By Pam Martens: March 8, 2013  For years I’ve used the phrase “Frankenbanks” in my articles – those global banking behemoths created as a result of the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999 that allow the co-mingling of FDIC insured mom and pop savings accounts with investment banking activities that blow up things using the mom and pop savings accounts leveraged to the hilt. Now the U.S. Senate is making my case for me on the use of Frankenbanks as an appropriate soubriquet.  If we date the run up to the financial crisis as beginning in the summer of 2007, which the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency does, it is more than five years since Congress has been studying why Wall Street is very adept at blowing up things but adept at not much else – like its main job of fairly allocating capital to new companies that … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: March 7, 2013  Paul Craig Roberts is one of the most prolific economic writers in America today. As a former Wall Street Journal editor and former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, Roberts is a walking encyclopedia on monetary policy, economic theory and Wall Street history. After publication in Germany in 2012, his latest book, The Failure Of Laissez Faire Capitalism And Economic Dissolution Of The West, is now available in the U.S. as an eBook.  If you’ve read a Roberts’ column over the past few years, you know there’s nothing timid or constrained in his writing. The same can surely be said for this current work. Roberts expertly details how the one percenters have masterminded a political and economic takeover that just keeps on giving to the one percent as the economy wobbles, the U.S. debt explodes and the middle class is hollowed out.  Roberts sees the … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: March 6, 2013  Corporate media was falling over itself yesterday to report new stock market highs for the Dow Jones Industrial Average. At 2 p.m., this is what the New York Times was reporting as a lead story on its web site:  “Despite everything, the stock market is back at a record high…Since a low point in March 2009, the Dow Jones index has more than doubled, stunning even the most seasoned stock market watchers. ‘What’s amazing about this bull market is that people still don’t think it’s real,’ said Richard Bernstein, chief executive of Richard Bernstein Advisors, a money management firm. ‘We think this could be the biggest bull market of our careers.’ ”  The seductive words in this piece are “record,” “stunning,” and “biggest bull market of our careers.” It’s like subliminal interlineations beckoning one to dip one’s toes into the water, even though we … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: March 5, 2013  Just when one thinks the winks and nods between Washington and Wall Street couldn’t get any worse, there is growing evidence that the U.S. Justice Department knows that 20 banks engaged in the rigging of Libor but is intentionally delaying bringing charges against U.S. banks JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup.  Evidence is also stacking up that while the largest banks in the world were under intensive investigation for rigging Libor, they continued to rig it, while regulators remain dumbfounded about what to do.  And, in an Alice in Wonderland type of development, despite trillions of dollars of financial products resetting based on the Libor index, a key regulator says it’s become a fictional benchmark because the loans between banks that it’s based on have all but disappeared.  Libor is an acronym for London Interbank Offered Rate. It is supposed to be a reliable reflection of the rate at … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: March 4, 2013  Last November, one of Europe’s largest publications, the German news magazine Der Spiegel, splashed a terminally ill Uncle Sam on its front cover. Inside we are told that “Many developing countries are now looking to China instead of the US as a role model on how to structure a country. They are no longer seeking the light of the American beacon on the horizon.”  One of the reasons cited by the article for America’s decline is that our best and brightest no longer focus their talents and energies on enriching America’s future, but rush to Wall Street to line their own pockets: “About a third of the students in every graduating class at Harvard University accepts jobs in investment banking and consulting, or with hedge funds — that is, industries that produce one thing above all: fast money…” reads the article.  Last week, Wall Street’s … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: March 1, 2013  Each year, millions of Americans who inherit wealth or seek to start investing for the first time, struggle with how to go about finding a competent, honest and experienced financial advisor. Having painstakingly observed for the past two weeks how the U.S. Senate went about hiring Jack Lew to be the top financial advisor to the country as Treasury Secretary, I feel there is now a very simple example millions of Americans can follow in formulating a selection process of who should manage their money: do the exact opposite of those men in Washington.  Despite enough conflicts of interests, red flags, sleazy compensation deals to repulse anyone who looked closely, the U.S. Senate voted 71-26 Wednesday to hand the keys to the U.S. Mint to Jack Lew.    But simultaneously with that vote to install the country’s financial advisor at Treasury was a no-confidence vote … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: February 28, 2013  In several respects, Occupy Wall Street reminds me of the feminist movement. Corporate funded media has declared the women’s rights movement dead ad nauseam for four decades — and yet it thrives and reinvents itself. Similarly, corporate funded media has eulogized Occupy Wall Street from almost the moment of its nascent birth in the Fall of 2011.  If there is a common thread connecting these movements and the dire media prognostications of their demise, it is likely that when either one advances, entrenched power — and its iron grip on the wealth of a nation — loses.  Now, similar to the early court battles for women’s rights, Occupy Wall Street has tossed aside its encampments and bullhorns and donned its legal garb and pro hac vices. Occupy Wall Street’s brain trust, Occupy the SEC, just filed a Federal lawsuit that encapsulates the crony capitalist … Continue reading →

 By Pam Martens: February 28, 2013  The Obama administration pushed through the full Senate vote on the nomination of Jack Lew for Secretary of the Treasury late yesterday afternoon, just one day after the Senate Finance Committee voted to confirm the nomination. One suspects the rush was to prevent further details of Lew’s lavish pay packages, loans and other perks at his previous employers, New York University and bailed out bank, Citigroup, from gaining traction in the press.  But rest assured, this is no win for the President’s legacy or his party. The Democrats’ progressive base was just as adamant against Lew for U.S. Treasury Secretary as were most Republicans who took a careful look at Lew’s history.  Robert Scheer, writing at The Nation Magazine said:  “I suppose that he can’t be much worse than Timothy Geithner, but that should be scant cause for cheer over the news that the … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: February 27, 2013 As questions swirl as to why New York University, a nonprofit subsidized by the taxpayer, used endowment funds from its law school foundation to provide Treasury Secretary nominee Jack Lew with more than a million dollars in mortgage loans in 2001 and a $685,000 “severance” payment when he voluntarily left to accept a high paying job at Citigroup in 2006, the name of John Sexton has emerged as someone who was in the know about the dealings. As the document below confirms, Sexton, who has been President of NYU since 2001, signed off on the first $1,300,000 mortgage loan to Lew on August 22, 2001. The second mortgage loan by NYU to Lew in the amount of $150,000 was made later that same year. Lew has said in written testimony to the Senate Finance Committee that NYU forgave portions of the first loan and … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: February 26, 2013  The American people can rest assured that it’s still business as usual in Washington. Despite growing financial questions swirling around Treasury Secretary nominee, Jack Lew, the Senate Finance committee confirmed his nomination moments ago in a 19 to 5 vote. The full Senate must still vote and is expected to do so this week or next.  Senator Orrin Hatch, who said many questions about Lew’s time at two employers, New York University and Citigroup, remain unclear, failed to show the courage of his convictions and voted yes on the nomination, saying the President was owed deference in his selections.  Only Senator Chuck Grassley showed any courage in today’s hearing, asking to speak on the nomination and then voting no. Grassley said the Obama administration continues to criticize Congress when it is simply fulfilling its role of due diligence. He said Lew had real “eagerness … Continue reading →