Abnormal movements involving several hundred billion dollars were made in the United States by the heads of major banks… NOT American in late 2024-early 2025 in an attempt to camouflage their lack of equity capital!
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Executives of major US banks (i.e. financial institutions with a banking license in the USA) reduced their total assets by a total of $291.3 billion on the last day of 2024, in unadjusted terms (according to the latest figures published by the Fed), which is the biggest drop in assets since these data have been published, i.e. since 1973!
And the amplitude of these variations increased again on January 8, but up by… $488.8 billion, which is the second biggest increase in this item since 1973!
Document 1:
The explanation for this drop in the assets of the major US banks is as follows: most of the executives of these US banks have decided to significantly lower their balance sheet totals as at December 31, 2024, so as not to be obliged to increase the amount of their shareholders’ equity in order to give the impression of meeting the regulatory capitalization requirements in force in the United States, which means, in other words, that… these banks are in reality currently dangerously under-capitalized according to their published data!
This sharp drop in bank assets did not occur at the end of the previous two years (according to Seasonally Adjusted, SA data), which means that the current undercapitalization of these major US banks has recently worsened significantly… which is not reported in any article, at least not to my knowledge!
The nearly $500 billion increase in assets resulting from the Fed’s publication of these figures on January 8 means that these banks’ executives have been bringing this capital back to the US on their banks’ accounts since after the end of fiscal 2024, and here too it is astonishing that these capital movements have not been the subject of articles published in the financial media, at least to my knowledge!
Document 2:
The question then is: who are these executives of these US-licensed banking institutions who took some $500 billion off their balance sheets at the end of December 2024… only to put it back on in the early days of January 2025?
The answer can be found in Fed publications under Assets and Liabilities of Commercial Banks in the United States – H.8.
The seasonally-adjusted data reported in Table 2 are in line with the figures in the series published by our friend Fred from Saint Louis as shown in the two previous documents.
The assets of all registered banks in the United States did indeed fall overall by $291.3 billion between December 25, 2024 and January 1, 2025 (after having already fallen significantly in the preceding weeks), and they had risen by… $488.8 billion by January 8,
Document 3:
Assets of all U.S.-registered banks in raw data, i.e. NOT seasonally adjusted reported in Fed Table 3 show an increase of $473.5 billion in assets of all U.S.-registered banks in the first week of 2025, which is in line with the figures in Table 2.
Document 4:
As regards the assets of purely US banks alone, i.e. those headquartered in the USA, they rose by just $41.6 billion in the first week of 2025 in seasonally adjusted data, Fed Table 4, meaning that the increase in assets of all banks registered in the USA came only from so-called foreign banks, i.e. those headquartered outside the USA, their US entity being merely a subsidiary,
Document 5:
Conclusion: American banksters are not the managers of purely American banks, i.e. those headquartered in the USA, but the managers of foreign banks headquartered outside the USA, i.e. in Europe, Asia and certain countries with significant hydrocarbon wealth…
The same observations lead to the same conclusions with regard to the increase in assets of purely US banks alone assessed in raw data, i.e. not seasonally adjusted, Fed Table 5, i.e. an increase of only $34.3 billion in the first week of 2025,
Document 6:
As for the assets of the major pure-US banks alone, i.e. those headquartered in the USA, they rose by just $8.7 billion in the first week of 2025 in seasonally adjusted data, Fed Table 5, meaning that the increase in assets of all the major banks registered in the USA came only from the so-called foreign banks, i.e. those headquartered outside the USA, their US entity being merely a subsidiary,
Document 7:
The same observations lead to the same conclusions with regard to the increase in assets of the only large, purely American banks assessed in raw data, i.e. not seasonally adjusted, Fed Table 6, i.e. an increase of only $4.7 billion in the first week of 2025,
Document 8:
All the Fed’s data concur: the American banksters are therefore the managers of foreign banks only, i.e. those headquartered outside the USA, whose subsidiaries do not comply with the regulations laid down by the US banking authorities concerning the need to maintain capital in line with current standards.
These foreign banks are thus undermining the US banking system, as their total assets are far from negligible: $3,265 billion (23,893.1 – 20,627.9 see documents 4 and 6 above), representing 15% of the total assets of purely US banks alone, i.e. those headquartered in the USA.
By irregularly reducing their total assets by $500 billion, these foreign banks are supposed to be complying with the capitalization requirements in force in the USA, but they are also (fraudulently) avoiding having to recapitalize their US subsidiaries.
The amount of equity capital “saved” overall by this (reprehensible) operation can be estimated on the basis of the following reasoning…
To simplify and give an order of magnitude, JPMorgan has $345 billion in published equity on its balance sheet at the end of 2024, for $4,002 billion in assets, i.e. a capitalization ratio of 8.6%.
For $3,265 billion in assets, foreign banks are supposed to comply with U.S. capitalization rules, let’s say on the basis of JPMorgan’s 8.6% ratio, their overall equity should then amount to $238.4 billion, but as they withdrew around $500 billion at the end of December 2024, they have thus (but fraudulently) “saved” overall 8.6% equity, or $43 billion.
The Donald, once enthroned as America’s great leader and defender of U.S. business, should have these foreign banksters punished!
Click here for Fed H.8 data on this subject.
Click here to read my article in French on this subject.
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