By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: June 21, 2016  At 10 a.m. this morning, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen will take her seat before the U.S. Senate Banking Committee to deliver her semi-annual testimony on monetary policy. She’ll perform the same task tomorrow before what is likely to be a far more hostile House Financial Services Committee, based on the fireworks that were flying in her last testimony there in February. There will be a shadow wafting over Yellen at both hearings. The shadow is being cast by Neel Kashkari, who took the reins as President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis this past January and has effectively transferred the debate on too-big-to-fail banks from the hands of Yellen to his own regional institution. Kashkari has been conducting symposiums and delivering speeches on the issue and has promised a formalized plan to deal with the problem by the end … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: June 20, 2016  An article in the Washington Post yesterday continued the paper’s unrelenting efforts to marginalize Senator Bernie Sanders and his effort to press forward on his call for a political revolution in America.  The Post article brandished its most preposterous cudgel yet: the cost of Senator Sanders’ continuing protection by the Secret Service, which it suggested was a drain on taxpayers. Calling Sanders the “now-vanquished Democratic presidential candidate,” the Post’s John Wagoner laments that even though “Hillary Clinton has clinched the party’s nomination,” Sanders is still receiving Secret Service protection which could be costing taxpayers more than $38,000 a day. In fact, Clinton hasn’t clinched anything until there is an official vote taken at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, July 25-28, no matter how much corporate media might wish otherwise. And since there has never been a Presidential candidate like Clinton, … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: June 17, 2016 The U.S. stock market was mired in red ink yesterday morning with every major Wall Street bank trading down on news that multiple polls in Britain were showing that a majority of citizens were in favor of the United Kingdom withdrawing from the European Union (EU). A referendum vote on the issue is to be held next Thursday. Then, at 12:17 p.m. New York time yesterday, Bloomberg News printed the following headline: “U.K. Lawmaker Jo Cox Is Murdered, Silencing Brexit Debate.” Cox was a Member of Parliament from the Labour Party who was an advocate for the U.K. remaining in the EU. Cox, a mother of two children, was shot and stabbed by a man said to be in favor of Brexit, the term for a British exit from the EU. On the news of her death, which fueled the market … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: June 16, 2016  If you think that a referendum vote on June 23 by UK citizens on whether to withdraw from the European Union (called Brexit, short for British Exit), is simply a proxy on whether the UK should dislodge itself from the edicts of Brussels, think again. It’s morphed into a much broader debate on whether citizens worldwide should surrender their right to a participatory democracy in order to further the interests of multinational corporations, secret trade agreements packed with secret court tribunals, global banking hegemony and central banks attempting to keep all these balls in the air for their one percent overlords. One particular central bank is sure to come under fire today. Members of the British Parliament have been warning Mark Carney, head of the Bank of England (BOE), to not engage in political lobbying on the issue of Brexit, which … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: July 15, 2016  Rana Foroohar has written the equivalent of a public guide to why Americans remain mad as hell at Wall Street and Washington and why a lot worse than a political revolution may ensue if the plutocrats don’t wake up soon. Foroohar is an assistant managing editor at Time magazine and its economics columnist. In “Makers and Takers: The Rise of Finance and the Fall of American Business,” the author lays out a number of undeniable truths, which she backs up with footnotes and facts, such as: “the business of America isn’t business anymore.” That’s given way to financial engineering tricks like loading up a company’s balance sheet with billions of dollars of debt in order to prop up the share price with buybacks of the company’s own stock. Foroohar, who has been a financial journalist for 23 years, correctly concludes that Wall Street … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: June 14, 2016  The UK’s largest newspaper, The Sun, with a daily print run of 1.7 million, has delivered a harsh indictment on its front cover today on continuing to allow European central planners and global bankers to run the UK by edict. UK citizens will vote on June 23 on whether to leave the European Union, a vote called Brexit, short for British Exit. The UK’s Guardian newspaper is reporting that two ICM polls, one conducted online and one by telephone, showed 53 percent support for leaving versus 47 percent for remaining in the EU. The message should serve as a sharp warning to Americans, who have allowed their central bank, the Federal Reserve, to march to the beat of the Wall Street bankers’ edicts while achieving catastrophic results for the country and its citizens. Since the Wall Street crash of 2008, enabled … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: June 13, 2016 Senator Elizabeth Warren did not have a good weekend. After endorsing Hillary Clinton for President on Thursday, Warren was ridiculed by columnist Maureen Dowd in the New York Times on Sunday for previously portraying Clinton as a shill for big money interests while now vowing to jump into the ring to get Clinton elected to the highest office in the land. In a 2003 book, The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers and Fathers Are Going Broke, co-authored by Warren and her daughter, Amelia Warren Tyagi, the pair wrote that “Clinton had taken $140,000 in campaign contributions from the banking industry” and then sold out single mothers by voting in favor of a bankruptcy bill that Clinton had previously called “that awful bill.” Warren also addressed Clinton’s claim that she had worked to improve the bill by 2001 when she voted in … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: June 10, 2016  A little noticed 2008 email from former Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke, raises serious questions about his official narrative on the collapse of Lehman Brothers. We’ll get to the email in detail, but first some necessary background.  A lot of eyes rolled on Wall Street last October when Ben Bernanke, who chaired the Federal Reserve in the lead up to and during the financial collapse in 2008, released his memoir of the financial crisis with the title: “The Courage to Act: A Memoir of a Crisis and its Aftermath.” Many Wall Street observers felt the title would have more correctly captured the facts on the ground had it read: “The Lack of Fed Courage to Supervise Mega Banks Led to an Epic Collapse.” (In the leadup to the crisis, the Fed allowed Citigroup CEO Sandy Weill and JPMorgan Chase CEO, Jamie … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: June 9, 2016  On June 23 the U.K. will hold a referendum to decide whether to exit the European Union, a vote dubbed Brexit. Debate on the vote has served to harden views, either favorably or unfavorably, across Europe. This week, the Pew Research Center released a survey which found that 61 percent of the French hold an unfavorable view of the EU, leading to speculation that there may be demands for a referendum (Frexit) in France to seek a vote on leaving the EU.  In fact, a French presidential candidate, Bruno Le Maire, wrote recently in the French publication, Le Monde, that if elected president, he would support holding a referendum vote on the issue. The Pew Research Center study, as well as corporate media, have focused the growing resentment of the EU on its handling of economic and refugee issues. The Pew … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: June 8, 2016  If Hillary Clinton was hoping for Bernie Sanders’ supporters to fall in line and join her corporate media coronation, that scenario has taken an abrupt turn off the page. Charges now flying by Sanders’ supporters on social media make the Politburo look like pikers when measured against the alleged conspiracy between the Clinton campaign and Associated Press. Here’s the timeline of the alleged conspiracy and sacking of a free election process: On Monday evening, June 6, on the very eve of presidential primaries in six states, the Associated Press released its survey findings that Hillary Clinton had enough superdelegate votes to clinch the Democratic Presidential nomination. This is how the Intercept’s Glenn Greenwald reported what happened: “Last night, the Associated Press — on a day when nobody voted — surprised everyone by abruptly declaring the Democratic Party primary over and Hillary Clinton the victor. The decree, … Continue reading →