Citigroup executives and employees have been lying to their customers, investors, the government and -- best case scenario -- even themselves for the last few days, weeks, months, and years.
The CEO and his stooges either lie to our faces just about every time any of 'em talk about their company or else they have to be some of the most incompetent executives I've ever heard of. I mean, how else can you explain the following sample of quotes:
1 week ago, Vikram Pandit - CEO, in an email to the employees of Citigroup whose paychecks would have already been bouncing if not for the welfare we've given them in the last few weeks, about 48 hours before Vikram locked himself behind closed doors with non-elected bureaucrats from our Fed and Treasury and to beg for and receive hundreds of billions of dollars in welfare for his shareholders and lenders: "We are in a far stronger position going into 2009 than we were going into 2008. And we are even better positioned for 2010."
1 month ago, Gary L. Crittenden - Chief Financial Officer, in the second quarter 2008 earnings conference call, just a couple days after getting $25 billion in welfare from you taxpayers: "Continued deleveraging and the enhancement of our liquidity cushion have allowed us to fund maturing current company debt and brokered-dealer debt obligations significantly in excess of 12 months without having to access unsecured capital markets."
1 year ago, Chuck Prince - the Chairman, in the second quarter 2007 earnings conference call, just three months before the company started writing down hundreds of billions of dollars in worthless loans they'd blindly been lending out: "I feel very good about what we are doing. We have strong volume increases, we have strong revenue growth. Bob Druskin is leading the effort to improve our structural expense, and the international markets are very, very robust. That is where our future growth is coming."
2 years ago, Chuck again, in the 3rd quarter 2006 earnings conference call, just under four semesters' worth of high school classes' time before the company declared its insolvency publicly and took in another several hundred billion dollars worth of welfare that could have fed children West Virginia: "By the way, I'm projecting personally that the flat yield curve is going to last for a while. So in our planning for this business, we're planning on the current conditions in terms of interest rates continuing."
These guys should be in prison for criminal incompetence if not for accounting fraud and lying to investors and lenders and regulators.
Instead, the Democrat/Republican (no difference, can't you tell yet?!) president-elect, who promised you guys change, announced that he's put together a team of former Citigroup insiders, executives and regulators that are handing these executives and their shareholders trillions of dollars. Robert Rubin, the director and senior counselor of Citigroup, is to replace Hank Putin/Paulson as your "changed" Treasury secretary. He's the same guy who created the system that Citigroup and he later gamed and enriched themselves so well for a brief time but which eventually destroyed our economy and our markets.
Does it make you feel better about all of this that Robert Rubin's little son, James P Rubin (he's got such cute little dimples!) is part of the team that's going to be doling out trillions of dollars to insiders and shareholders at companies like the one his father helps run when his father's not busy creating new systems for companies like the one his father helps run to be regulated by?
No, not so much? Wait, I thought all those politicians and pundits told me that I was wrong about TARP being nothing but the biggest redistribution of wealth upwards in the history of economies and that it wouldn't be politicized and the economy would be fine if only the guy we'd give guys like Rubin and his predecessor at the Treasury, Paulson, the power to dole out trillions to themselves and their friends and their families and their former competitors.
What, you mean, now you don't think it's working out so well?
This Citigroup bail out is another shot across the bow from the socialist Republicans/Democrats that you guys keep voting into power. The bull market and a good economy won't return until these guys are neutralized.
Indeed, it'd be even better for long-term profits and prosperity if Rubin, Vikram and the rest of 'em were locked up for a minute for every dollar they've been paid during the boom times. They might realize that even though we all get millions of minutes in our lives, that each and every one is valuable to each and every individual.
Just like dollars used to be before you guys gave these incompetents all this power and money.
How much is the stock market being artificially inflated as a direct result of the Government rescue packages being implemented to purchase stocks in these banks and other companies?
What is the REAL number on Wall Street by removing all the purchases of stocks by the government in the bail out process? Is this not a manipulation by the government to put a false sense of trust into the stock market? If people are truely bailing on all these companies and the government is purchasing the stocks; who owns them now?
We are getting farther and farther behind the 8 ball here. Where is all this money coming from? What is the current outstanding proposals from the government to "bail out" all these companies? Are we not at several TRILLION dollars now?
How much money will GM have access to if they convert GMAC over to a bank? Would this not give them access to MUCH more money than the $50 Billion they have asked for?
I don't know of anyone who is still in favor of these continual bail outs?
Why is Congress not having hearings on REFUSING to fund any more of these bailouts? How about limiting Paulson on sticking to the original $700 Billion ONLY funds?
Let's do some of our own fuzzy math. For every TRILLION dollar spent; that is $3.33 per EVERY American. Doesn't sound like much.
How many of these people DO NOT WORK or PAY TAXES! How many children are there in the US on the 300,000,000 population? 24.4% or 73,200,000
40% of working people pay very little or NO taxes? How many is this? another 120,000,000
16% are over 65 or another 48,000,000 who pay little or no taxes.
This is leaving all this to the tax payers who are working or around 60,000,000 who are going to be the ones holding the bag for all this.
For each Trillion this comes in around $16,666 PER actual paying Taxpayer!! Now, how many TRILLIONS are we putting out there? All the bailouts and commitments now look like they are around 7.1 TRILLION in all told. This makes a commitment on the average taxpayer around $118,328!! ARE WE INSANE!!
Where is all this money supposed to come from?
I once saw a joke that was an IRS form that said for the new simple filing system "How much money did you make last year?" --- Send it in!
Is this not where we are going? Will not the government OWN everything very soon and we can begin to get EVERYTHING from the government?
November 24, 2008 at 2:35 pm
6ftrabbit
Feel free to change the name of the deceased:
"George Perry here lies stiff and stark,
With stone at foot and stone at head.
His heart was dark, his mind was dark--
"Ignorant ass!" the people said.
Not ignorant but skilled, alas,
In all the secrets of his trade:
He knew more ways to be an ass
Than any ass that ever brayed."
Ambrose Bierce
Cody Willard is an anchor on the FOX Business Network. Willard is also the principal of an investment management company.
He was a long-time featured columnist for the Financial Times and TheStreet.com as well as a regular featured economist and stock picker on CNBC's ''Kudlow & Company."
Subscribe to Comments
288 views
Listening in Texas
How much is the stock market being artificially inflated as a direct result of the Government rescue packages being implemented to purchase stocks in these banks and other companies? What is the REAL number on Wall Street by removing all the purchases of stocks by the government in the bail out process? Is this not a manipulation by the government to put a false sense of trust into the stock market? If people are truely bailing on all these companies and the government is purchasing the stocks; who owns them now? We are getting farther and farther behind the 8 ball here. Where is all this money coming from? What is the current outstanding proposals from the government to "bail out" all these companies? Are we not at several TRILLION dollars now? How much money will GM have access to if they convert GMAC over to a bank? Would this not give them access to MUCH more money than the $50 Billion they have asked for? I don't know of anyone who is still in favor of these continual bail outs? Why is Congress not having hearings on REFUSING to fund any more of these bailouts? How about limiting Paulson on sticking to the original $700 Billion ONLY funds? Let's do some of our own fuzzy math. For every TRILLION dollar spent; that is $3.33 per EVERY American. Doesn't sound like much. How many of these people DO NOT WORK or PAY TAXES! How many children are there in the US on the 300,000,000 population? 24.4% or 73,200,000 40% of working people pay very little or NO taxes? How many is this? another 120,000,000 16% are over 65 or another 48,000,000 who pay little or no taxes. This is leaving all this to the tax payers who are working or around 60,000,000 who are going to be the ones holding the bag for all this. For each Trillion this comes in around $16,666 PER actual paying Taxpayer!! Now, how many TRILLIONS are we putting out there? All the bailouts and commitments now look like they are around 7.1 TRILLION in all told. This makes a commitment on the average taxpayer around $118,328!! ARE WE INSANE!! Where is all this money supposed to come from? I once saw a joke that was an IRS form that said for the new simple filing system "How much money did you make last year?" --- Send it in! Is this not where we are going? Will not the government OWN everything very soon and we can begin to get EVERYTHING from the government?
6ftrabbit
Feel free to change the name of the deceased: "George Perry here lies stiff and stark, With stone at foot and stone at head. His heart was dark, his mind was dark-- "Ignorant ass!" the people said. Not ignorant but skilled, alas, In all the secrets of his trade: He knew more ways to be an ass Than any ass that ever brayed." Ambrose Bierce