Cleary Gottlieb – Outside Counsel to Wall Street’s Serially Bailed Out Megabanks – Tarnishes the FDIC Chair in its So-Called “Independent” Report

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 8, 2024 ~ Yesterday, the Big Law firm Cleary Gottlieb released its so-called “independent review” of charges of sexual harassment at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). Although no employee is charging Martin Gruenberg, the Chair of the FDIC, with sexual harassment, Cleary Gottlieb seems to go out of its way to paint Gruenberg in a negative light in the report – 108 times in fact. Gruenberg held the deciding vote at the FDIC last July when the bank regulator approved moving forward with proposed new rules to significantly raise the capital levels at the megabanks on Wall Street, particularly those holding trillions of dollars in derivatives off their balance sheet. These include the same banks that secretly received $16 trillion in cumulative emergency loans from the Federal Reserve from December 2007 to July 2010 because they were undercapitalized and teetering on insolvency, as … Continue reading →

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McDonald’s and other fast-food giants are struggling in the inflation economy. qz.com The inflation economy has come for Fat Food. As I read this, I would look at their costs. They talk about their reductions in Labor. It looks more to me like inventory turns and their investment in it. That is itself could make them […]

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 – by New Deal democrat The Senior Loan Officer Survey is a long leading indicator, telling us about credit conditions that typically turn worse a year or more before the economy turns down, and improve just at the economy is ready to turn up. The big drawback of this series is that the information is […]

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JPMorgan Chase and Its Regulators Are Hiding Dark Trading Secrets at the Largest and Riskiest U.S. Bank

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 7, 2024 ~ Last Wednesday, JPMorgan Chase, the publicly-traded parent of the largest federally-insured bank in the United States as well as a five-count felon, revealed in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that on top of the $348 million it paid out in March to two of its banking regulators for sketchy trading violations involving “billions” of trades on 30 global trading venues, it “expects to enter into a resolution with a third U.S. regulator that will require the Firm to, among other things, pay a civil penalty of $100 million….” (See “Trading Venues Investigations” on page 168 of the SEC filing at this link.) JPMorgan Chase did not name this third regulator but Bloomberg News reported that it is the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The two federal banking regulators that imposed the trading fines in March are the Office of the … Continue reading →

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Inflation Is Scrambling Americans’ Perceptions of Middle-Class Life, businessinsider.com, Jennifer Sor Yes, we have inflation. It is a given. Inflation is scrambling the lives of middle-class Americans. Income is not keeping up with the costs of maintaining a Middle-Class Life. I have sat here in AZ watching this play out in the nation. In many […]

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Kevin Drum doesn’t believe Life is so bad today. Kevin poses a number of reasons why things are actually pretty good. Think about it. We weathered a pandemic. For the first time government stepped in biggly and well beyond what was done in 2008 for people. Biden insured people who had no healthcare insurance pre-pandemic, […]

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Judge Merchan appears to be boxed in.  On the one hand, fining Trump $1,000 for violating the gag order is obviously not going to be effective.  On the other hand, sending Trump to jail would make him a martyr to some, and may not even be effective, since Trump would appeal any order sending him […]

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Since many AB readers are either retired or about to be: “Looking solely at the trust fund that covers retirement and survivor benefits, Social Security will only be able to afford scheduled payments in full until 2033, roughly the same projection as last year. At that time, the fund’s reserves will be depleted, and continuing […]

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I believe Angry Bear can present this excellent article on how the Supreme Court is evolving its interpretation of the Public Health. I am using it as informational and instructional to Angry Bear readers. A brief analysis of the SCOTUS philosophy on Public Health and their impact on the government and its legislation. It is […]

The post Promoting the General Welfare, The Supreme Court’s Version of Doing So appeared first on Angry Bear.

 – by New Deal democrat First, a brief programming note. This week is particularly sparse in the new economic data department. The Senior Loan Officer Survey will be reported this afternoon, and on Thursday as usual we get jobless claims. Aside from that, nada. So I might take a day or two off. But I want […]

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Campus Protests Over Gaza Open a Pandora’s Box for Wall Street Megabanks that Underwrote $8 Billion of Israel’s Bonds in March

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 6, 2024 ~ The pro-Palestinian protestors on college and university campuses across the U.S. have opened a pandora’s box for the Wall Street megabanks that underwrite billions of dollars in Israel bonds – including $8 billion in March of this year – at a time when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s conduct of the war in Gaza has come under broad condemnation. U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who is Jewish, described Netanyahu’s war operation as follows on the April 28 edition of CNN’s State of the Union: “Right now, what Netanyahu’s right-wing, extremist and racist government is doing is unprecedented in the modern history of warfare. They have killed in the last six-and-a-half months 33,000 Palestinians, wounded 77,000, two-thirds of whom are women and children. “They have destroyed over 60 percent of the housing. They have destroyed the health care system. They have … Continue reading →

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Executive Summary portion of the Medicare Payment Policy Report to Congress I have only had time to wade through the Executive Summary portion of the MedPac Report to Congress on FFS and MA Medicare plans. If the Executive Summary has any meaning, we will see some changes in how MA plans administer pricing of services […]

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