Courtesy of Pam Martens
Public Citizen Issued an In-Depth Report in November 2017 on the 44 Koch Operatives/Allies that Filled Key Posts in the Trump Administration
As we have previously reported, there is indisputable documentation that Charles Koch, the fossil fuels billionaire who sits at the helm of Koch Industries, is in charge of the de-regulatory agenda in the Trump administration through a web of front groups.
More proof came yesterday. Reuters announced that the Trump administration had “formally told” around 40 staff members of the Office of Financial Research (OFR) that “they will lose their jobs as part of a broader reorganization of the agency….” Reuters also reported that the agency’s budget has already been cut by 25 percent “to around $76 million.” Imagine having only $76 million to police an industry where just one of the big Wall Street banks, JPMorgan Chase, had profits of $8.32 billion in its last quarter.
Charles Koch has long understood that if you can’t repeal the legislation that created the Federal agency, get your lackies in Congress to gut its funding and gut its staff.
The OFR was created under the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation of 2010 to issue public research reports and keep the Financial Stability Oversight Council (F-SOC) informed on emerging threats that have the potential to implode the financial system — as occurred in 2008 in the worst financial crash since the Great Depression.
Two of OFR’s most important research findings are that Wall Street remains dangerously interconnected (See Financial System of U.S. Rests on Health of Just Five Mega Banks) and that the Federal Reserve has left the country at financial risk by using the wrong design for its stress tests. (See Treasury Drops a Bombshell: Fed’s Stress Tests Get It Wrong.) Congress has failed to address either of these critical areas.
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