Search Results for: koch

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: July 7, 2022 ~ The Office of Financial Research (OFR), a unit of the U.S. Treasury Department, was created under the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation of 2010. Its job is to prevent, through early warnings, the kind of catastrophic financial crisis that occurred in 2008 when irresponsible and corrupt practices on Wall Street toppled the U.S. economy; brought on the deepest financial crisis since the Great Depression; and left the taxpayer and Fed bailing out the Wall Street megabanks that would have otherwise collapsed from their own hubris. Unfortunately, the OFR was savagely gutted under the Trump administration. Today, OFR is like the cop on the beat that has been stripped of his whistle, his walkie-talkie and is wearing dark sun glasses on a cloudy day. One of the tools that the OFR is supposed to use to warn federal regulators that Wall Street is … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: June 10, 2022 ~ As we watched the two-hour public hearing on the critical facts uncovered by the House Select Committee on the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, we kept waiting to hear a discussion of the money trail that facilitated this attack. That discussion never came. And yet, big expenses were involved: dozens of buses were rented; signs advertising “Stop the Steal” were on the sides of some of those buses; food and lodging had to be paid for, in or around expensive Washington, D.C.; and, now, lawyers have to be paid to represent those indicted for brutalizing police on January 6 or destroying and/or stealing government property. The House Select Committee did an excellent job last evening of providing the big picture on the plot to shred U.S. democracy in service to Donald Trump’s megalomaniac desires. But the question … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: April 7, 2022 ~ There is growing evidence that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and growing atrocities against Ukrainian civilians are not just delivering long-term damage to Russia’s reputation around the world but to its economy at home as sanctions begin to take a heavy toll. Automotive News Europe reported yesterday that “New vehicle sales fell 60 percent in March from the previous month at Rolf, Russia’s largest dealership….” Rolf’s CEO, Svetlana Vinogradova, told Reuters she expected full year demand to fall by half in 2022. Forecasts for overall economic contraction is Russia this year range from a 10 percent contraction forecast by Goldman Sachs to a 15 percent drop forecasted by the Institute for International Finance. Signs of a slowdown are already showing up in manufacturing. The S&P Global Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) for Russia fell to 44.1 in March. A reading … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 31, 2022 ~ While the vast majority of news outlets around the country are calling for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from cases involving the January 6 attack on the Capitol, the Wall Street Journal’s Editorial Board has penned this headline today over yet one more of its radical-right editorials: “Justice Thomas Shouldn’t Recuse.” (We’d link to the article but there’s a paywall.) To support its position, the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board writes this about the wife of Clarence Thomas, Ginni (Virginia) Thomas, whose recently released emails to Trump-era White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows have exposed her as attempting to steer the White House in how to overturn the election of Biden: “The right answer is that Ginni Thomas is no threat to the Court, no matter how bizarre her views about the 2020 election. She doesn’t sit … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: February 16, 2022 ~ Yesterday, Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA), the Ranking Member of the Senate Banking Committee, orchestrated a boycott among his Republican colleagues on the Committee. Republicans refused to attend the scheduled vote at 2:15 p.m. yesterday for President Biden’s nominees to serve on the Federal Reserve. Without the presence of Republicans, the Committee lacked a quorum and could not vote. The nominees scheduled for a vote included Jerome Powell, for his second term as Fed Chair; Lael Brainard for Vice Chair; Sarah Bloom Raskin for Vice Chair for Supervision; Lisa Cook for Fed Governor; and Philip Jefferson for Fed Governor. Sandra Thompson, nominated to be Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, was also scheduled for a vote. Toomey’s main issue is with Sarah Bloom Raskin, who would be the Fed’s point person on supervision of the megabanks on Wall Street. The fear … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: December 13, 2021 ~ For years now, Wall Street On Parade has been reporting on the probing letters that Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has sent to Wall Street firms and their regulators in an effort to ferret out the details of systemic corruption and the looting of the American people. (See “Related Articles” below.) Throughout this letter writing campaign, Senator Elizabeth Warren has been a member of the powerful Senate Banking Committee – which has subpoena power. The new Chair of that Committee, Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH), is also a progressive, like Warren. So why isn’t the Senate Banking Committee using its subpoena power instead of leaving Warren with nothing more than an inquiring mind and a pile of Word documents? According to the Congressional Research Service, the Senate Banking Committee has adopted a rule that requires a majority vote to issue a subpoena for … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: October 7, 2021 ~ Yesterday, at 4:19 in the afternoon, Wall Street On Parade received an email from the nice communications folks at the Senate Banking Committee, which is chaired by Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, a progressive Democrat who has had about all he can stand of the robber barons on Wall Street. The ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee, who was supposed to become the Chair of the Committee in a Trump coup d’état, is Republican Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, who has been serially funded and backed by Koch-funded front groups. Koch Industries owns a big trading operation, so it is very much vested in what happens in terms of stricter regulations for Wall Street. (For the role of Koch money in the insurrection at the Capitol on January 6, see our report: The Money Trail to the Siege at the Capitol Leads … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: April 14, 2021 ~ Today is the 85th Day of the Joe Biden Presidency and his nominee to Chair the Securities and Exchange Commission, Gary Gensler, has yet to be confirmed by the full Senate. Apparently, the moneyed interests that control the corporate wing of the Republican party have put Senator Pat Toomey in charge of attempting to derail the nomination. A full Senate vote will take place on Gensler at 11:45 a.m. today, but that vote will be limited to Gensler serving out the balance of the term of Trump’s former SEC Chair Jay Clayton, which expires in – wait for it – 52 days. The Senate Banking Committee had cleared Gensler to not only fill Clayton’s remaining term but had also cleared his reappointment for a five-year term ending on June 5, 2026. That five-year term will not be voted on by the … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 29, 2021 ~ It was a bone-chilling 42 degrees with winds gusting to 28 miles per hour when Joe Biden was sworn in as the 46th President of the United States on January 20. Today is Biden’s 69th day in office. Washington D.C.’s beloved Cherry Blossoms are within days of reaching their peak, and yet, Biden’s nominee to Chair the Securities and Exchange Commission, Gary Gensler, has not been confirmed by a full vote in the Senate. Given that former President Trump’s SEC Chair, Jay Clayton, has left U.S. markets in their most perilous state since 1929, one would think that the Senate would be rushing to hold a vote to confirm Gensler. (Clayton had legally represented 8 of the 10 largest Wall Street banks in the three years before Trump nominated him to become SEC Chair. Clayton left the SEC after a controversial … Continue reading →

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: March 19, 2021 ~ During the Wednesday House Financial Services Committee hearing on the toxic business model gaining steam on Wall Street, where market makers pay for order flow from online brokerage firms like Robinhood in order to trade against the so-called “dumb money” from retail investors, there were regular bursts of hypocrisy from the Wall Street-funded Republicans on the Committee. One of the most gag-worthy lectures came from Congressman Andy Barr (R-KY). According to the Center for Responsive Politics, nine of Barr’s top 15 donors to his Campaign Committee and Leadership PAC for the 2019-2020 campaign cycle are connected to Wall Street. Those donors include Prudential Financial (which is a derivatives counterparty to mega banks on Wall Street); Apollo Global Management, a private equity firm; Bank of America, parent of the giant brokerage firm Merrill Lynch; Charles Schwab, the retail brokerage firm; FMR Corp., … Continue reading →