Citigroup: Vikram, Prince and Their Stooges - A History of Utter Lies or Incompetence In Their Own Words

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.

--

Survive this economic revolution at http://RevolutioNewsletter.com
Read my blog at http://codywillard.com
Facebook me at http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=763890180
Myspace me at http://www.myspace.com/codyonfox