WALL STREET ON PARADE | RUPTURE.CAPITAL

Trump Issued an Executive Memorandum Giving Mnuchin a $50 Billion Slush Fund; Mnuchin Gave Himself $386 Billion More

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: December 1, 2020 ~ Five days before Congress passed the CARES Act on March 25 of this year, President Donald Trump issued an Executive Memorandum giving U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin complete discretion to use $50 billion in the Treasury’s Exchange Stabilization Fund (ESF) as Mnuchin solely saw fit. The Memorandum was dated Friday, March 20. On the prior Tuesday and Wednesday of that same week, Mnuchin had already used $20 billion of the Exchange Stabilization Fund to bail out Wall Street. As Mnuchin’s letter of November 19 to Fed Chair Jerome Powell confirms, he gave (or committed) $10 billion from the ESF to the Fed’s Commercial Paper Funding Facility on March 17 and another $10 billion to another Fed emergency lending program, the Money Market Mutual Fund Liquidity Facility, on March 18. Most Americans have never heard of the Treasury’s Exchange Stabilization Fund … Continue reading →

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Charles Koch Attempts an Apology Tour after He and His Father Financed a Political Hate Machine for Six Decades

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: November 16, 2020 ~ Fossil fuels billionaire Charles Koch, the invisible hand behind the worst instincts of the Trump administration, has launched more deception with an apology tour, a new book and interviews last week with the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal. But the folks who know Koch best are having none of it. Jane Mayer, author of the 500-page Koch history tome, Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right, fired back on Twitter with this: “Oops says Billionaire Political Donor Charles Koch in new book. He now regrets corrupting American democracy, along with the planet.” Medhi Hasan, British-American political journalist on Peacock’s news channel, had an even harsher assessment: “If there’s a figure who could compete with Mark Zuckerberg for the award of most destructive influence on modern American political life, it would be … Continue reading →

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Federal Regulators Have Gutted Safety and Soundness Rules for the Biggest Wall Street Banks

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: November 12, 2020 ~ Last week, the New York Times’ Emily Flitter, Jeanna Smialek and Stacy Cowley provided an excellent rundown of the dangerous rollbacks of regulations on the big banks by federal regulators appointed by Donald Trump. Today, in preparation for a hearing with these regulators, the House Financial Services Committee has released a Memorandum that further outlines how the safety and soundness of the biggest banks have been impacted by changes to regulations. Many of the rollbacks or watering down of the bank rules have occurred quietly or without the attention of mainstream media. Taken together, the rule changes are striking in their reckless disregard for the safety and soundness of a sector that blew itself up just 12 years ago, taking the U.S. economy and U.S. housing market down with it, while getting propped up with the largest taxpayer and Fed bailout in U.S. … Continue reading →

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Scenes from Election Day in America, November 3, 2020

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: November 3, 2020 ~ The eagerly anticipated and yet also dreaded day has finally arrived. In the interest of preserving this day lest post-traumatic-stress-disorder kicks in and eviscerates the nightmares of the last four years from our memory banks, we thought we would capture in photos the vibes of what the American presidential election has come to. The front cover of the New York Daily News, in the photo above, perfectly captures the queasy stomachs that the majority of Americans are experiencing today. But in an utterly bizarre action, at 6:50 a.m. this morning, futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average were suggesting that the stock market would open up more than 400 points. There is definitely some invisible hand buying up futures on maximum leverage to move the market higher this morning. If you need further evidence of fake market optimism for corporate … Continue reading →

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Charles Koch Should Be on the Presidential Debate Stage Tonight, Not Donald Trump

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: October 22, 2020 ~ Anyone who has carefully studied the presidency of Donald Trump knows that his job is Distractor in Chief. Investigative reporters for the New York Times have spent endless hours compiling Trump’s tax evasions and unreported foreign bank account in China. The Washington Post has spent endless hours compiling more than 20,000 lies Trump has told since taking office. But the real man in charge of directing the agenda of the Trump administration, fossil fuels billionaire Charles Koch, has received far less scrutiny. Yesterday, former President Barack Obama delivered a speech at a campaign rally in Philadelphia for Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. During the remarks, Obama got to the core of what Charles Koch’s political network and money machine has done to gut the safeguards for everyday Americans at the federal regulatory agencies that previously protected them. Obama didn’t mention … Continue reading →

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The Fed Did a Lot of Talking Yesterday about a Big Bank Failure: Should We Worry?

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: October 21, 2020 ~ Turns out the federal government’s plan for dealing with a mega bank failure on Wall Street is no better conceived than the federal government’s plan for dealing with the worst pandemic since 1918. The Federal Reserve issued two press releases yesterday about “large banks.” One read: “Agencies finalize rule to reduce the impact of large bank failures.” The other read: “Agencies issue final rule to strengthen resilience of large banks.” Wait. What? Fed Chairman Jerome Powell has been telling anyone who would listen this year – from Congress to viewers of the Today show – that the large banks have been a “source of strength” during the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. If that were true (which we’ve questioned from the first time Powell said it) why is the Fed now worrying about a “large bank failure” and … Continue reading →

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Harper’s Provides a Chilling Account of Secret Presidential Powers

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: October 18, 2020 ~ Andrew Cockburn has a stunning report in the November issue of Harper’s Magazine on secret Presidential Emergency Action Documents (PEADs) that “implement extraordinary presidential authority in response to extraordinary situations.” Cockburn notes that these sweeping powers have been “Compiled without any authorization from Congress” and were not on the public’s radar “until Donald Trump started to brag about them.” In March, Trump made this statement: “Well, we have things that I can do. We have very strong emergency powers under the Stafford Act. And we are — we have it — I mean, I have it memorized, practically, as to the powers in that act. And if I need to do something, I’ll do it. I have the right to do a lot of things that people don’t even know about.” Cockburn walks us through how Presidents throughout history have … Continue reading →

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Billionaire Charles Koch, Whose Minions Staffed Up the Trump Administration, Has a Common Bond with Russian Election Interference

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: October 7, 2020 ~ Charles Koch is the billionaire owner of Koch Industries, one of the largest private companies in the world with vast interests in fossil fuels, refineries, chemicals, lumber, paper and glass manufacturing. A subsidiary of Koch Industries is Koch Supply and Trading, which engages in commodities trading on a scale rivaling the largest banks on Wall Street. Charles Koch also heads an operation variously known as the Koch Network or the Kochtopus, because its tentacles are strangling the life out of representative government in the United States. The operation hosts semiannual strategy sessions where obscenely rich Americans get together to jointly commit hundreds of millions of dollars to keep Congress and the Oval Office in the hands of fossil fuel-friendly candidates who have demonstrated an obedience to a deregulatory agenda. Koch Foundation money and two dark money groups, Donor’s Capital Fund … Continue reading →

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Despite Pandemic and Worst Downturn Since 1930s, Investors’ Margin Debt Grew by 15 Percent Since January

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: September 30, 2020 ~ Conjuring up another era of “irrational exuberance,” data from Wall Street’s self-regulator, FINRA, shows that margin debt has grown by 15 percent since the end of January to a total of $645.5 billion as of August 31 of this year. That’s very close to the prior record of $668.9 billion set at the end of May 2018, according to the FINRA database. Margin debt is created when investors borrow money against their stocks (or other marginable securities) held in a margin account at a brokerage firm. Typically, the margin loan is to enable the customer to buy more stock on a leveraged basis. Under the Federal Reserve’s Regulation T, investors may borrow a maximum of 50 percent of the purchase price of stocks from their brokerage firm. The remaining 50 percent of the price of the securities must be funded … Continue reading →

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Shhh! Don’t Tell the Fed these Wall Street Banks Have Tanked 34 to 48 Percent Year-to-Date. (The Fed Thinks They’re a “Source of Strength”)

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: September 24, 2020 ~ Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s oft repeated mantra this year – that the behemoth Wall Street banks “are a source of strength” in this economic crisis – is melting away faster than a snow cone in July, along with the share prices of these banks. So whom should Americans believe: The composite wisdom of the market or the opinion of a federal regulator whose supervision of these banks has been far from stellar. The market would seem to have spoken clearly on just how “strong” these banks are. Since the first trading day of the year, January 2, to yesterday’s closing price, here’s the factual reality of just how much common equity capital these banks have bled: Citigroup is down a stunning 48 percent, losing almost half of its common equity capital; Bank of America has lost 35 percent; while … Continue reading →

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