Today, perhaps following our earlier recommendation, Mr. Vikram Pandit -- CEO of Citigroup -- will appear before the congressional oversight panel for TARP. (Official website, with streamed hearing from 10am).
This is an important opportunity because, if you want to expose the hubris, mismanagement, and executive incompetence -- let's face it -- Citi is the low hanging fruit.
Citibank (and its successors) has been at the center of every major episode of irresponsible exuberance since the 1970s and has essentially failed -- i.e., became insolvent by any reasonable definition and had to be saved -- at least four times in the past 30 years (1982, 1989-91, 1998, and 2008-09).
In the last iteration, Citi was guided by Robert Rubin -- self-styled guru of the markets and sage of Washington, a man who likes to exude "expect the unexpected" mystique -- directly onto the iceberg at full speed.
Mr. Pandit was brought in by Mr. Rubin to refloat the wreckage, despite the fact that he had no prior experience managing a major global bank. Mr. Pandit's hedge fund was acquired by Citi and then promptly shutdown. And Mr. Pandit's big plan for restructuring the most consistently unsuccessful bank -- from society's point of view -- in the history of global finance: Reduce the headcount from around 375,000 to 300,000.
Here are five questions the FCIC should ask. This line of inquiry may seem a bit personal, but it is time to talk directly about the people, procedures, and philosophy behind such awful enterprises.
And if Mr. Pandit replies, in response to point 5, "you need Citi because other countries have large banks," he should be laughed out of court. Just because other countries do things badly and refuse to address their underlying issues has never stopped the United States from fixing its problems. The basis of this republic is our ability and our right to govern ourselves.
We should thank Mr. Pandit and his colleagues at Citi for their service and move immediately to break up the bank - just as our predecessors thanked Mr. Rockefeller and broke up Standard Oil in 1911.
Cross-posted from The Baseline Scenario.
the politicians and the like feign concern and in the end nothing is done. all talk, no action. not surprising since they have been bought and sold many times over.
and the rest who flail around at learning of whatever new outrageous act the oligarchy has perpetrated seem like helpless fish finding themselves in the desert and gasping for breath and flailing with their last bit of strength, uselessly. the gain for them is in the many trillions, not billions. and all from the taxpayers. money that could have gone to education, infrastructure, healthcare, and a host of other programs to benefit the average American, instead of the very few at the top.
well in case you missed it, the war is over. they won. all this pretense of activity is for the masses, uneducated and/or in denial. keep telling yourself that America is the greatest country in the world. just click your heels together and keep repeating the same tired mantra.
They fired the first legal shot, thinking it worthwhile to sue a newly minted pauper for some debt from a revolving credit account, thus I counter sued, and I am trying to keep it alive in the Georgia court system, which is not to be confused with anything resembling a justice system.
Citi had its hands in both groups of guilty scoundrels who created the mortgage bubble, having two units, Citi Mortgage and Citi Financial, who issued mortgages, the latter specifically concentrated on the sub-prime market. Meanwhile, its investment unit, foolishly bought up the time-bomb mortgages, giving incentives to lenders to produce more and more of those products. Of course Citi was paying big bonuses to those investment managers to produce great immediate results, which they did long enough to get their bonuses.
Citi and others who participated in the fraudulent issuance of millions of mortgage loans and thus a surge in homes sales, knew that the bloat would produce a like increase in supply and eventually the bubble would pop and create a huge gap in supply and demand.
They are as guilty of ruining my business as if they were firing shots at potential buyers.
-RLee
http://therleepost.blogspot.com
We need to find out!!
Did Hank Paulson Break the Law?
When Paulson and the firm's execs got together at the Moscow Marriott Grand Hotel, the Treasury secretary gave the Goldman Sachs crew his read on what was happening with the economy and his department's effort to prepare for handling failed banks. He also previewed for them an important speech he would soon deliver. That is, he privately shared his views on matters of direct interest to his old firm. And as Sorkin points out, Paulson had at this point never provided such a briefing to any other company (except for once "briefly dropping by" a cocktail party for the board of BlackRock).
motherjones.com/.../10/hank-paulson-goldman-sachs-secret-meeting - Cached Blackrock...thats anouther gang of criminals.They have oversite on TARP...
The Republicans have been too destructive for this nation. It's time we vote every single one of them out of office AND those corrupt Democrats as well.
those Dems? that would pretty much be all of them. the differences between Dem leadership and Repub leadership are fewer every year. they both tell their masses what the masses want to hear. but in the end nothing is done except for what the corporations want.
Why let the too big to fail get bigger?Why let the derivatives market have its black boxes?Why allow the banks to borrow at 0% interest and buy US bonds?
Theyll get what they want.
This is economic terrorism.
Yes, that is Quadrillion. One and 15 zeroes!
jutiagroup.com/.../global-derivatives-market-now-valued-at-114-quadrillion/ - Cached - Similar
Mar 12, 2009
All 550 trillion dollars worth of CDO's, SIV's, and Credit Default Swaps? ... As such, he is hardly in favor of tearing up all derivatives. ...
www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az...all... - Cached
There's a website filled with nothing but consumer complaints about Citi yet they've done absolutely nothing. Anyone shopping for a mortgage should steer clear of this company. You'll regret it. We had a natural disaster and it took 6 mos. just to get our checks released to pay our contractors. We kept sending in the same forms over and over and over again.
I know a mortgage broker who hit hard times due to the economy. Citi refused to help him modify his mortgage. You'd think instead of foreclosing on so many homes, they'd remodify to keep their business in good standing.