Search Results for: rap sheet

By Pam Martens: October 31, 2008 The parallels with 1932 are breathtaking: billions in bonds defaulting; dysfunctional global credit markets; commodity prices crumbling; stocks in free fall; home foreclosures; rising unemployment; banks teetering; an angry populace; a Republican administration clinging to their discredited trickle down theory; a Democratic contender for President with charismatic oratory skills tapping into the public mood with a message of a New Deal, this time called  “change we can believe in.” To complete the similitude, we need only a landslide victory for the Democrats in the upcoming election with Obama carrying all but six states. It is no coincidence that our problems today are a replay of those of 1932, albeit with a less rapid economic descent because of the safety nets like Social Security and bank deposit insurance put in place by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal programs of the 30s.  Each and every … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: September 27, 2008 The vetting of Sarah Palin for the McCain campaign by an Iran-Contra alumnus brought an epiphany. (See “The Man Who Vetted Palin,” CounterPunch, September 8, 2008.)  The inability of the American populace to control this crime spree we call the Bush administration is not because we’re lazy, narcissistic or willfully blind to human rights violations, as much of the world now views us. It’s because we’ve been misidentifying this crime spree as “the Bush administration.”  What we’re clearly confronting is the Iran-Contra Alumni Association masquerading as the Executive Branch, replete with domestic spying, dark ops, fake journalists, fake news reels, press intimidation, protester arrests, infiltration and torture.  We can’t counter this massive operation with Code Pink, despite my undying gratitude for their bravery and brains.  We need to give the pink slips to the Iran-Contra gang.  We need a full blown Congressional committee on corruption … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: March 17, 2008 Americans learned two new truths last week from the Bush Administration’s version of Life’s Little Instruction Book: if you’re a Wall Street miscreant you’re thrown a lifeline; if you’re a Wall Street crime fighter you’re thrown a land mine. In the first effort, the Feds effectively handed a Federal Reserve ATM card to JPMorgan to funnel your tax dollars to the teetering Bear Stearns brokerage firm to address counterparty risks that have been building for at least 4 years as the Feds snoozed. Counterparty risk is the trillions of dollars of insurance contracts (credit default swaps and other derivatives) taken out by Wall Street firms on each other’s (counterparty) bonds, bundled mortgage and commercial debt (collateralized debt obligations). The firms have used unregulated over-the-counter contracts to perform this risk transfer alchemy and funded their own company, Markit Group Ltd., to take the place of … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens: December 20, 2010 On December 1, the Fed was forced to release details of 21,000 funding transactions it made during the financial crisis, naming names and dollar amounts. Disclosure was due to a provision sparked by Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. The voluminous data dump from the notoriously secret Fed shows just how deeply the Federal Reserve stepped into the shoes of Wall Street and, as the crisis grew and the normal channels of lending froze, the Fed effectively replaced Wall Street and money centers banks in terms of financing.  The Fed has thus far reported, without even disclosing specifics of its lending from its discount window, which it continues to draw a dark curtain around, that it supplied, in total, more than $9 trillion to Wall Street firms, commercial banks, foreign banks, corporations and some highly questionable off balance sheet entities. (Much smaller amounts were outstanding … Continue reading →