By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 23, 2015 Wall Street Journal oil reporter, David Bird, set out from his New Jersey home for a brief walk on January 11, 2014 and disappeared without a trace. Last Wednesday, 14 months after his disappearance and the very same day David Bird’s family had launched a web site to urge the public to help them locate their beloved husband and father, Bird’s body was found in the Passaic River. It was conclusively identified through dental records. A search had been underway for Bird since the evening of his disappearance. He had left his home on Long Hill Road in the Millington section of Long Hill Township, New Jersey to take a short walk. The circumstances were inconsistent with someone who intended to disappear: he was wearing a bright red jacket with yellow zippers; he was a recipient of a liver transplant and … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: March 20, 2015 One would think we had asked for missile launch codes when we reached out to the futures exchanges to find out what caused the precipitous plunge in the U.S. Dollar’s futures contract at 4:04 P.M. Wednesday afternoon – long after the Federal Reserve’s market moving news had been digested by traders. If currencies are now the new weapons of mass destruction – maybe we were asking for the equivalent of missile launch codes. Our curiosity was piqued when the intrepid Eric Hunsader of market data firm, Nanex, published amazing charts showing a precipitous plunge in the U.S. Dollar just after the equity markets had closed in New York. Hunsader wrote: “On March 18, 2015 between 4:02 and 4:09 PM Eastern Daylight Time, the U.S. Dollar flash crashed, losing over 3% of its value in just under 4 minutes, then gaining most of it back … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: March 19, 2015 Hillary Clinton just can’t catch a break. As her self-inflicted imbroglio over erasing 30,000 emails involving her time as Secretary of State continues to command press attention, the April issue of Harper’s Magazine is focusing gasp-worthy attention on the “loan-sharking” business that Bill Clinton, as President, assisted in transforming into the too-big-to-fail Citigroup that played a leading role in bringing the country to the brink of financial collapse in 2008. Janet Yellen’s Fed can’t be too happy either about the revelations. The Fed just gave Citigroup a clean bill of health last week under its so-called rigorous stress tests and is allowing the bank to spend like a drunken sailor, raising its dividend 400 percent with permission to buy back as much as $7.8 billion of its own stock. The Fed’s qualitative portion of the stress test is said to look at both risk … Continue reading →

Related Articles: Memo to Fed: Interest Rates Are a Sideshow; the Problem is Income Inequality  Reforming the Fed: Who’s Right; Who’s Wrong?  

By Pam Martens: March 18, 2015 Yesterday, an agency of the Federal government, the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Financial Research (OFR), released a study warning that by three separate measures the U.S. stock market is approaching dangerous “two-sigma thresholds” which can lead to “quicksilver markets.” Translation: we could be heading for a big crash. A two-sigma threshold is when market valuation metrics move at least two standard deviations above the historical mean. The study notes that “valuations approached or surpassed two-sigma in each major stock market bubble of the past century.” Think 1929, 2000 and 2007. A quicksilver market, as defined by the study, is when stable markets turn on a dime and “change rapidly and unpredictably.” The study was authored by Theodore (Ted) Berg and notes that it may not necessarily reflect the official position or policy of the OFR or Treasury. Berg is a Chartered Financial Analyst with … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 17, 2015 Last week the Press Club of Mexico honored Paul Craig Roberts with the International Award for Excellence in Journalism. Roberts used the occasion to call out a tainted brand of journalism in this country which frequently involves “lying for the government and for the corporations.” Roberts is one of the most prolific writers in America and a former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy. His journalism career includes Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal, columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service and Creators Syndicate. Roberts has also been one of the most strident critics of both the George W. Bush and Obama administrations, calling them “vassals” of the corporate titans. Increasingly, Roberts sees the corporate media as a twin evil to Washington, writing recently that “the so-called ‘mainstream media’ has been transformed into a Ministry of Propaganda.” Roberts’ … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 16, 2015 There is now a movement in Congress to strip the Federal Reserve Bank of New York of its regulatory oversight of the biggest Wall Street banks. The movement has roots among both Democrats and Republicans who are fed up with the continuing unbridled abuses of the public trust by the unruly hooligans on Wall Street and their timid regulator, the New York Fed. The push for change is critically important for a number of reasons. Major among them is the perception that New York and its politicians are more concerned about what’s in the best interests of New York residents and less about what’s best for the country as a whole. Two trillion dollar too-big-to-fail banks may pose a systemic risk for the nation but they’re a handy source of quick, mega loans for the hedge funds and real estate interests … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: March 12, 2015 There’s an old adage that goes: “never pick a fight with anyone who buys ink by the barrel.” It’s generally interpreted to mean don’t go to war with the press. That would surely include syndicated reporters working for the Associated Press, which says in a lawsuit filed yesterday that it has “one billion readers, listeners and viewers.” Despite the sage advice, Hillary Clinton is now in a full blown war with the press over how she became the Decider in Chief over which government emails would be preserved from her time as Secretary of State versus the tens of thousands that she elected to erase, ruling them to be about personal matters. The Associated Press has filed its lawsuit against the U.S. Department of State because the Federal agency has defied the Freedom of Information Act and stonewalled AP reporters for as long as … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 11, 2015 Results of the first leg of this year’s Federal Reserve stress tests, which measured capital adequacy of 31 of the most systemically important banks under a hypothetical market crash and deep recession, were released on March 5. Every institution passed that phase of the tests. At 4:30 p.m. today, the Federal Reserve will release its findings on the second leg of the tests: risk management capability, corporate governance and internal controls. Wall Street calls this element the “culture” test. For those who have been reading our columns since 2008, when the culture of Wall Street brought about the greatest U.S. economic collapse since the Great Depression of the 1930s, you might be thinking that the Fed’s concern over the culture on Wall Street is a day late and $14 trillion short. (The $14 trillion figure is the amount of secret loans … Continue reading →

 By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 10, 2015 Pundits were out in force yesterday celebrating the six-year anniversary of the bull market in stocks. Notably, no one was talking about the fact that the runup in stock prices has coincided with a six-year zero interest-rate policy (ZIRP) by the Federal Reserve, making the stock market a dandy casino to borrow low on margin and speculate high on risk; or, in the case of corporations, to issue tons of new debt and buy back their own stock. As mind-numbing as it is to comprehend, it was December 16, 2008 when the Federal Open Market Committee of the Federal Reserve released this statement: “The Federal Open Market Committee decided today to establish a target range for the federal funds rate of 0 to 1/4 percent.” And there we have stayed for six long, arduous years with nothing but periodic threats to … Continue reading →