Comments on: Citigroup bailout: leaving the incompetents in charge

By: Cujo359

Cujo359 — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 00:27:15 +0000

I’d take some comfort in the fact that the government will own part of these banks for a while if they had any interest in trying to manage them properly. Unfortunately, it’s starting to look like the government will punt on that part of it, too. Maybe the incoming administration will take a more positive role. They already seem willing to do more than Obama talked about during the campaign.

Maybe it’s a good thing that the President-elect can’t buy himself a ranch in Paraguay should things go south here?

By: WKirkland

WKirkland — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 20:14:17 +0000

I for one would be interested in Citigroup’s record of paying taxes –those taxes now rescuing it. Not good, not even honest, is a bet we’d certainly win.

By: Kassandra

Kassandra — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 16:17:35 +0000

I sometimes wonder if they all aren’t making it up to fleece us some more?

Look at this one: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11.....4mon1.html The feeding frenzy isn’t over yet. Get ya Payday loans here! Payday loans!

By: nikky

nikky — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 13:55:52 +0000

and just think who do we have running around criticizing everyone else about the economy none other then his scrawny wife

By: nikky

nikky — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 13:54:18 +0000

here we go again did we hear whether they have a corporate jet i am sure they do did we hear who family has money invested we are like lambs going to slaughter and they would rather have foreign car maker then american car makers i think people need to think how this country has been, being sold out to foreign countries for the last eight probably longer but at least eight need i say the word think about it

By: shootthatarrow

shootthatarrow — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 13:53:39 +0000

MarkH @ 46

When Greenspan was pronouncing matters as being healthfully “exuberant” and claiming the markets were “intrinsically sound” clearly Wall St. and Big Banking were off and running. The bloom is off now and those who were reckless,careless or just plain criminal ought not walk away easily.

It is painfully evident now that ‘protecting assets’ got run over some time back by the gamers and players who were more interested in the multiples for skim offs and esoteric pick pocketing.

Anyone walking into the corner gas station and holding it up for a couple hundred dollars and getting caught doing so would easily face stiffer consequences than any of these Wall Street cats or Big Banking rats have seen thus far.

Considering no one on Wall Street or in Big Banking suggested and followed up on sharing the winnings with the American taxpayers over these past 10 years it is supremely arrogant now to take taxpayer billions(trillions?) and demonstrate so little contrition or acts of resignation while doing so.

By: LangostinoHues

LangostinoHues — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 09:26:03 +0000

So, the same crew of neoliberal vultures who looted the former USSR have come home to roost, and guess what? These goddamn pirates have never been our pirates, as we assumed (were told?), but are simply pirates, and they are simply doing what pirates do: They loot, and then sail away with the booty. So long, suckers!

Vast wealth, however ill-gotten, can usually find a safe harbor somewhere (c.f. Robert Vesco, et al.) One possibility that Barack Obama might consider for beginning to expiate some of the crimes and outrages committed in the name of the USA these eight (sixteen? twenty?) long years past would be to mount and international law-enforcement effort to prevent some of the worst of these buccaneers from retiring in splendor behind gated walls in Abu Dhabi, or somewhere else where money talks.

To say that it’s not very likely as long as Bob Rubin, Larry Summers and their ilk occupy high positions in his putative Administration, is a no-brainer. But I keep hoping that he is a good enough man to be open to a conversion experience, as the catastrophic results of the advice and actions of these men become plain for all to see, and the bodies that they had dumped overboard come bobbing to the surface, even while they are still hanging around the scene(s) of the crimes(s)!

You may say, I’m a dreamer,
But I’m not the only one…

By: selise

selise — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 07:29:33 +0000

great links. thanks.

By: Ian Welsh

Ian Welsh — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 07:03:17 +0000

I don’t primarily blame shorts.

And yeah, if it was up to me, I’d break them all up.

By: Thrasyboulos

Thrasyboulos — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 05:32:49 +0000

Citigroup Saw No Red Flags Even as It Made Bolder Bets; NYT; nov.23, 2008

http://tinyurl.com/5t9259

When he was Treasury secretary during the Clinton administration, Mr. Rubin helped loosen Depression-era banking regulations that made the creation of Citigroup possible by allowing banks to expand far beyond their traditional role as lenders and permitting them to profit from a variety of financial activities. During the same period he helped beat back tighter oversight of exotic financial products, a development he had previously said he was helpless to prevent.