By Pam Martens: May 28, 2014 Now that the worldwide Occupy Wall Street protest movement has been beaten, pepper-sprayed, mass-arrested and hog-tied into submission; now that assorted financial luminaries have exhorted corporate media to stop giving air time to people calling bankers evil; it’s now safe for the 1 percent to take over the debate – or so the thinking goes in London. Prince Charles, who lives in four mansions in England, Scotland and Wales, delivered the opening speech yesterday for a conference on “Inclusive Capitalism” hosted by Lady de Rothschild, wife of multi-billionaire Sir Evelyn Robert de Rothschild, in the heart of financial skulduggery, the City of London, Wall Street’s alter ego. Rounding out the day’s speakers were former President Bill Clinton, who repealed the depression era investor protection legislation known as the Glass-Steagall Act which deregulated Wall Street and is widely blamed for the 2008 financial collapse and … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 27, 2014 Last week, the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) released a trove of some 4,000 documents it obtained under the Freedom of Information Act showing that the movements of the mostly peaceful participants in the Occupy Wall Street protests were subjected to an “enormous spying and monitoring apparatus” that included coordination between the Pentagon, FBI, Department of Homeland Security, local police, private security contractors and corporate interests. Increasingly, Americans’ time-honored First Amendment rights to peacefully assemble and dissent are playing out as open-season on protesters and mass arrests, followed by years of evidence destruction or tampering in court cases. As Wall Street On Parade perused the new documents from PCJF, one in particular raised red flags. Its subject line referred to the Occupy Wall Street movement as “Friggin Occupy” and it came from a veteran police officer. The PCJF is currently … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: May 22, 2014 Three years before bestselling author Michael Lewis stunned the world on 60 Minutes on March 30 of this year with the announcement that “stock market’s rigged,” lawyer R. Tamara de Silva had made the case quite poignantly on her law firm’s blog. Even more importantly, she simultaneously called on the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice to commence an investigation. It was only after the charges in the Lewis book, “Flash Boys,” went viral around the globe that the FBI, Department of Justice and SEC acknowledged that there might be a problem with high frequency trading and the integrity of U.S. markets. Subpoenas are now flying. On January 17, 2011 at 9:23 p.m., de Silva wrote on her blog: “High frequency trading firms make profits of almost $21 billion a year by using inside information to cheat. “High frequency trading firms … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 21, 2014 There are lots of reasons to worry about America’s future. But one worry that we seldom hear discussed in any comprehensive way is the growing brand impairment resulting from the loss of Americans’ belief in their country’s sense of decency and the loss of credibility abroad from the too-big-to-discipline CEO – who, for better or worse, is acutely aligned with the corporate brand. Whether we like it or not, great corporate brands create jobs in America and tarnished brands result in job losses. There seems to be an intellectual disconnect in the thinking of the corporate Board of Directors who continue to lavish obscene pay on the discredited CEO and the reality that the corporate brand – the most valuable asset the corporation owns – is being severely diminished in the eyes of the consumer whose trust or distrust in that … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 20, 2014 If it’s at all possible, don’t die on the premises of a too-big-to-fail bank like JPMorgan. That’s because if you do your otherwise meritorious life and career is likely to be turned into a circus of slanderous tidbits in order to promote the reputation of the global banking behemoth as the benevolent guardian of all things noble and saintly. A coroner’s inquest began at 10 a.m. in London this morning to investigate how 39 year old Gabriel Magee, a technology Vice President who worked in JPMorgan’s European headquarters at 25 Bank Street in London, came to be found dead on a 9th level rooftop at approximately 8:02 a.m. on the morning of January 28 of this year. The inquest had barely begun when the wire service, Reuters, ran this headline: “JP Morgan Executive Had High Alcohol Level Before Skyscraper Plunge, London … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 19, 2014 In the past six months, five current workers and two former workers of JPMorgan Chase have died under unusual circumstances. Adding to the tragedy, all seven were in their late 20s or 30s and three of the deaths involved alleged falls from buildings – a rare form of death even during the height of the financial crisis in 2008. According to the New York City Department of Health, there were just 93 deaths resulting from leaps from buildings in Manhattan and boroughs during 2008 – a time when century old iconic Wall Street firms collapsed and terminated tens of thousands of workers. Those 93 deaths represented just .000011625 of the City’s population of 8 million. JPMorgan’s global workforce population is just 260,000. No other major Wall Street bank comes close in terms of young worker deaths over the past six months. … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: May 15, 2014 Since Michael Lewis first uttered the immortal words on 60 Minutes on March 30 that “stock market’s rigged” through the willful collusion of exchanges, large broker dealers and high frequency traders, it has become clear that the public relations game plan of the regulators and self-regulators is to pray for a technology-challenged Congress and a gullible public. J. Bradley Bennett, Executive Vice President of Enforcement at FINRA, the industry’s self regulator, suggested that high frequency trading was no different than buying a first class ticket on an airplane. (Wall Street On Parade suggested that this is only true if one has also hijacked the plane and robbed the passengers in coach.) Next up was SEC Chair Mary Jo White who flatly told the House Financial Services Committee on April 29 that “the markets are not rigged” despite three books and dozens of research papers documenting … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 14, 2014 Someone is perjuring themselves to Federal officials and that individual(s) should enjoy a nice long sabbatical at the courtesy of the taxpayer, forgoing the staid Armani for the more robust orange jump suit. Following SEC Chair Mary Jo White’s less than credible testimony to the House Financial Services Committee on April 29 that “the markets are not rigged,” Terrence Duffy, Executive Chairman and President of the CME Group which owns the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the largest futures exchange in the world, delivered the same message to the Senate Agriculture Committee yesterday. Duffy testified that “Our market data is sent to everyone at once. While customers have several options in terms of how they can receive data from us, we do not restrict access.  Having multiple connectivity options makes our markets accessible to a broader array of participants.” That statement stands in … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: May 13, 2014 Variety reports that Sony Pictures is close to snagging the movie rights to the new book by Michael Lewis, “Flash Boys,” which builds the case that high frequency trading firms and Wall Street mega banks are conspiring with U.S. stock exchanges to rig the market against the average investor and the pension funds holding their meager retirement benefits. If Sony is smart, it will delay release of the film until it can replicate some real-life courtroom drama from the epic battle that is likely to ensue from a class-action lawsuit in the matter that was filed last month on April 18 in Federal Court in the Southern District of New York. The plaintiff in the lawsuit has elicited snickers from the moneyed crowd on Wall Street. It was filed on behalf of the city of Providence, Rhode Island, an area founded in 1636 that … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: May 12, 2014 Tim Geithner, former head of the New York Fed during the lead up to the Wall Street melt down, then Secretary of the Treasury in President Obama’s first term, is undergoing his own version of a big bank stress test: does he have the capital to survive the storm he has stirred up with his new, revisionist history book, Stress Test: Reflections on Financial Crises. Geithner’s book has barely made it to the bookstore shelves (it’s slated for official release today) and already he’s been called a liar by R. Glenn Hubbard, Dean of the Columbia Business School; Geithner is effectively calling author Ron Suskind a liar in the book; and the book’s attack on Neil Barofsky, former Special Inspector General of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) has warranted a strong response from Barofsky where he says he doesn’t believe former Treasury Secretary … Continue reading →