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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: Federal Reserve
Bernanke, Geithner, Paulson: The Fed Should Be Able to Make Secret Trillion Dollar Loans Again
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: September 10, 2018 ~ There seems to be a growing amount of concern these days about another epic financial crash on Wall Street. That, in itself, is a concern. After all, we’ve had only two great crashes in the past 89 years: one from 1929 to 1933 and one from 2008 to 2009. Why is another crash on the tip of so many tongues today? Last week JPMorgan Chase released a lengthy research report in which its analyst Marko Kolanovic suggested that in the event of another major Wall Street crisis, the Fed should not only have its emergency powers restored to buy up toxic debt with abandon from Wall Street but that the Fed might also have to buy up stocks – an unprecedented action for the U.S. central bank – or at least unprecedented as far as the public knows. The outrage … Continue reading
JPMorgan Is Thinking Pitchforks and Fed Stock Buying in the Next Financial Crash
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: September 7, 2018 ~ If you thought the U.S. outlook could not get any more dystopian, think again. JPMorgan Chase issued a report earlier this week to mark the 10th anniversary of the 2008 Wall Street crash and provide its outlook for what’s ahead. JPMorgan suggests that the next financial crash may be so cataclysmic that the Federal Reserve may have to enter the market to buy up stocks – something which the central bank has never done before in the U.S. or, at least, acknowledged doing, because stock ownership is heavily skewed to the one percent. JPMorgan further suggests that if the Fed did take this unprecedented step, it might lead to pitchforks in the street (our phrase) as a class war breaks out. (Imagine the Occupy Wall Street protests in 2011 and 2012 and then amplify that by years of pent up … Continue reading
Did You Think the Volcker Rule Stopped Wall Street Banks from Owning Hedge Funds? Think Again.
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: August 31, 2018 ~ On August 22 Bloomberg News reported that Goldman Sachs is shuttering two hedge funds run out of Asia with approximately $1.4 billion in total assets. Goldman Sachs isn’t shuttering the funds because the Volcker Rule restricts its ownership of hedge funds but because, according to the report, one Goldman partner running one fund is retiring and the other is starting his own fund. Yesterday, Bloomberg News reported that JPMorgan Chase’s asset management division is liquidating “a $1 billion credit hedge fund” known as the Palm Lane Credit Opportunities Fund. The article said that “JPMorgan didn’t give a reason for the decision and a spokeswoman for the fund declined to comment.” A filing by Palm Lane Credit Opportunities Fund on August 24 of this year at the SEC, shows the hedge fund registered offshore in the Cayman Islands, and says its first … Continue reading
MIT Professor: Big Banks Are Using Data Profiling to Prey on Unsophisticated
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: August 27, 2018 ~ The Kansas City Fed’s annual symposium in Jackson Hole is typically a dry affair with central bankers and economists expounding on theories that are incomprehensible to the average working person — whose focus is on making their monthly mortgage payment, saving for their children’s college tuition and building a nest egg for retirement. This past weekend’s event, however, produced one highly relevant paper for the average Joe. Professor Antoinette Schoar of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) spoke on the effect of investments by “JP Morgan Chase, Citi, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America into AI [artificial intelligence], machine learning and big data,” stating that their investments are “a multiple of all other banks.” Schoar warned that the “emergent Fintech technologies” that result from these large investments “might in fact reinforce concentration in the industry given the enormous economies of … Continue reading
The Fed’s “Supervision” of Wall Street Has Made It More Dangerous
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: August 23, 2018 ~ The Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation was signed into law on July 21, 2010 as the U.S. was still reeling from the aftermath of the epic 2008 Wall Street crash and economic meltdown. In addition to giving the Federal Reserve enhanced powers to supervise the behemoth bank holding companies on Wall Street, Section 1108 created a new position on the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve. The legislation reads: “The Vice Chairman for Supervision shall develop policy recommendations for the Board regarding supervision and regulation of depository institution holding companies and other financial firms supervised by the Board, and shall oversee the supervision and regulation of such firms.’’ The President of the United States was mandated to fill this slot and the Fed’s Vice Chairman for Supervision was to give semi-annual testimony to the Senate Banking and House Finance Committees. Under … Continue reading
Will Fed Chair Powell Respond to Trump’s Jabs in His Jackson Hole Speech?
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: August 21, 2018 ~ The Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, is slated to deliver a speech on Friday morning at an annual symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. President Donald Trump has made it known that he wants some economic help from the Fed in terms of keeping interest rates low. Speaking of Powell directly, Trump told Reuters yesterday: “I’m not thrilled with his raising of interest rates, no. I’m not thrilled.” All eyes on Wall Street will be watching for any hints in Powell’s speech that he’s sending a message to Trump that he won’t be taking any loyalty oath to the President. But aside from possible coded messaging to Trump to take his jackboot off the Fed’s turf, there are other important reasons to pay attention to the Jackson Hole gathering. It’s called the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s Economic … Continue reading
U.S. Media’s Use of Its Collective Voice Reveals a Tragic Truth about America
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: August 17, 2018 ~ August 16, 2018 will be remembered as the day there was a collective awakening by America’s media that there was something intrinsically and morally and constitutionally wrong with not just the functioning of the President of the United States – but with America itself. In response to an August 10 appeal from the Boston Globe to newspaper editorial boards around the country to write and publish their thoughts on Trump’s “dirty war against the free press,” more than 300 newspapers responded yesterday. The Globe’s own editorial yesterday contained one of the most poignant phrases, stating that the President tosses out lies about the media “much like an old-time charlatan threw out ‘magic’ dust or water on a hopeful crowd.” You can read the coast-to-coast outpouring of editorials on what a free press means to democracy here. One of the most … Continue reading
Derivatives: Donald Trump’s Most Dangerous Knowledge Gap
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: August 15, 2018 ~ It has been soundly demonstrated that the President of the United States has a knowledge vacuum in proper presidential decorum, diplomacy, and accepted norms of behavior. Just yesterday the President Tweeted that a former black female colleague in the White House, Omarosa Manigault Newman, is a “crazed, crying lowlife” and a “dog.” On June 25, the President Tweeted that a sitting black female member of Congress, Maxine Waters, is “an extraordinarily low IQ person,” despite her being elected to 14 consecutive terms to the House of Representatives. There’s a serious danger that the current occupant of the Oval Office defines American etiquette so far down that we are shunned by enlightened countries as a backward, rogue nation. America has already gone rogue in withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accord, the United Nations Human Rights Council, and the Iran nuclear deal. … Continue reading
Koch Advances Its Wall Street Playbook, Gutting the Office of Financial Research
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: August 9, 2018 ~ As we have previously reported, there is indisputable documentation that Charles Koch, the fossil fuels billionaire who sits at the helm of Koch Industries, is in charge of the de-regulatory agenda in the Trump administration through a web of front groups. More proof came yesterday. Reuters announced that the Trump administration had “formally told” around 40 staff members of the Office of Financial Research (OFR) that “they will lose their jobs as part of a broader reorganization of the agency….” Reuters also reported that the agency’s budget has already been cut by 25 percent “to around $76 million.” Imagine having only $76 million to police an industry where just one of the big Wall Street banks, JPMorgan Chase, had profits of $8.32 billion in its last quarter. Charles Koch has long understood that if you can’t repeal the legislation that … Continue reading
Financial Health of U.S. Consumer Will Determine Severity of the Next Recession
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: August 6, 2018 ~ Approximately two-thirds of U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) derives from the consumer. Without financially healthy consumers, the economy cannot prosper. In a July 30 interview on the cable news channel, CNBC, Jamie Dimon, the Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, the largest bank in the U.S., said that “the consumer’s in good shape; their balance sheet’s in good shape.” On May 17 the Center for Microeconomic Data at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York released its Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit which raised some notable questions as to whether Jamie Dimon actually has his finger on the pulse of the U.S. consumer. According to the report, “aggregate household debt balances increased in the first quarter of 2018, for the 15th consecutive quarter. As of March 31, 2018, total household indebtedness stood at $13.21 trillion,” which is $536 billion … Continue reading