Pam and Russ Martens, of Wall Street On Parade, have regularly made the case for a restoration of Glass-Steagall, and in a new article on Aug. 20, they stress again the urgency of it, by showing that all “The Devils of 2008 Are Back at the Megabanks”. The extreme leverage exposed in the report of the Congressional Inquiry Committee in 2010, as the cause of the 2007-2008 financial crisis, has not decreased but has increased since then. Today, not only banks are leveraged, but 4 U.S. megabanks hold 87% of the derivative exposure of the entire banking sector in the U.S.A. Furthermore, they hold as much derivative bets hidden off their books, as they have on their balance sheet.
Take JP Morgan. According to financial data at the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council, as of December 31, 2023, JPMorgan Chase held $3.227 trillion off balance sheet. In JPMorgan Chase’s 10-K public filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission for the period ending December 31, 2023, it reported total assets on its balance sheet of $3.875 trillion. Altogether, $7.3 trillion.
