There are few people besides Martens who has followed more carefully the shenanigans of Wall Street actors. People from Wall Street have long been identified as the real directors of the US government. In other words, actors from this sector, especially the financial part of Wall Street, constitute what many keen observers of power in the US as a "shadow government" or "deep state". Although major capitalist actors have exercised major influence over the US government for over 100 years, their control has become so consolidated that they now have a hidden directorate who function as a shadow government.
Unbeknownst to most people, following WWII the ruling class directorate became very interested in establishing an empire, and gradually established another branch of their directorate in northern Virginia to manage the empire. This has been well described in a recent book entitled Imperial Suburbs by Andrew Friedman. A 55 minute interview with Friedman broadcast from KPFA in Berkeley provides a detailed description of this event.
In the early days of the CIA, Allen Dulles moved the agency from Washington, D.C. to the suburbs, spawning a complex of government and private entities in the service of US empire. Scholar Andrew Friedman unearths the significance of the national security state's base in Northern Virginia. He examines the imperial ties and intimate connections between agents....With domestic affairs run by agents in Wall Street and Empire affairs run by their people in northern Virginia, what they left behind in Washington was merely a well-constructed facade of "constitutional government founded on democratic principles and the rule of law", an ongoing performance of a stage play called "Democrats versus Republicans", and the periodic extravaganzas of political campaigns and elections. It is the facade, the staged drama, and election campaigns that mainstream media report on, while the actions of those in the well-coordinated shadow government in Wall Street and northern Virginia go unreported. However, the fake nature of the official government is becoming ever more apparent as Martens is discovering.
In this article she cites Fed Chair Yellen's semiannual report to the Senate Banking Committee as evidence that there is no serious planning by the Fed to exercise any discipline over reckless actions of "too big to fail" banking institutions as promised to the American people and as mandated in the Dodd-Frank bill following the most recent collapse of the economy. She also provides evidence of the collusion of major Wall Street actors with enforcement agencies, police and other legal authorities.
