Article: After JPMorgan Chase Admits to Its 4th and 5th Felony Charge, Its Board Gives a $50 Million Bonus to Its CEO, Jamie Dimon

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After JPMorgan Chase Admits to Its 4th and 5th Felony Charge, Its Board Gives a $50 Million Bonus to Its CEO, Jamie Dimon

Pam Martens and Russ Martens, 23 July 2021

The unthinkable is happening with alarming regularity at the Frankenbank JPMorgan Chase. Over the last seven years, with Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon at the helm, JPMorgan Chase has managed to do what no other federally-insured American bank has managed to do in the history of banking in the United States. The bank has admitted to five separate felony countsbrought by the U.S. Department of Justice, while regulators took no action to remove the Board of Directors or Jamie Dimon.

Now, once again, the outrageous hubris of this Board is on display. Just last fall the bank forked over $920 million of shareholders moneyto settle its fourth and fifth felony counts brought by the Department of Justice, this time for rigging the precious metals and U.S. Treasury market. Now, in the dog days of summer, rarely a time for bonuses on Wall Street, the Jrgan Chase board announced on July 20 that it is giving Dimon 1.5 million stock options which, according to a specialist cited at Bloomberg News, have a total value of $50 million on paper.

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Article: Affirm’s Max Levchin Responds to New Competition From Apple

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Affirm’s Max Levchin Responds to New Competition From Apple

Bloomberg, 17 July 2021

Affirm CEO Max Levchin discusses Apple’s announcement that they will collaborate with Goldman Sachs and start allowing customers to buy products using Apple Pay and pay off the purchases in installments, which will be in direct competition with his company. He speaks with Emily Chang on “Bloomberg Technology.”

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Article: What’s Behind The Massive Fluctuation In Natural Gas Prices?

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What’s Behind The Massive Fluctuation In Natural Gas Prices?

Irina Slav, 30 June 2021

The Texas Freeze was one of those unprecedented events that have the potential to upend the way things are done, in this case, in power utilities. The crisis, which saw natural gas prices rise from two-figure to four-figure numbers, prompted an in-depth look at Texas’s grid and electricity market, and measures to ensure it never happened again. Now, gas prices are on the rise again, and many of the February bills have not been paid yet. Disgruntlement is building up across the swathe of states affected by the freezing cold spell in February. In California, people are being warned their bills are going to rise higher.

“I cannot for the life of me understand how we saw it go from $2 to $1,200 and back down to $2 in the span of the week; that’s not real,” Garry Mize, the Republican chairman of the utilities committee in Oklahoma’s House of Representatives, said recently, as quoted by the Wall Street Journal. Continue reading “Article: What’s Behind The Massive Fluctuation In Natural Gas Prices?”

Article: How the GameStop Hustle Worked

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How the GameStop Hustle Worked

Lucy Komisar, 22 June 2021

I have written previously for the Prospect about the frenzy over GameStop (GME), the video game and electronics company. By now, you know the story. Millions of retail investors made the stock soar by over 1,000 percent in January 2021. This brought disaster upon a handful of hedge funds that had bet on GameStop’s stock to drop. According to Markets Insider, one analyst estimated losses in February of roughly $19 billion. The hedge fund Melvin Capital reportedly closed out its position after taking a drubbing of 51 percent. Another fund, Maplelane, lost 40 percent.

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Article: China Pushes Back Against Threat Of Inflation – Analysis

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China Pushes Back Against Threat Of Inflation – Analysis

Michael Lelyveld, 19 June 2021

China’s government has suffered a setback in its campaign against inflation as consumer prices accelerated last month despite pressure on producers to keep commodity costs down.

On June 9, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reported that the consumer price index (CPI) for May rose 1.3 percent from a year earlier, quickening from the 0.9-percent pace the month before. Continue reading “Article: China Pushes Back Against Threat Of Inflation – Analysis”

Matt Taibbi: Let the Apes Have Wall Street

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Let the Apes Have Wall Street
Matt Taibbi, 10 June 2021
The much-publicized war over “meme stocks” drags a longstanding Wall Street ripoff out of the shadows, to hilarious results

On CNBC’s Fast Money last week, anchor Melissa Lee appeared to mention the unmentionable. She was talking with Tim Seymour, CEO of Seymour Asset Management, who made offhand mention of the hedge funds shorting now-infamous stocks like AMC and GameStop. “Look, there are a lot of short sellers out there who have been borrowing stock they didn’t have,” Seymour said.

“Naked shorts, yeah,” said Lee.

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Article: G-7 Targets Environmental Crimes in Push for Greater Disclosure

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G-7 Targets Environmental Crimes in Push for Greater Disclosure

Alessandra Migliaccio and David Goodman, 05 June 2021

The Group of Seven nations targeted environmental crimes with a move to push companies into disclosing the impact they have on the climate.

Finance ministers from the G-7 meeting in London agreed for the first time to embed climate-change considerations into their decision making. They also expanded the work of a money laundering and corruption watchdog to root out crimes against the planet.

The moves stopped short of the U.K. ambition to get G-7 firmer backing for mandatory reporting of climate risks by companies, something central bankers and green groups have said will force investors to focus on how moves to curb fossil fuel use will impact their holdings. Continue reading “Article: G-7 Targets Environmental Crimes in Push for Greater Disclosure”

Article: The Mystery of the $113 Millıon Deli

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The Mystery of the $113 Millıon Deli

Jesse Barron, 02 June 2021

In a letter to his investors this April, David Einhorn, founder of the hedge fund Greenlight Capital and a well-known short-seller, complained that the stock market was in a state of “quasi anarchy.” As one piece of evidence, he pointed to Elon Musk, whose commentary on Twitter, Einhorn said, amounted to market manipulation. “The laws don’t apply to him, and he can do whatever he wants,” Einhorn noted. As another example, he cited a restaurant in rural New Jersey called Your Hometown Deli, which despite making $13,976 in revenue last year had somehow attained a value of $113 million on the stock market. Continue reading “Article: The Mystery of the $113 Millıon Deli”

Article: China Considers New Holding Company for Huarong, Bad-Debt Managers

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China Considers New Holding Company for Huarong, Bad-Debt Managers

Bloomberg News, 01 June 2021

China’s finance ministry is considering a proposal to transfer its shares in China Huarong Asset Management Co. and three other bad-debt managers to a new holding company modeled after the one that owns the government’s stakes in state-run banks, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Policy makers are re-examining the proposal, which was first tabled three years ago, as part of discussions on how to deal with the financial risks posed by Huarong, said the person, who asked not to be identified discussing private information.

Some officials view the creation of a holding company as a step toward separating the government’s roles as a regulator and shareholder, streamlining oversight and instilling a more professional management culture at Huarong and its peers, the person said. Continue reading “Article: China Considers New Holding Company for Huarong, Bad-Debt Managers”

Article: Huarong Wires $978 Million to Repay Bonds as Doubts Persist

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Huarong Wires $978 Million to Repay Bonds as Doubts Persist

Bloomberg News, 31 May 2021

China Huarong Asset Management Co. made the biggest bond payment since confidence in its financial health began plunging two months ago, adding to signs that the company still has access to near-term liquidity.

Huarong wired funds for a $900 million dollar bond due June 3, a person familiar with the matter said, asking not to be identified discussing private information. One of the company’s onshore units also paid a 500 million yuan ($78 million) bond that matured Sunday, people familiar said. Continue reading “Article: Huarong Wires $978 Million to Repay Bonds as Doubts Persist”

Article: Binance Faces Probe by U.S. Money-Laundering and Tax Sleuths

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Binance Faces Probe by U.S. Money-Laundering and Tax Sleuths

Tom Schoenberg, 13 May 2021

Binance Holdings Ltd. is under investigation by the Justice Department and Internal Revenue Service, ensnaring the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange in U.S. efforts to root out illicit activity that’s thrived in the red-hot but mostly unregulated market.

As part of the inquiry, officials who probe money laundering and tax offenses have sought information from individuals with insight into Binance’s business, according to people with knowledge of the matter who asked not to be named because the probe is confidential. Led by Changpeng Zhao, a charismatic tech executive who relishes promoting tokens on Twitter and in media interviews, Binance has leap-frogged rivals since he co-founded it in 2017. Continue reading “Article: Binance Faces Probe by U.S. Money-Laundering and Tax Sleuths”

Article: Meet The Tiny California Town “Full Of Dirt” That Snagged Elon Musk’s Boring Company

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Meet The Tiny California Town “Full Of Dirt” That Snagged Elon Musk’s Boring Company

TYLER DURDEN, 20 April 2021

Elon Musk is taking his Boring Company circus on the road to Adelanto, California.

Adelanto is a town of 37,000 where the mayor, Gabriel Reyes, works part time and the city manager, Jessie Flores, is the full time chief executive of the city, according to a recent Bloomberg report.

The county supervisor mentioned to Flores recently that Musk’s Boring Company was looking for a place to practice digging tunnels, so Flores reached out. “Steve, we’re the ones you’re looking for. When can we meet?,” Flores texted Boring’s President Steve Davis. Flores suggested meeting at SpaceX’s headquarters, which was about 2 hours away from Adelanto. Continue reading “Article: Meet The Tiny California Town “Full Of Dirt” That Snagged Elon Musk’s Boring Company”

Article: Credit Suisse Prime Brokerage Heads Fired Over Archegos Blowup

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Gary Gensler is now head of the SEC. What comes next?

TYLER DURDEN, 19 April 2021

Apparently, firing half a dozen executives including its head of risk management (Lara Warner, also one of the most high-ranking women in the global financial services industry) hasn’t done enough to quiet shareholders’ demands for change atop Credit Suisse, the Swiss banking giant that reported a $4.7 billion loss from the collapse of Archegos Capital Management, with billions of losses likely to follow from the collapse for Greensill.

As CEO Thomas Gottstein clings to his position, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday that John Dabbs and Ryan Nelson will immediately step down as co-heads of prime services, the prime-brokerage unit responsible for extending all that credit to Archegos (as a reminder, for an explainer on how Archegos built its $100 billion massively leveraged position. Continue reading “Article: Credit Suisse Prime Brokerage Heads Fired Over Archegos Blowup”

THE DOLLAR HAS NO INTRINSIC VALUE : DO YOUR ASSETS?