Search Results for: jpmc

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: September 17, 2021 ~ On Tuesday of this week, Bloomberg News published its umpteenth negative article on the San Francisco-headquartered bank, Wells Fargo. This time around, the article was highlighting Senator Elizabeth Warren calling for Wells Fargo to be broken up, with its federally insured bank separated from its Wall Street businesses. Bloomberg News syndicates its articles, so this story was quickly splashed all over other news outlets. And that’s the way it has been going since 2017. When Senator Warren bashes Wells Fargo, she gets lots of coverage by New York media outlets. Since March of 2018, Bloomberg News has published more than 80 negative articles on Wells Fargo with headlines like these: Wells Fargo CEO Abruptly Steps Down, Succumbing to Scandals; Wells Fargo’s CEO Disputes Claim His Bank Is Too Big to Manage; Elizabeth Warren on Wells Fargo CEO’s Departure: ‘About Damn Time’; Ex-Wells Fargo Bosses Face … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: September 7, 2021 ~ JPMorgan Chase has created its own digital coin called JPM Coin. The bank announced last October that the JPM Coin was being used commercially for the first time by “a large technology client to send payments around the world,” according to reporting at CNBC. According to JPMorgan’s website, the JPM Coin currently represents just U.S. dollars but the bank anticipates that it “will be extended to other major currencies, subject to market demand.” According to the trademark application for JPM Coin that was filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the JPM Coin is defined as follows: “Downloadable and recorded software for use in connection with transferring, managing and processing cryptocurrency, digital currency, virtual currency, and digital tokens based on blockchain technology.” JPM Coin runs on the Quorum blockchain, a network the bank developed as a private version of the … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: September 1, 2021 ~ JPMorgan Chase is the bank that gambled with the bank deposits of moms and pops across America in 2012 by trading exotic derivatives in London and losing $6.2 billion in the process. It’s also the bank that admitted to two felony counts in 2014 for its role in facilitating Bernie Madoff ripping off the life savings of thousands of more moms and pops across America. Its rap sheet of ripping off the little guy reads like that of an entrenched crime family. But when the bank was indicted in France on April 16, 2015 for being complicit in tax fraud, it had the temerity to appeal the charges on the basis that its “human rights” had been violated, along with various codes of criminal procedure. Its argument boiled down to this: it hadn’t been advised that it had the right to … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: July 6, 2021 ~ After reading the documents released by the Justice Department in January 2014 in connection with JPMorgan Chase’s settlement over its role in the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme, the Los Angeles Times asked this question: “Bernie Madoff: Was he part of the JPMorgan ring, or was JPMorgan part of his ring?” Given the facts of the case, the question was more than fair. In January of 2014 JPMorgan Chase paid $2.6 billion in fines and restitution, signed a deferred prosecution agreement with the Justice Department and walked away from further criminal charges over its 22-year involvement with Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme. The Madoff Ponzi scheme was the largest in U.S. history with fictitious investment account statements showing his clients held $64.8 billion in securities with his firm. (Madoff never actually bought any stocks or other securities for his investment clients.) The Madoff … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: June 16, 2021 ~ Corporate media outlets like Bloomberg News, the CBS news program 60 Minutes, and CNBC have been seduced into obsequious behavior when it comes to Jamie Dimon, the Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, despite the fact that Dimon has presided over the most unparalleled crime spree in the history of U.S. banking. Between 2014 and September of last year, JPMorgan Chase has been charged with five criminal felony counts by the U.S. Department of Justice. The bank admitted to all five counts. (See the bank’s detailed rap sheet here.) Despite this crime spree and endless probation periods followed by more crime, Dimon has further seduced federal bank regulators into allowing his unrepentant behemoth to become the most systemically risky bank in America. That assessment is not our opinion. It is the assessment of the federal government based on hard data. The … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 28, 2021 ~ CEOs from the six largest banks on Wall Street testified under oath yesterday before the House Financial Services Committee. But only one CEO, Jamie Dimon, had an ear-piercing electronic sound emanate from his microphone, which blocked out the sound of his voice, when he was asked key questions by two separate members of Congress. The situation was so bizarre that Congressman Juan Vargas, a Democrat from California, said this about the episodes: “It reminded me of the movie ‘Young Frankenstein.’ Every time they said ‘Luther’ the horses would get scared. Every time they said ‘Jamie Dimon,’ the computers would get scared.” The first episode occurred after Congressman Al Green, a Democrat from Texas, told Dimon that two of the banks previously purchased by JPMorgan Chase had used slaves as loan collateral and at one point, after calling in a loan, the … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: April 20, 2021 ~ Donald Turnbull, a former Global Head of Precious Metals Trading at JPMorgan Chase, has filed a doozy of a federal lawsuit against the bank. Turnbull worked on the same JPMorgan Chase precious metals desk that was deemed to be a racketeering enterprise by the U.S. Department of Justice when it handed down indictments in 2019. This was the first time that veterans on Wall Street could recall employees of a major Wall Street bank being charged under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act or RICO statute, which is typically reserved for organized crime. JPMorgan Chase, the largest bank in the United States, has the further unprecedented distinction for a U.S. bank of being charged with five felony counts by the Department of Justice in a six-year span of time, running from 2014 to 2020. The bank admitted to all of … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: November 25, 2020 ~ Maybe it’s because Wall Street On Parade has been shining a bright light on the serial crimes and rap sheets of Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase. Or maybe it’s because the nonpartisan watchdog, Better Markets, published a report last year titled “Wall Street’s Six Biggest Bailed-Out Banks: Their RAP Sheets & Their Ongoing Crime Spree.” Or maybe it all comes down to what Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois said after the financial crisis of 2008: “And the banks – hard to believe in a time when we’re facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created – are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place.” Whatever the reason, the darkness that started growing around the crimes committed by the big Wall Street banks during the Obama administration has now evolved into such a … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: October 19, 2020 ~ On May 2, 1985 the highest law enforcement officer in the United States, the head of the U.S. Department of Justice, Attorney General Edwin Meese, held a news conference to announce that the sixth largest brokerage firm on Wall Street, E.F. Hutton, was pleading guilty to 2,000 felony counts of wire and mail fraud. It had also agreed to pay criminal fines of $2 million and up to $8 million in restitution to the 400 banks it had defrauded. The fraud had lasted less than two years, from July 1, 1980 and February 28, 1982, and consisted of the following according to the Justice Department: “The essence of the charges was that Hutton obtained the interest-free use of millions of dollars by intentionally writing checks in excess of the funds it had on deposit in various banks.” On the following … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: September 8, 2020 ~ Last week there was a big buzz among financial media outlets regarding the Japanese conglomerate, SoftBank. According to unnamed sources who spoke to the Financial Times, over the past few months SoftBank has paid about $4 billion in premiums, buying call options on individual U.S. technology stocks. The Financial Times called SoftBank the Nasdaq Whale and said its call buying had “stoked the fevered rally in big tech stocks before a sharp pullback” at the end of last week. A call option on an individual stock is a derivative that gives the buyer the right, but not the obligation, to purchase the actual stock at a specified price (strike price) over a specified time period. According to the Financial Times, the call options purchased by SoftBank gave it exposure to approximately $30 billion in the stock of big tech companies. … Continue reading →