By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: December 16, 2024 ~ According to the December 6 release of Federal Reserve H.8 data, cash assets at the 25 largest U.S. banks have dropped by a stunning $663 billion from their peak levels on December 15, 2021. (See chart above, taken from the St. Louis Fed’s FRED graph, which is updated on an ongoing basis. Put your cursor on the FRED chart line here to get the weekly dollar figures.) Notice also on the chart that cash levels at the largest U.S. banks were a sea of calm for more than two decades prior to the financial crash of 2008, but since that time cash assets have displayed wild gyrations, rising sharply then precipitously plunging. It should provide no comfort to Americans that the wild gyrations on the chart above are a product of the central bank of the United States (the “Fed”) inserting itself, … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: December 12, 2024 ~ The Associated Press is reporting that Donald Trump will ring the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange at 9:30 a.m. this morning as Time Magazine is expected to name him its “Person of the Year,” also today. This appears to be the latest in growing efforts by Trump’s marketing machine to define deviancy down while attempting to normalize Trump’s unprecedented monetizing of the Presidency as nothing more than good ole capitalism. (The Trump Organization now has its own “official retail website,” TrumpStore.com, hawking everything from sweaters and gift wrap to a line of home goods, all emblazoned with the “Trump” name.) If Trump does show up this morning to ring the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange, it will be his first time doing so. It will also be the first time that a 34-count convicted felon has … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: December 10, 2024 ~ The dark veil behind which the U.S. political system has operated since the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision and its progeny turned presidential elections into a subtle form of payoffs and kickbacks has been lifted. Donald Trump is handing out cabinet posts and ambassadorships to his largest donors in the most scandalous manner in U.S. presidential history. Now Trump’s crypto megadonors are demanding their own form of a kickback – a Bitcoin Strategic Reserve, where the U.S. government would, effectively, prop up the price of Bitcoin by buying up large amounts each year and holding it as a Strategic Reserve. (Skeptics might be forgiven for seeing that as a means for Bitcoin billionaires to sell their Bitcoin without driving down the price too much because there is a perpetual buyer on the other side of their trade.) Most Americans have heard … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: December 9, 2024 ~ On Friday, this headline appeared in The Guardian newspaper: “Trump Assembling US Cabinet of Billionaires Worth Combined $340 Billion.” Receiving much less attention is the fact that the indicted Mayor of New York City, Eric Adams, named a billionaire heiress, Jessica Tisch, as the new Commissioner of the New York City Police Department on November 20. Tisch has never been a police officer – of any rank. Nonetheless, she will now oversee 36,000 police officers and 19,000 civilian employees at the NYPD. Tisch took her office on November 25. Nine days later, an unprecedented assassination of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, Brian Thompson, took place on a Manhattan sidewalk outside of the New York Hilton Midtown hotel on December 4. The UnitedHealth Group, Inc., the parent of Thompson’s employer, is a stock component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average with a half-trillion-dollar market … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: December 5, 2024 ~ Two years ago, more than 1,600 computer scientists, software engineers and technologists from around the world sent a letter to U.S. Senate and House Committee Chairs, Ranking Members, and Congressional leaders. There were 45 signatories that were employed at Google at the time; 19 who worked at Microsoft; 11 employed at Apple. There were signatories that are Ph.Ds from the most prestigious universities in the world, including the University of Oxford and MIT. And all 1,600 signed a letter that says this about crypto and blockchain: “We strongly disagree with the narrative—peddled by those with a financial stake in the crypto-asset industry—that these technologies represent a positive financial innovation and are in any way suited to solving the financial problems facing ordinary Americans… “As software engineers and technologists with deep expertise in our fields, we dispute the claims made in recent years … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: December 3, 2024 ~ The semi-annual Financial Stability Report released recently by the Federal Reserve Board of Governors rang a loud warning bell about high levels of leverage at hedge funds and life insurers. Wall Street watchers will no doubt recall that in 2008, during the worst Wall Street collapse since the Great Depression, Bear Stearns went under after it blew up two internal hedge funds the prior year and the giant life insurer, American International Group (AIG), blew itself up by acting as a counterparty to Wall Street’s derivative schemes and had to be taken into receivership by the U.S. government. On the matter of leverage at hedge funds, the Fed wrote this in its most recent Financial Stability Report: “Comprehensive data collected through SEC Form PF indicated that measures of leverage averaged across all hedge funds were at or near the highest level observed … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: December 2, 2024 ~ Based on his Trump-related online merchandise offerings, Kashyap (Kash) Patel exudes the persona of a slick marketing agent and image handler for President-elect Donald Trump rather than a serious candidate for Director of the FBI. Nonetheless, Trump nominated Patel for the post of FBI Director on Saturday, keeping with his penchant for naming outrageously unsuitable candidates for high office. Patel’s merchandise offerings include a children’s book trilogy he authored, titled The Plot Against the King. Patel, apparently, has no problem profiling Trump as a King to whom he owes unwavering loyalty. Patel portrays himself in the books as the brilliant wizard who reveals the truth to the populace. Patel is also hawking his book on the first Trump administration, titled Government Gangsters: The Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for Our Democracy. Notably, Patel sees no evil intent on the part … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: November 27, 2024 ~ According to reporting at the New York Times, on April 11 Donald Trump hosted oil executives and their lobbyists to a dinner at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida and requested a quid-pro-quo. If they donated $1 billion to his campaign for president, “he would roll back environmental rules that he said hampered their industry….” Among attendees at the event, according to The Times, were executives from ExxonMobil, EQT Corporation and the American Petroleum Institute, which lobbies for the oil industry. Trump must have liked what he heard from the fossil fuel industry because when he accepted the presidential nomination at the Republican National Convention on July 18, he told the crowd this: “We will drill, baby, drill…We will do it at levels that nobody’s ever seen before.” By October 21, when Trump delivered remarks to a crowd of the religious … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: November 26, 2024 ~ The former mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani, has learned the hard way the cost of loyalty to Donald Trump and his prevarications. Giuliani has lost his New York law license; was disbarred in Washington, D.C.; has been ordered by a court to pay two defamed Georgia election workers, Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Shaye Moss, $148 million in damages after they became the victims of harassment and death threats after he and Trump spread voter fraud claims about them. This month, Giuliani pleaded for donations to his fundraising page, saying he can’t afford to buy food. Trump’s former personal attorney and “fixer,” Michael Cohen, was disbarred in New York and served time in prison for Trump-related crimes. And multiple other lawyers have seen their law licenses suspended for getting too close to Trump. Trump’s past history of separating lawyers from … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: November 25, 2024 ~ Last Friday, in a flurry of announcements of cabinet nominees, President-elect Donald Trump dropped the name that the entire world had been waiting to hear: his pick for U.S. Treasury Secretary. The man Trump chose, Scott Bessent, is the founder and majority owner of the hedge fund, Key Square Capital Management LLC. If confirmed by the Senate, Bessent will inherit sprawling powers. He will sit at the helm of a federal agency that includes the IRS; the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which regulates national banks and reports on their hundreds of trillions of dollars in derivatives; the Bureau of Engraving and Printing; the U.S. Mint; the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) which is tasked with combating money laundering but has failed miserably in the job; and numerous other units. In addition, legislation passed by Congress will put Bessent in charge of … Continue reading →