After reading yesterday morning that Citigroup--which has already received $25 billion in bailout money--is adamant in maintaining its $400 million naming rights to the new New York Mets stadium, I was shocked to learn that the company came to the federal government asking for an additional multi-billion dollar lifeline. Surely, if the company has the funds to paste its name to a recreational facility, it has the money to maintain its operations and keep the 52,000 jobs it announced last week it would be eliminating.
While I understand that Citi is under a contractual obligation with the Mets, I cannot understand why the organization seems to be refusing at the very least to explore options out of that contract. This type of spending is indefensible and unacceptable to Citigroup's new partner and largest investor: the American taxpayer. My constituents in Maryland did not turn over their hard-earned wages to fund a baseball stadium in New York.
One would think that the Mets would be open to finding a new sponsor, as well. Why would any team want its new stadium, the symbol of a new era of victories, to be named after and symbolized by a company claiming to be on the brink of collapse?
I strongly urge Citigroup to find a way out of this contract and instead spend that $400 million on retaining its employees and restoring confidence in its operations. Furthermore, I encourage Citigroup and every other corporation depending on taxpayer dollars to stop the reckless spending, and I again insist that Secretary Paulson and Chairman Bernanke start holding these companies accountable. We cannot continue to pour taxpayer dollars into buckets with holes.
I have a sincere question here. How do we "fix" multi-national corporations and major financial institutions without getting into the business of micro-managing them? Everyone has proposals for what Citigroup should be forced to do in return for governmental assistance.
Is it true that: "If we fix it, we own it"? What does oversight and re-regulation mean in this context?
I was always against the TARP and other bailouts. I am FOR temporarily increasing SSI for those in dire need.
Personally, I would NOT have been opposed to the Federal Government stepping in and buying out and taking control of CitiGroup. From there it could work as an independent market force in the financial markets. The governments of Japan and Great Britain have already intervened in this manner. It is impossible to just dangle money in front of corporations and banks with a laundry list of provisos and conditions without ultimately defeating the intended purpose of increasing credit access and stabilizing the banking industry.
Such an action can increase higher risk investments that are currently anaethema to existing banks. Such a bank could "seed" other local financial institutions. Credit unions were a strong institutionalization of local banking that resulted from the Great Depression.
Like they say: "In for a penny, in for a pound".
Rep. Cummings, thanks for the info, much appreciated.
A federal bank becomes a competitor on the market that establishes a new framework for investment. When the funny paper was being marketed, it was next to impossible for commercial banks to resist it because of the competitive edge that it gave to others.
The incompetent and corrupt Congressional oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is an indication that this is not just a matter of regulation. After all, who regulates the regulators.
The bailout does NOT even touch the structural inequities of the existing banking and financial industries. It continues to pump them up without introducing new elements that can create a new and creative investment force.
Better to get Citi at its lowest price and use federal monies to stablize it and invest where it will address the needs of the real economy.
How can the housing market be stabilized when the risk is greater than the reward? How can there be a floor established on housing price declines, as some advocate, without a financial institution being able to provide it?
Can you answer that in honesty?
the average person on Main Street.
The elite exist in the bubble that comes with wealth and privilege. They have lived this way all their lives or became members of the elite sub-culture after college. This is the norm; so comprehending and understanding the norms that "the rest of us live by " is not something they have had direct experience with.
That is why such events and actions as the following shock the man in the street, but generated puzzled looks from the elite who carry them out. Some examples: The Big Three CEOs taking three separate jet planes from Detroit to DC and expecting union workers to accept cut backs on benefits while the executive perks remain unchanged or increase, , Citi Bank paying for the company name and logo on a sports stadium, basic pay several hundred percent larger than the rank and file employees, huge bonsus. . .this is their reality. Their Boards of Directors, consisting of members of the same subculture do not raise questions about company performance being linked
to executive compensation.
If the Main Street taxpayers are becoming part owners in these companies and industries, the norms
and rules of the Main Street culture needs to be the ones that these organizations follow.
This is my money.
We also need to change the tax laws to put in much higher tax rates - on the order of 60% or more on incomes over $500,000 as well as tax law changes that would basically end 'golden parachutes' and extreme pensions for CEO's.
Citigroup board member Robert Rubin was former Treasury Sec under Clinton.
There is no difference between Paulsons' motives or Rubins' motives.
They take care of their own.
Citigroup should be allowd to a fall,it's that simple.This is a learning curve and sometimes they are painful. All this bollocks about too big to fail. Well, that seems to be a catch all phrase now. Soon, I 'll be able to say tell you what I owe about $200k on my various credit cards but I'm too important a member of my community to go bankrupt. Get real!!
I don't know if it's a good marketing move to name the stadium after itself; however, Citi needs to continue to sell its products and services and that means advertising and marketing its brand. I have a feeling that they got a lot more than a name on the building for this $400 mil.
I seem to remember that this is not the first time the feds have bailed out Citi. I think it was in the 90s that we bailed out various American banks for their failed loans to South American countries; however, perhaps someone else will recall the details.
Folks--write to your Senators & Reps about this. Business needs to come down off its high horse of luxury conference sites, private jets, huge bonuses & CEO's who not only make a lot of money while they are working, and then obscene amounts when they depart. And that's whether they did a good job OR a bad job.
Might consider also writing in regard to cowardly GW's sneaky passage of permission for oil companies to drill at Nat'l Parks, Historic sites....ON NOVEMBER 4TH. On election day when no one was paying attention. What unbelievable arrogance this administration has.
J
John Edwards was right. There are two Americas.
White collar and Blue collar.
Sir Winfried Bischoff Chairman 2007 pay= $ 6,130,390.00
Vikram Pandit CEO (bew member to the company)2007 pay= $ 573,813.00
Gary Crittenden Chief Financial Officer 2007 pay= $ 19,369,506
Sallie Krawcheck Chair and CEO 2007 pay= $ 7,139,792
Lewis Kaden Vice Chairman 2007 pay= $ 6,771,307
Michael Klein CEO—Global Banking 2007 pay= $ 7,861,438
Stephen Volk Vice Chairman 2007 pay= $ 7,597,847
Charles Prince Former Chairman and CEO 2007 pay= $ 15,105,376
Total paid out in 2007 is $ 70,549,469.00