Search Results for: rap sheet

By Pam Martens: July 2, 2012 The paper of record is in serious need of a fact checker when it comes to whether the Glass-Steagall Act could have prevented the financial crisis.  Promoting ignorance could help sink the financial system  – again. Back on April 8, 1998, the New York Times ran a slobbering editorial pushing for the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act.  It sounded like it came straight from Sandy Weill’s public relations flacks.  Weill, head of Wall Street brokerage and investment firms Smith Barney and Salomon Brothers, as well as insurance company, Travelers Group, wanted to merge with a large commercial bank, Citicorp, owner of Citibank, and get his speculative hands on that pile of insured deposits. The merger was illegal at the time under the depression era Glass-Steagall Act.  The legislation was enacted after the 1929 stock market crash to keep speculative gambling on margin and risky … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: February 10, 2012 Yesterday the Department of Justice and 49 state attorneys general announced the long anticipated $25 billion deal with 5 large Wall Street firms — Bank of America Corporation,  JPMorgan Chase & Co., Wells Fargo & Company, Citigroup Inc. and Ally Financial Inc. — to settle foreclosure and mortgage servicing abuses.  Unfortunately, the settlement is not yet 24 hours old and cracks are emerging.  Each major corruption settlement with Wall Street, and they are legion over the past 15 years, triggers a commemorative magazine cover.  I keep some favorites handy. The October 1996 cover of  Registered Representative Magazine, the trade magazine for financial consultants and stock brokers, blared in 48 point bold red type: “How the NASD Was Corrupted.”  That issue focused on the years of price fixing of stocks traded on the Nasdaq market by the biggest firms on Wall Street while the self regulatory … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: May 4, 2010 Goldman Sachs used to be the firm that pursued top government posts; now government is in hot pursuit of it, and not in a good way.  The SEC has charged the firm and an employee, Fabrice Tourre, with securities fraud and the Justice Department has commenced a criminal investigation, according to news reports.  Change appears to be swallowing Goldman Sachs.  It began quietly moving out of its storied and staid headquarters at 85 Broad last Fall to flashy new multi-billion dollar digs at 200 West Street, including a 54,000 square foot gym (roughly the size of 20 homes for average Americans; those who can still afford one after the Wall Street pillage). And after the release of internal emails by the SEC and Senate, Goldman looks more like a sleazy boiler room pump and dump operation in drag than an investment bank (in drag … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: February 8, 2010 I think it’s time to take Wall Street literally. The titans of finance have made it abundantly clear they have an insatiable appetite for killing things: the housing market, the financial system, the economy, reform legislation, the next generation’s future. Wall Street is so steeped in destruction that the symbols of death are everywhere.  Wall Street calls the big newspaper ads they take out to herald the launch of their market offerings a “tombstone.” (To understand how appropriate that is, consider the billions in bond and stock offerings raised for Big Tobacco.) Wall Street calls the completion of a buy or sell order an “execution.” (Think of how many derivative trades they “executed” for the now crippled, life support patients Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and AIG; or the off balance sheet vehicles they created for Enron, WorldCom, and dozens of now bankrupt companies.) Wall Street … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: October 5, 2009 A federal agency tasked with expanding the American dream of home ownership and affordable housing free from discrimination to people of modest means has been quietly moving a chunk of that role to Wall Street since 2002.  In a stealth partial privatization, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) farmed out its mandate of working with single family homeowners in trouble on their mortgages to the industry most responsible for separating people from their savings and creating an unprecedented wealth gap that renders millions unable to pay those mortgages. This industry also ranks as one of the most storied industries in terms of race discrimination.   Rounding out its dubious housing credentials, Wall Street is now on life support courtesy of the public purse known as TARP as a result of issuing trillions of dollars in miss-rated housing bonds and housing-related derivatives, many … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: August 3, 2009 As the newly appointed Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission prioritizes its agenda to investigate how a 200-year old system conceived to establish fair pricing and trading of stocks and bonds morphed into a rigged backroom casino of craps tables piled high with triple-A rated junk that crippled the world’s largest economy, they must place Wall Street’s private justice system at the top of their list for subpoenas. The rationale is as simple as this: —  there is only one industry in America bringing the country to its knees; —  there is only one industry in America which requires its workers to contractually relinquish their access to the courts as a condition of employment; —  look under that rock first for the thousands of industry whistleblowers who walked out of these kangaroo courts with gag orders, leaving behind their documents, placed under seal by colluding lawyers. … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: November 13, 2008 Purge your mind for a moment about everything you’ve heard and read in the last decade about investing on Wall Street and think about the following business model: You take your hard earned retirement savings to a Wall Street firm and they tell you that as long as you “stay invested for the long haul” you can expect double digit annual returns. You never really know what your money is invested in because it’s pooled with other investors and comes with incomprehensible but legal looking prospectuses.  The heads of these Wall Street firms have been taking massive payouts for themselves, ranging from $160 million to $1 billion per CEO over a number of years. As long as new money keeps flooding in from newfangled accounts called 401(k)s, Roth IRAs, 529 plans for education savings, and hedge funds (each carrying ever greater restrictions for withdrawing your money and ever greater opacity) everything appears … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: November 24, 2008 Citigroup’s two best known ad campaigns, “Citi Never Sleeps” and “Live Richly,” will hopefully become a cautionary warning for the next generation: don’t take advice from sleep-deprived money managers and live within your means. As of last Friday’s close, Citigroup had $2 trillion in “assets” and $20.5 billion in stock market value, strongly suggesting the term “assets” is a misnomer on Wall Street. Late last night the U.S. government agreed to dump hundreds of billions more into this black hole without any survival plan required of the company as demanded of the auto makers: apparently if you make those four wheel machines that get us to work you’re suspect; if you manufacture losses in unintelligible derivatives, you’re good to go. Citigroup’s five-day death spiral last week was surreal. I know 20-something newlyweds who have better financial backup plans than this global banking giant.  On Monday … Continue reading →