, big banks’ share prices sold off by dramatically more on a percentage basis. Yesterday, notwithstanding the big rally bank stocks have enjoyed since Donald Trump’s win on November 8, the big banks once again dramatically outpaced the S&P 500 on the downside. The S&P lost 0.03 percent while the major Wall Street banks like Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America lost over 1 percent. It was a worthwhile reminder that the hurdles the big banks have experienced this year have not diminished – by any means. As 2016 began, the big, globally-interconnected Wall Street banks were facing serious headwinds. The Fed had just hiked rates and oil prices could not find a floor and neither could the share prices … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: December 29, 2016 Typically, it takes two to settle bank fraud charges – the bank committing the fraud and the law enforcement agency bringing the charges. But in the case of the announcement late last Thursday evening that Deutsche Bank and the U.S. Justice Department had reached an agreement to settle claims against the bank for allegedly swindling investors in the sale of toxic residential mortgage backed securities, all that could be heard was the sound of one hand clapping in a press release issued by the defendant, Deutsche Bank. Nowhere to be found was a statement of particulars on what the bank was admitting to or a man behind a podium bearing the seal of the U.S. Justice Department in a press briefing room, as typically occurs in a real settlement. The lack of substantive details to this “settlement” and no confirmation from … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: December 28, 2016 Each quarter the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) releases a detailed report showing the exposure to derivatives at U.S. banks. The most recent report for the quarter ending June 30, 2016 indicates that U.S. bank holding companies have a total notional amount (face amount) of derivatives of $252.6 trillion. Of that total, just five Wall Street banks hold $230 trillion or 91 percent, underscoring how massively concentrated this high risk game has become. Those five banks are: Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs Group, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley. There are numerous U.S. units of foreign banks on the derivatives list of bank holding companies but one name is conspicuously missing: the German giant, Deutsche Bank. Without knowing how much potential exposure U.S. banks have to Deutsche Bank in the derivatives arena, the U.S. public is left completely … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: December 27, 2016 In 1934 the U.S. had 14,146 commercial banks holding insured deposits. By 1985, that number had barely budged, standing at 14,417. Then came the Bill Clinton administration in the 1990s and its reckless and unprecedented banking deregulation which allowed the giant Wall Street banks to swallow up, or drive out of business, thousands of banks across America. According to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), as of December 22 of this year, there are only 5,927 FDIC insured banks left in the U.S., a stunning decline of 59 percent from 1985. But those numbers are just the tip of the iceberg. Banking concentration in the U.S. has reached an unprecedented crisis level when it comes to deposits. Out of the dramatically shrunken base of 5,927 FDIC insured banks which were holding a total of $11.2 trillion in total deposits (insured and … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: December 21, 2016 Donald Trump is increasingly looking like Wall Street’s back up plan in the event that the Wall Street Democrats didn’t triumph in the 2016 election. Trump has appointed two Goldman Sachs alumni and the current President of Goldman Sachs to top posts in his administration. On Monday, Trump announced that Vincent Viola, a billionaire who spent the bulk of his adult life trading oil and gas futures on Wall Street, would become Secretary of the Army – at a time when tens of thousands of service members rely on food pantries to get by. Forbes reports this about how Viola gets by: “Viola owns a 20,000-square-foot townhouse on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, near Central Park. In December 2013 he listed the home — complete with a giant red bow tied across its facade — for a staggering $114 million. … Continue reading →