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Recent Posts
- Report: “Flash Flooding Is the Number One Storm-Related Killer in the U.S.” Few Cities or Towns in America Are Built to Survive Its Wrath
- Hurricane Helene Dumped 20 Trillion Gallons of Rain, Destroying Entire Towns in Western North Carolina, Hundreds of Miles from any Coastline
- Half of All Deaths from Hurricane Helene Occurred 485 Miles North of Where It Made Landfall
- What Did Madoff, Jeffrey Epstein and Sanctioned Russian Mercenary Group, Wagner, Have in Common? They All Banked at JPMorgan Chase
- Deadly, Exploding Pagers Force the U.S. to Get Serious About Malware from China in U.S. Products that Are Potential National Security Threats
- Wall Street Has Moved Vast Sums of Its Trading to Its Federally-Insured Banks
- The Stock Market Had a Psychotic Episode After the Fed Rate Cut Yesterday, Plunging 479 Points from the Day’s High
- As Trump Launches a Crypto Firm, FBI Reports Crypto Fraud Has Exploded to $5.6 Billion; Representing Almost 50 Percent of All Financial Fraud
- Everything this Book Predicted on Wall Street Megabanks Ruling their Regulators Is Now Unfolding
- The Fed Just Kicked the Capital Increases for the Dangerous Megabanks and their Derivatives Down the Road for Years
- Intel, Boeing and U.S. Steel May Hold the Secrets to What’s Behind All the Talk of a U.S. Sovereign Wealth Fund
- Trump and Paulson’s Proposal: U.S. Sovereign Wealth Fund (or Another Grifter Bailout)
- A Wall Street Regulator Is Understating Margin Debt by More than $4 Trillion – Because It’s Not Counting Giant Banks Making Margin Loans to Hedge Funds
- After JPMorgan Threatens to Sue, the Fed Cuts Its Capital Requirement on the 5-Count Felon from a Planned 25 Percent Hike to Less than 8 Percent
- Three Megabanks Had Loans Outstanding of $1.832 Trillion to Giant Hedge Funds on March 31
- Jamie Dimon’s Washington Post OpEd Gets Pummeled at Yahoo Finance
- In the Span of 72 Hours, Four People Tied to a Hewlett-Packard Criminal Case Died in Two Separate Events
- Crypto Took Down Another Federally-Insured Bank and Just Handed Its CEO a 24-Year Prison Sentence
- All the Devils from 2008 Are Back at the Megabanks: Leverage, Off-Balance-Sheet Debt, Over $192 Trillion in Derivatives, Shaky Capital Levels
- New Study Says the Fed Is Captured by Congress and White House — Not the Megabanks that Own the Fed Banks and Get Trillions in Bailouts
- Data from the Fed’s Emergency Funding Program Shows Spring 2023 Banking Crisis Was Far Deeper than Americans Were Told
- These FDIC-Insured Banks Have Lost 69 to 40 Percent of their Market Value Year-to-Date
- Exposure at Hedge Funds Has Skyrocketed to Over $28 Trillion; Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Are at Risk
- We Charted the Plunge and Rebound in the Nikkei Versus Nomura and Citigroup; the Correlation Is Frightening
- Former U.S. Labor Secretary Says Billionaires Have No Right to Exist Because their Wealth Comes from Five Illegal or Bad Practices
- Citigroup Is Having a Helluva Summer: A Protest on Thursday Will Turn Up the Heat
- Nikkei Has Biggest Drop in History: Here’s What’s Causing the Global Market Selloff
- JPMorgan Is Tapping Illiquid Assets in its Global Collateral Program; the New York Fed Is Paying for Its Services
- Bank Regulators Issue Warnings on Fintech and Banking as Disasters Pile Up
- Donald Trump Gives a Speech on Not Letting China Win the Crypto Race – Not Realizing China Banned Crypto Mining and Transactions Four Years Ago
- The New York Fed Has Contracted Out Key Functions to JPMorgan Chase; We Filed a FOIA and Got These Strange Invoices
- On the Eve of Netanyahu’s Address to Congress, Senator Bernie Sanders Delivers a Breathtaking Assessment of His War Crimes
- Trump’s Sit-Down with Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago Will Cost U.S. Taxpayers Millions While Profiting Trump’s Business
- Protecting Trump and His Jet-Setting Adult Children During His Presidency Cost Taxpayers Over $1 Billion
- A Congressman and a Doctor Reported a Woman Being Shot at Trump Rally: She’s Vanished from Official Reports
- Jamie Dimon Goes Missing from Earnings Call, After Dumping $183 Million of His JPMorgan Chase Stock Earlier this Year
- U.S. Senate Candidate Backed by Hedge Fund Billionaires Was Sitting in Front Row at Trump Rally as the Sniper Fired into the Bleachers
- Project 2025: The Fossil Fuel and Banking Money Behind the Madness
- The Fund Created to Unwind a Failing Megabank Has a Problem: There’s No Money in It
- Joe Biden Versus the New York Times
- Grand Jury Transcript in Jeffrey Epstein Case Is Released, Raising Questions about Epstein’s Darkest Secrets Being Protected in JPMorgan Cases
- The Supreme Court Crowns a King, Immunizing Future Criminal Acts Under Project 2025 – a Right Wing Manifesto
- The Debate Disaster and the Supreme Court’s “Chevron” Repeal Have a Money Trail Leading to Charles Koch
- Congressman Andy Barr Stacks a Hearing on the Fed’s Stress Tests with Lobbyists for Megabanks
- The Fed Posts Historic Operating Losses As It Pays Out 5.40 Percent Interest to Banks
- Goldman Sachs’ Bank Derivatives Have Grown from $40 Trillion to $54 Trillion in Five Years; So How Did Its Credit Exposure Improve by 200 Percent?
- The Fed and FDIC Wake Up Suddenly to the Threat of Derivatives, Flunking the Four Largest Derivative Banks on their Wind-Down Plans
- Is the Stock Market Setting Investors Up for a Tech Bust Similar to the Dot.com Bust?
- Chase Bank Customers Are Reporting a Wave of Wire Fraud in their Accounts; the Bank Won’t Make Good on the Looted Funds
- The Senate Race in Ohio Is the Sickest in U.S. History in Terms of Billionaire Money from Outside the State
Search Results for: Epstein
Billionaire-Owned Media Has Gone Full Throttle to Save Fellow Billionaire, Jamie Dimon
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: April 22, 2024 ~ The Washington Post Editorial Board appears to have sipped the same kool aid as Bloomberg News. As we’ve frequently reported in the past, Bloomberg News has spent the better part of the last decade attempting to brainwash the public into believing that the head of JPMorgan Chase, Jamie Dimon, is a respected statesman of Wall Street. (See here, here, and here.) In reality, JPMorgan Chase has admitted to an unprecedented five criminal felony counts with Dimon at the helm and paid fines in the tens of billions of dollars for an additional crime wave that rivals an organized crime family. Billionaire Michael Bloomberg, the former Mayor of New York, is the majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the owner of Bloomberg News. In 2016, Michael Bloomberg even co-authored an opinion piece with Dimon. The same year, the New York Post reported that JPMorgan Chase was … Continue reading
Almost 10,000 U.S. Banks Have Disappeared Since 1985, Leaving 4 Mega Banks Controlling 39 Percent of Bank Assets
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 26, 2024 ~ According to Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) data, there were 14,417 federally-insured banking institutions in the U.S. in 1985. As of December 31, 2023, the FDIC reports there are only 4,587 remaining. The vast majority of the 9,830 banks that have disappeared since 1985 did not fail – they were merged with other banks. Today, just four banks control $9.3 trillion in consolidated bank assets or 39 percent of all bank assets. Those four banks are JPMorgan Chase with $3.395 trillion in consolidated assets; Bank of America with $2.540 trillion; Wells Fargo with $1.7 trillion; and Citigroup’s Citibank with $1.685 trillion. (All asset figures are as of December 31, 2023 and come from the Federal Reserve’s statistical release of the largest banks.) The political clout of these mega banks is such that one of them, JPMorgan Chase, has been allowed to commit … Continue reading
JPMorgan’s Federally-Insured Bank Is Fined $348 Million for Losing Track of “Billions” of Trades
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 18, 2024 ~ On Thursday of last week, two of JPMorgan Chase Bank’s federal regulators fined the riskiest bank in the United States $348 million dollars for engaging in “unsafe and unsound banking practices” for failing to supervise “billions” of trades on at least 30 global trading venues. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) fined JPMorgan Chase Bank $250 million while the Federal Reserve fined the bank $98.2 million. The OCC said the misconduct occurred since at least 2019. The Fed said the bank had engaged in the misconduct over the span of nine years, from 2014 to 2023. The key outrage embedded in these charges – that mainstream media failed to point out in its coverage last week – is that this “trading” activity did not occur at the registered brokerage firm of JPMorgan, which has properly licensed traders and trading … Continue reading
Jamie Dimon and Nine of His Top Executives at JPMorgan Chase Have Dumped Over $150 Million of their JPMorgan Stock in Last Two Months
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: February 26, 2024 ~ According to Form 4 filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission by corporate insiders, ten of the key executives at the largest bank in the United States, JPMorgan Chase, have dumped more than $150 million in common stock in the bank this year. The sales come as the bank’s stock has been hitting all time highs while the scandals at the bank are also hitting unprecedented levels. The largest seller by far was the Chairman and CEO of the bank, Jamie Dimon. According to his Form 4, on February 22 of this year, Dimon sold 737,420 shares of the bank’s common stock for $135 million. The newly promoted Troy Rohrbaugh, who is now Co-CEO of JPMorgan Chase’s Commercial and Investment Bank (CIB), sold 75,000 shares on February 22 of this year for $13.7 million. Stacey Friedman, General Counsel at the bank, sold … Continue reading
JPMorgan Says Its “Trading Venues” Are Under Investigation While It’s Still on Probation for Prior Trading Crimes
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: February 20, 2024 ~ Last Friday, ahead of a three-day weekend when bad news could be expected to evaporate into the ether by the next news cycle, JPMorgan Chase dropped a bombshell in its 10-K (annual report) filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The bank, which has admitted to an unprecedented five criminal felony counts since 2014, said its “trading venues” were under investigation by three unnamed regulatory bodies. This is a very serious matter for this particular bank because three of its prior felony counts involved rigging markets. The bank admitted to rigging foreign exchange markets in 2015 and to rigging, for more than eight years, the precious metals and U.S. Treasury markets in an agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice in September 2020. Two of the precious metals traders involved in the 2020 case, Gregg Smith and Michael Nowak, are sitting in … Continue reading
JPMorgan Chase Has Used the Same Auditor for 58 Years, Despite Giant Frauds at the Bank in the Last Nine Years
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: January 30, 2024 ~ While many other countries mandate that publicly-traded companies rotate their audit firms after a maximum number of years, there is no such requirement in the United States at the present time. The 10-K (annual report) that JPMorgan Chase filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on February 21, 2023 carried this statement under the auditor’s name of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC): “We have served as the Firm’s auditor since 1965.” Let that settle in for a few moments as we take a quick tour through the last 10 years of JPMorgan Chase’s history under the same Chairman and CEO, Jamie Dimon, and the same audit firm. In 2013, after the U.S. Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations found that JPMorgan Chase had lied to its regulators while gambling in derivatives in London using depositors’ money from its federally-insured bank and losing $6.2 billion, the … Continue reading
The Battle Over Capital at the Mega Banks Must Expand to Breaking Them Up
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: January 25, 2024 ~ Last Thursday, 12 Democrats in the U.S. Senate sent a deeply insightful letter on a subject most Americans have never discussed around their kitchen table: adequate capital levels at the Wall Street mega banks that came close to bringing down the U.S. financial system in 2008. Before that financial crisis was over – the worst since the Great Depression of the 1930s – millions of hardworking Americans had lost their jobs and millions more had their homes taken in foreclosure. If the U.S. is going to avoid a replay of that crisis, Americans are going to have to start having these critical conversations about the structure of Wall Street mega banks around the kitchen table. Americans are going to have to start engaging in the battle to shape the future of American democracy and more equitable wealth distribution, which requires dramatic reform … Continue reading
Naming Names: Professor Exposes the Banking Cartel that Has Hijacked U.S. Democracy
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: January 23, 2024 ~ Gerald Epstein is Professor of Economics and a Founding Co-Director of the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. A book he has spent the past decade researching and writing comes out today from the University of California Press: Busting the Bankers’ Club: Finance for the Rest of Us. Anticipation of this book’s release has caused some sweaty brows in the halls of Congress, on Wall Street, at Big Law, and in the economics community. That’s because Epstein is naming names – the names of the people who have sold out American democracy and the public interest by becoming sycophants for, or actual members of, the Bankers’ Club. The Chairman of the Bankers’ Club is the Federal Reserve, writes Epstein. That’s because the Fed has strongarmed its way to becoming both the supervisor of the Wall Street mega … Continue reading
The DOJ’s Incestuous Relationship with Jamie Dimon Is Captured in a Graphic from an Historic Lawsuit
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: January 18, 2024 ~ On February 10, 2014, the non-profit watchdog, Better Markets, took a bold and historic action. It filed a federal lawsuit against the highest law enforcement agency and officer in the United States – the U.S. Department of Justice and the man who sat at its helm, Attorney General Eric Holder. The lawsuit challenged a $13 billion out-of-court settlement that had been agreed to by the Justice Department and the Wall Street mega bank, JPMorgan Chase, over its sale of toxic mortgages. Better Markets wrote on its website that this was at the time “The largest settlement in U.S. history from a single entity by more than 300%” and that it “granted JP Morgan blanket civil immunity for years of alleged, but undisclosed, pervasive, egregious and knowing fraudulent and illegal conduct that contributed to the 2008 financial crash and the worst economy since the … Continue reading
Everything that’s Dangerous about U.S. Banks Today in One Highly Readable Book
By Pam Martens: January 17, 2024 ~ Anat Admati, Professor of Finance and Economics at Stanford Graduate School of Business, and German economist Martin Hellwig, have performed a public service to all Americans with their newly released, updated and expanded book The Bankers’ New Clothes: What’s Wrong with Banking and What to Do about It. It puts the interlocking web of corruption that is mistakenly referred to as the U.S. banking system into a pristinely documented and highly readable book. Let us first explain those men without pants on the book jacket. That provocative graphic comes from the storyline in the Hans Christian Andersen tale “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” Tailors offer to make the emperor magical clothes that will be visible only to smart people and invisible to the stupid and unfit. When the emperor’s ministers go to inspect the clothes, they see nothing, but they are fearful of being called … Continue reading