Courtesy of Pam Martens
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
Today would have been Mark Pittman’s 62nd birthday. Pittman died of a heart attack at age 52 on November 25, 2009 in the midst of a pitched court battle with the Federal Reserve to obtain data on its secret loans to Wall Street.
Writing for Bloomberg News, Pittman was one of the preeminent chroniclers during the financial crisis of the Federal Reserve’s hubris in refusing to shed any light on what eventually turned out to be an astounding $29 trillion of money it created out of thin air to bail out Wall Street’s mega banks and their foreign bank derivatives counterparties.
Pittman had appeared in the documentary, American Casino, produced by Leslie and Andrew Cockburn. In that documentary, the Cockburns brilliantly pieced together for the American people the wealth transfer scheme concocted by the mega banks on Wall Street, which minted corrupt billionaires almost overnight while causing the greatest economic suffering by Americans since the Great Depression. Leslie Cockburn is a former prize-winning producer at 60 Minutes; Andrew Cockburn is the Washington Editor of Harper’s.
Following Pittman’s death, the Cockburns produced the above tribute to Pittman. His warnings in the video are just as valid today as they were during the financial crisis.
