Citibail: Another in an endless series of doomed, late-night bailouts; 1 am Eastern update: Citicorp to receive $306 billion fed backing + $20 billion more from Crap Sandwich
Scroll for updates…Citicorp’s $306 billion + $20 billion bailout agreement reached…Treasury/FDIC/Federal Reserve issue statement…Bottom line: We’re Screwed ‘08!
(Thanks to BT for the photoshop.)
Crap Sandwich 2.0 is morphing again.
We’ve gone from the toxic assets purchase plan to the capital injection plan to the throw-it-all-against-the-wall-and-whatever-the-hell-sticks-sticks non-plan plan. In the latest late-night bailout plot — you smelled it coming, didn’t you — the feds are colluding with Citigroup to engineer another “rescue” that will not work.
Let’s repeat that not-so-bold prediction: It ain’t gonna work.
Unless by “work” you mean opening the floodgates to more and more and more bailouts of businesses that deserve to fail.
The details, such as they are:
U.S. government regulators were nearing approval of a radical plan to stabilize Citigroup on Sunday in which the government would soak up tens of billions of dollars in losses at the struggling bank, according to people briefed on the discussions.
The plan, which emerged after a harrowing week in the financial markets, would mark the government’s third effort in as many months to contain the deepening economic crisis. While the negotiations were in flux on Sunday night, the proposal, if applied to other banks, could set the precedent for other multibillion-dollar financial rescues…
…The plan could herald another shift in the government’s morphing financial rescue. The Treasury Department initially proposed buying troubled assets from banks but then reversed course and began injecting capital directly into financial institutions. Neither plan, however, restored investors’ confidence for long.
“It’s been one announcement after another that has had substance, but not enough teeth,” Charles Geisst, a financial historian and professor at Manhattan College. “By intervening, they are giving the market some heart to temporarily stave off some fear — but you can only push that so much.”
It was unclear on Sunday night exactly how the Citigroup arrangement might work. The government and Citigroup executives were combing through Citigroup’s books and trying to determine the level of losses that it would be willing to bear. Another question is whether any additional government money for Citigroup, which has already received $25 billion under the initial rescue plan, would come from the $700 billion industry bailout that Congress approved in October or from other sources, like the Federal Reserve or the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
Regulators were debating various terms of the arrangement on Sunday, including whether the government would receive preferred stock or warrants, which are instruments that give holders the right to buy stock. Preferred stock would be more beneficial to taxpayers because Citigroup would pay dividends on those shares; warrants would be more attractive to Citigroup’s existing shareholders because they would not immediately dilute the value of their investments as much as preferred stock.
Hey, where can the rest of line up to get some “emergency cash:”
Citigroup seeks ‘emergency cash’
There are fears that without further funding the bank might not be able to survive. Any money would be in addition to the $25bn injection it received in October from the US Treasury.
Options being discussed included a government cash injection as well as Citigroup selling some of its business, reported The Sunday Times.
Chief executive Vikram Pandit told employees on Friday that the firm did not want to change its business model, Reuters reported, citing two employees.
He also reiterated that the firm had a robust capital position.
But Sean Egan, analyst at ratings agency Egan-Jones Ratings, said, “Citigroup needs a deep-pocketed investor that is ready, willing, and able to step up in the next few days.”
“The only one who comes to mind is the government,” he said, adding that $50bn might be needed.
In a bid to reassure investors, Citigroup is running advertisements in US and international newspapers on Sunday underlining its stability.
It is widely expected that Citigroup will issue a statement on Monday before the US markets open.
Now, more than ever, it is time to roll back the bailout. Call your Senator and tell them to support GOP Sen. Jim Inhofe’s S. 3683:
GOP Sen. Richard Shelby holds the line:
Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., a free-market advocate who opposes government intervention, said he thought any effort to aid Citigroup was a mistake.
“Citi has got to save itself,” Shelby said. “And, can they do it by a merger with somebody else or going to somebody else? I don’t know,” he said on ABC.
***
Hey, here’s another genius idea: A builders’ bailout! Subsidize the propping up of home prices. Subsidize the same behavior that got us into the subprime mess in the first place. Briiiiiilliant:
Struggling U.S. auto makers left Washington empty-handed after weeks of pleading for a handout, but that hasn’t deterred home builders from stepping up to lobby Congress for help.
But any federal assistance would require policy makers to figure out how to stimulate demand for housing — the problem at the root of the global financial meltdown — without artificially propping up home values.
Some economists fear federal intervention to help homeowners may instead encourage more overbuilding.
Duh. Ya think?
The builders’ lobby is ramping up its sales pitch for a $250 billion stimulus package called “Fix Housing First,” arguing that financial markets won’t recover until home prices stop falling. They are calling for a generous tax credit for home purchases and a federal subsidy that would lower a homeowner’s mortgage rate.
Congress resisted a similar effort to pass a larger tax credit earlier this year, instead creating a $7,500 credit for new-home purchases that had to be paid back over 15 years, effectively extending an interest-free loan.
Builders are promoting the campaign with full-page newspaper advertisements, but face an uphill battle, with critics suggesting the proposal is too expensive and that it too heavily promotes home purchases rather than addressing loan modifications for delinquent homeowners.
The effort aims to stop the adverse feedback loop gripping the market. The cycle begins when falling home prices prompt some borrowers to default, leading to foreclosures. That further depresses home prices, hitting the banks that hold mortgage-backed securities, causing them to pull back and freeze credit. That in turn causes the economy to slow.
“The basic asset that is underlying all the financial problems that we’re experiencing is highly unstable, and it’s causing an ongoing hemorrhaging in the financial system,” said David Ledford, who oversees housing finance and policy for the National Association of Homebuilders. “It’s starting to snowball.”
Starting to snowball?!?!
***
1am Eastern update: Here we go, folks. The Treasury Dept/FDIC/Federal Reserve have issued their late-night joint statement announcing $306 billion in federal backing for Citicorp plus $20 billion of the Crap Sandwich (that’s on top of the $25 billion bite they’ve already taken):
The following is the text of a statement on Citigroup released jointly by the U.S. Treasury Department, Federal Reserve and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp on Sunday:
The U.S. government is committed to supporting financial market stability, which is a prerequisite to restoring vigorous economic growth. In support of this commitment, the U.S.
government on Sunday entered into an agreement with Citigroup to provide a package of guarantees, liquidity access and capital.As part of the agreement, Treasury and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation will provide protection against the possibility of unusually large losses on an asset pool of approximately $306 billion of loans and securities backed by residential and commercial real estate and other such assets, which will remain on Citigroup’s balance sheet. As a fee for this arrangement, Citigroup will issue preferred shares to the Treasury and FDIC. In addition and if necessary, the Federal Reserve stands ready to backstop residual risk in the asset pool through a non-recourse loan.
In addition, Treasury will invest $20 billion in Citigroup from the Troubled Asset Relief Program in exchange for preferred stock with an 8% dividend to the Treasury. Citigroup will comply with enhanced executive compensation restrictions and implement the FDIC’s mortgage modification program.
With these transactions, the U.S. government is taking the actions necessary to strengthen the financial system and protect U.S. taxpayers and the U.S. economy.
We will continue to use all of our resources to preserve the strength of our banking institutions and promote the process of repair and recovery and to manage risks. The following principles guide our efforts:
* We will work to support a healthy resumption of credit flows to households and businesses.
* We will exercise prudent stewardship of taxpayer resources.
* We will carefully circumscribe the involvement of government in the financial sector.
* We will bolster the efforts of financial institutions to attract private capital.
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Trackbacks
- The bailout mess; Spot the difference « Northern Thoughts And Reflections
- Bailout Porn | America Needs Me
- Bailout Porn | America Needs Me
- It’s just “crap”: Bailouts and Church « Mark Epstein
- More bailouts for the Power Elite | The TIW Blog
- Crap Sandwich 2.0 « Curtis Lowe
- U.S. Government to bail-out Citi » A Couple Things » A couple things about politics, sports, travel, and other stuff.
- Bailout Blunders Bumble Along | Surviving Socialism
- It’s Bailoutpalooza! « Jane Q. Republican
- UrbanGrounds » Blog Archive » Liberalism — Where Nobody Has the Right to Succeed. Or to Fail.
- UrbanGrounds » Blog Archive » Liberalism — Where Nobody Has the Right to Succeed. Or to Fail.
- Citi Joins the Party | Constant Conservative
- Michelle Malkin » Citigroup bailout being hatched?
- Here We Go Again: Feds Agree to Citibank Bailout | Jeffrey A. Setaro
- Citigroup bailout jumps the shark « Old Atlantic Lighthouse
- Recession? What Recession?
- Not Socialism? | Nicholas Fitzgerald
- Auto Company Bailout On Saturday Night Live–SNL « Pronk Palisades
- Elites at Sea: More Water, More Bailing | BobMaistros.com
- The Irascible Chef » As the Blog Turns
- Riehl World View
- Bailout Insanity Continues « The Forum
- WO’s Daily Roundup | Without Objection
- Socialism—Who’d a Thunk It? « The Conservative Pup
- Ace of Spades HQ
- TARP Was Chump Change, and We’re a Bunch of Chumps « Jane Q. Republican
- On the Hook for $7.8 Trillion… | shyspeak.net
- Just freaking great! Now we are bailing out Citigroup! « The Daley Gator
- The Wide Awake Cafe » I Saw Santa Claus Today
- AN INDEPENDENT AUTHENTIC CONSERVATIVE VOICE » Change We Can Believe In…Really?
- Right Wing Nut House » ARE THE RIGHTROOTS MORE CONSERVATIVE THAN REPUBLICAN?
- Another in an endless series of doomed, late-night bailouts « Top Daily Digest Reading
- Dinocrat » Blog Archive » What if the deleveraging process has much further to go?
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You’d think someone would have noticed that the present model isn’t working out.
Only now, in the end do we see what the Chief Executive did to our country. May his legacy never be forgotten.
How much they are willing to bear?
The entitlement mentality knows no bounds…
LET THEM FAIL
Allow me to reiterate a point I’m sure has been made dozens of times here before: no part of this is good for the taxpayer. The taxpayer will NOT see any return on any investment here. Any claim the crap weasels make that one stock purchase agreement or another benefits the tax payer is a crock.
Prepare for more pain, folks…
Let any business that can’t make it on their own fail, go broke close the doors…what ever it takes.
I’m no Bush fan, but your blaming him for this fiasco…com on wake and smell the coffee and get off the kool aide. You know as well as I, the dems brought this on us with fanny, freedie and any other give away program they could dream up 20, 30 40 years ago…with the help of over spending, elitist, republicans. Be honest with yourself if not anyone else…and work to save this country.
It’s BOHICA time again, ladies and gents…
Bend
Over
Here
It
Comes
Again
Looks like the Citi bailout is official.
300 Billion.
Why save yourself when the gov’t will do it for you with “easy” money? The real question here is how much money does the gov’t really have and how are they accumilating it? Or are they just printing it?
The second question is when the bill comes due, how much?
The country our forefathers founded and I grew up has ceased to exist. I don’t ever think it will come back anytime soon. The gov’t is our new master. All these “smartest people in world types” cannot seem to fix the mess they made.
Americans need a hop in the @$$.
Why keep electing people from these corrupt greedy socialist parties when they have a long enough track record for everyone to know better?
STOP VOTING FOR THESE CLOWNS!!!
RWR
federalistpartyblog.blgospot.com
http://www.rightwingrocker.com
LET THEM FAIL!
that is all.
I lost a record number of piano students this year, with the souring of the economy. Did I ask for help? No! I placed ads and started asking around for leads. I’m slowly rebuilding my customer base, but it’s taking some time. My piano teaching is what puts food on our table. If I can pull myself back up by my own “bootstraps,” without a government handout, then why on earth can’t these businesses do the same? This sort of thing just burns me up.
Not only are tax payers footing the bill, these credit companies are also upping fees for any balances that are carried, upping interest rates, dropping credit ceilings/limits, did I mention adding fees? So we’ll be paying these companies via the government AND directly as consumers.
How long do you think it will take many of us in America to stop paying our bills in the same way these companies have? Wonder what the increase in bankruptcies will be? If I was a lawyer I’d be moving into the bankruptcy area of practice tomorrow morning that’s for sure!
Totally backasswards this thing is, totally.
Hey, my student loans are through CitiBank. I demand that I be given a piece of the bailout.
This is all just pathetic. Who’da thunk this would be the way we began a rapid fall into socialism.
The dems have made this whole bailout a bait and switch and made it about “jobs”. I’m sorry but the market is such that if GM/Ford/Chrysler go under the increase in the other car companies that are making cars in America means those folks who work in the auto industry move over to another company. Jobs aren’t “lost”. They are transferred.
I’m in health care. We’ve had hospitals go under and close. The patients those hospitals treated don’t go away. They go to another hospital. Who then needs to hire the nurses, respiratory therapist, pharmacist, etc., from the now defunct hospital. Jobs aren’t lost. The hospital name on the paycheck changes is all. No it isn’t pleasant to change jobs. But you do have a job and life goes on.
The big rough and tough and highly trained auto workers need to suck it up and make some changes.
Time to break up citi-group. They brag about being in 100 countries, well, first lets break them into 100 parts.
Then take the US part, and break that into 12 seperate banks, one in each federal reserve district.
Follow this by notifying ALL other banks doing business in the US that by the end of 2009, they must ALL break apart along these simple rules.
Until the size of the banks is reduced, they will never be managable over the long term. As a side effect of this, with a suddenly long list of banks, 12x as many, it will be a lot harder for congress to simply drag 8 or 10 chairmen of them into some secret committee room and badger them into bad business decisions.
I think as Americans it is our duty to stop paying our bills. Its time we get a head of the curve. We can drive this thing to its knees in no time and take our power back. We’ve all become indentured servants. If all of us, or most of us, didn’t pay our bills for just ONE month, the politicians and these credit companies and these financial giants like GM, etc., would be at our mercy. Talk about a revolution.
Good idea Freddy but in reality we are heading the opposite way. We are heading to one bank. The bank of the US Government. We are a hair away from a centralized government run banking system and maybe 2 hairs away from a government run centralized health care system.
I do find it delightful that Obama is in the position to NOT raise taxes, to keep Bush’s tax cuts in place, admitting that taxes harm the economy and I’m sure just pissing off the many “tax the rich” folks on the left. I mean wow, what irony. I also find it interesting that what Obama, the one some folks feared about becoming totally socialist, just maybe the one who undoes much of what Bush has done that set this bail out stuff up to be the socialism creep that it is. It doesn’t take much to see how damaging the government bail outs are to the economy. If the goal is to get the economy going, which it will be, then tax cuts, free market, less regulation, etc., becomes the strategy.
Won’t it be interesting to watch IF Obama ends up being more a financial conservative then President Bush? We really are in a position to see some major and quite delightful irony in the first 100 days….
..and you can thank the RINOs for this…you know the geniuses like Ahnold, McCain, Cliff Barnes and other neocons for this..
Sigh. My mortgage is through Citibank.
It would be a nice idea to stop paying my bills, but I was raised differently; I pay back what I borrow, on good faith. I just wonder how long it will take, this time, to go into a “great depression”, following the same path that Hoover/FDR went…. I’m waiting for the day, we all run to the banks, to get our money out.
Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic.
When given a chance DEAL ONLY IN CASH!!
Are we still allowed to use the term ‘black hole’ ?
I will be canceling my Citi credit card account today.
Businesses are like a finger in a glass of water. Pull out the finger and very soon, there is hardly an indication the finger was there in the first place.
When insurance companies – or any other – fail, people will go to another company for the services or products they need or want. Failure is an integral part of capitalism. Citibank, AIG, Big3 can either cut the mustard or go.
Hey, I have this great idea…
Why don’t we push banks into making risky loans, so everyone can have a house?
And then, with all this easy credit, we can build a whole bunch of houses.
And then, when there are an over supply of houses, and the value of houses drops, people will be stuck with a mortgage on the house, that’s more than the value of the house, and they can walk away, leaving the bank with a worthless piece of paper.
After all, just like John Dillenger, when asked why he robbed banks, he replied, “Because that’s where the money is.”
Moral of the story…
If you don’t want to reimburse the bank when you rob it, don’t rob it in the first place.
got an email from citi
Good news! Citibank is participating in the FDIC’s Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program. Through December 31, 2009, all of your non-interest and interest bearing checking deposit account balances are fully guaranteed by the FDIC for the entire amount in your account. *
And as a reminder, in October the FDIC increased the amount of insurance on eligible savings accounts — such as savings, market rate, money market accounts, club and holiday accounts, and certificates of deposits — from $100,000 to $250,000 through December 31, 2009.**
To learn more about FDIC insurance, visit the agency’s web site at http://www.fdic.gov or call a Citibank representative at 1-8…. You may also call the FDIC at 877-ASKFDIC (877-275-3342) or TDD 800-925-4618.
GREAT, thanks turdburglars (pardon my french). I want to take my money out, but I’m currently overseas
Sorry folks, but socialism is going to be our way of life. We can thank our special friends the totally biased liberal drive-by mainstream media,the special mulatto marxist thug, and those special congress people like Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, President Bill Clinton, as well as their partner in crime Franklin Raines.
They took care of the political and financial, while William The Conquerer Ayers transformed “education.”
Now we have to be the “insurgents” and wage war against the socialists. Its going to be a long and uphill battle.
The only way to stop this if for the public to revolt by boycotting each and every company that gets “bailed out” by CS 2.0 and any future levels of CS.
The reason bankruptcy laws are on the books is for this exact situation. These companies failed due to bad decisions and inept business practices … let them fail … period.
In fact, maybe every American citizen should say “to hell with them all” and go file bankruptcy … what good is the bailout money to these businesses if there is no income because the courts wiped it all out … from the consumer side.
(As I understand bankruptcy you normally get to keep your home and car … and besides … that would make you eleigble for a mortgage bailout as well afterwards.)
If they won’t clean the mess up from the top we’ll just have to clean it up from the bottom.
After all … isn’t that what the Obamessiah said … everything in the economy trickles “up from the bottom not down from the top”
I’m sure it’s been said before, but bears repeating:
“Paying bills is for suckers!”
…said the spider to the fly.
WOW – just freakin’ WOW! I was NEVER in favor of CS1, CS1Rev1, CS1rev1(a) or CS2.0. That being said – WTF. How can these “people” sit there and come down hard on the big three and continue to hand out candy to these theif’s? I just wathced “The Newton Boys” and I have to agree with them. They were just taking money from bigger theifs. I was thinking about pulling my money OUT of RBC. I may have to rethink this move.
This is why we should never ever vote for a “lesser of two evils” candidate. As you can see, we get exactly that for which we vote. Hopefully this lesson will take before 2010.
Will the government now decide what loans the banks will allow? Would they decide to favor an industry in the state they represent? I can see an infinite numbers of power political angels that could be in play.
GGGGEEEEESSSSSS!!!!!!
opps
political
angelsangles that could be in play.Send_Me,
If we had better choices, we would not have been stuck with LOTE voting.
1. McInsane? Rino and most of us voted for him for a couple of reasons: Palin, not Obama, not Paul, wanted to. I think that is the right order.
2. Obama? He won on the stupid vote and had mega help from the RNC and McInsane himself with his lackluster performance in fighting for the office.
3. Ron Paul? Abolish the IRS in his first week? Might as well have said a chicken in every pot. I couldn’t get past his “19 thugs” comment myself.
4. A libertarian? Even libertarians did not vote that ticket.
No, we were surly left with LOTE voting. Maybe you meant this is what we get for having poor choices to vote for?
Boy, if this CRAP keeps up, soon it will be easier to name companies and groups that are not receiving BAIL-OUTS then those that are… Most shameful for me??? The inept mayor of my fair city Phoenix, PHIL GORDON calling on Washington to BAIL-OUT our city… He was on the NEWS, along with the mayors of PHILLIE, ATLANTA, and DETROIT… Now that is the kind of company I want my fair city to be in…
How is it that, less than two months ago, Citibank was the big, strong bank that was going to save the day for Wachovia, but now, all of a sudden, they are in terrible shape? The government approved that deal, which indicates Citi was supposedly still in pretty good shape.
What changed between then and now????
by 2010 we’re going to look like france. people think the last 25 years is the way it always is…they’ll find out the hard way. its gonna get ugly…people will be fighting for a pice of a shrinking economic pie.
*Exasperated Sigh*
This bailout is now over 1 trillion and going for 2 trillion. Thats twice all the spending on the iraq war, in less than 4 months.
yay DNC. Lets spend our way out of debt. Obama promises 700 billion more. I would rather just get that money up front because I know damn well we will be paying it back.
$1.4 TRILLION??? That is $8000+/- per tax payer. Wow, give us all $8k and watch how fast this economy gets a kick.
None of the bailouts make good business sense. With the encroachment of financial suicide – i.e.
Sharia compliant financial instruments
AS IF
more secure (myth) (financial jihad?)
- these doomed business models appear more and more as if intentionally contrived.
If they gave me 8k I would be doing nothing but paying off bills followed swiftly by the sound of credit cards in a shredder.
Irony, congress holds investigations on 25 billion for GM, but nothing for 1.4 trillion.
25 billion for GM makes more sense that the 1.4 trillion…
My Hall of Shame:
Democrat party: Not everyone should own a home especially if they are unwilling to sacrifice to do so.
Republican party: Seems to me that you had control of the Congress during some of this fiasco.
Barney Frank and Chris Dodd: Can you even spell economics? You surely do not understand it.
George W. Bush: You had the bully pulpit to ring the alarm more than once back in the early 2000’s. but chose to barely mention it. And now you give us Paulson and Bernanke?
Paulson and Bernanke: See Frank and Dodd above. How many more friends are you going to bailout?
Corporate America: Not every CEO deserves what Jack Welch got. Shouldn’t the true performance of a corporation determine compensation?
Congress: How about passing laws that do not allow for loopholes and strange interpretations? How about passing budgets that stay within the means of the incoming monies? When will you understand that taxing businesses is the same as taxing the public since these costs add to the sales price?
SEC, Treasury, Commerce, IRS, etc: It is your job to enforce the rules, provide guidence, and ensure equal treatment. Strike one, two, and three…
Bill Clinton: This latest one started on your watch. Maybe you should have put the cigar down for awhile.
The mainstream media: You haven’t done your primary job in years. Your hero worshipping is disgusting. Good journalism requires hard work and hard questions. The majority of you are better suited as P.T. Barnum rather than Edward R. Murrow.
The American People: You put more emphasis and thought into your vote for American Idol than you do for your government representatives.
I guess we deserve the crap we are about to be served…
May I ask the obvious question….
How can the Treasury Deptartment (Executive Branch) be committing funds that the Congress (Legislative branch) has not appropriated?
Two words: Court injunction.
Did I read that right on drudge? 7.4 TRILION????
Gee, wish we could have seen this coming. Give $ away to one group and another group comes begging later. Who woulda thunk it? The pigs are lining up at the trough in record nubmers.
“….. with the end result being that a democracy will always fail due to loose fiscal policy…..”
Sonofdy:
When all is said and done, it will be greater than $10 Trillion. Remember, they release bad news in segments and try not to link the expenditures.
Since my mortgage is through Citi, I’m sure some of that money will trickle down so that I don’t have to pay it off, right? Right? Hello? Bueller?
So, let me get this right: they screw their business up, and go to the government for what will be essentially free money to pay off their debts, but, I wonder what they would do to me if I said I couldn’t pay my monthly statement?
What about all the houses that are already up for sale that no one is buying? Here’s a brillant idea for the Dems – Let the mortgages fail, owners walk away,the houses fall into total disrepair, tear them down & then build new ones in their place. That will at least keep the builders (unions) working. Then with the $7500 subsidy for NEW homes, you can buy back the property you walked awway from & everyone will be happy.
This is absolute madness! This is like the Keystone Cops running all over the place in D.C. Their solution to everything is let’s throw some money at it. And while we’re at it let’s try to regulate it some more. Congress is so good at running the government it should have no problem running the banks, insurance industry, the auto industry…….
By the way, where the heck has Bush disappeared to anyway? If he wants a legacy how about being the person who put a stop to this nonsense and told companies to deal with their own problems.
Bush is done. The dems aren’t going to fix anything for the next 2 months because then bush might get the credit.
Wonderful. I paid off my account 2 years ago. After I paid the account and CLOSED it they charged $175 dollars to it and have added 300 dollars in late fees, to a CLOSED and paid off account.
LET THEM FAIL
and all I wanted was 180,000.
Where is my bail out?????
why the hell can’t these mortgages that are so toxic be brought to market and be done with this mess. indybank brought it’s portfolio to market, prices went down, people bought the houses, real estate in california survived. seems like a model which works and should be tried elsewhere. this give the money to banks so they won’t have to marketize those mortgages is nothing more than what japan did in 1992 and they are still trying to get their markets back in shape because the banks still hold tons of overvalued mortgages. i smell massive corruption between the banks and the government. maybe that explains why we have seen this migration from banks and wall street to washington over the last 15 years or so. as every bank knows, the really successful robberies rely on inside people and info.
We’re seeing Alexis de Tocqueville’s prophecy come true, that democracies die by voting to loot their own treasuries.
One of the amazing things is when the media talks about these giants, they show pictures of their office buildings. Instead of a stake in their worthless stock, how about giving the taxpayers a stake in some of those high rise buildings?
We’ve already proved that we can contact everyone under the sun in Congress and they ain’t gonna listen.
Only in government can you find a man in charge of $700 billion who openly admits that he was wrong – and Congress just gives him more to work with. In the real world, he’d be fired.
Oh yeah, and notice the Citigroup layoffs. Anyone wanna bet how many of them were executive positions?
and the beat goes on
OOOOOO oooo me me!!!
What is zero????
I’ll take “Where’s My Bailout” for $1000 Alex.
what’s a trillion here and a trillion there?
Oh good, Bush and Paulson are on TV this morning = stock market will plunge again today.
Yeah but…. then there won’t be anyone to vote for!
Perhaps we should all stop paying on our credit cards and home loans?
That’s at least one way to get Washington’s attention. Too bad we can’t stop federal/state taxes from being taken from our payroll checks too.
It looks like it’s time to light a candle in memory of Capitalism and the Free Market Economy. The Welfare State has arrived.
Cnn.com is not using the term BAILOUT any longer. They use “rescued” “saved” and “cash injection” and I want to barf.
Voice #39 – Citigroup merged with the failing Waucovia recently so they can get bailout money. Its the future -fairly healthy banks buying up troubled banks to get bailout money. The government wants a only a few large banks because they can’t cover everything with FDIC.
I would like to start a Bailout the Citizen from Government Stupidity.
We are the ones that need saving.
I like the one I saw last week, give all taxpaying citizens a million dollars and make them pay their mortgages and bills off. No debt and a safe retirement. Bill? $200,000,000.
Done.
Tarp is using the money for larger banks to swallow up smaller ones. They are not buying troubled assets or helping homeowners all that much. They are not putting liquidity into the markets. Its for basically one reason, not the other reasons we were given.
I just heard on a local talk radio show, there’s a rumor that the next group to step up to the trough is going to be commercial television. That’s right, ABC, NBC & CBS think they need a bail out.
If I start a little tv show in my basement ala Wayne’s World, can I get a bailout too? Oh wait, that was a cable show. Rats.
Citigroup is paying $400 million for naming rights to the new New York Mets stadium. That means as a taxpayer, I’ll be helping to pay the players salaries…I expect Pedro Martinez to come and wash my car this weekend.
I have heard that plan. One problem, the numbers are totally incorrect (unless there is some kind of new math out there). There are 300M citizens in the US. Lets assume, for simplicity, that there are 200M adult taxpayers who would get the $1M. That is $200T (200,000,000,000,000), nowhere near the $1-$2T offered up in the plan. The gov’t would spend $2T if each taxpayer got $10K.
I predict, we are heading toward a catastrophe thanks to the absolute fools and crooks in the WH and many other places.
200 trillion? Fine, lets do it. Lets just print the money since thats what we are doing anyway. So 200 trillion, 900 trillion, whats the difference anymore?
None. Fiat money is all monopoly money and only works when people have faith in their government. Simply magically giving huge amounts to these companies is the electronic version of wheelbarrows full of money for a loaf of bread…
Did you all buy gold yet?
OT but related – any suggestions, my local gun store (if they didn’t sell them all Sat) has a Panther Arms M4 for $1299 or an S&W M4 for $1599. Any reason to choose one over the other?
/OT
Citibank is strapped for cash?
They replaced all of their ATM machines in New York City with brand new, shiny, touch screen ATM machines… that do exactly the same damn thing as the touch screen ATM machines they just replaced.
There was nothing wrong with the old touch screens. I and 10,000 other people used them almost daily without issue or complaint.
Pisses me off. I will bet that Citi will not suspend a single dime’s worth of advertising either.
This reminds me of someone borrowing money, or asking to borrow money, then going out to dinner the same day. What the hell are they thinking?
I’ll tell you what they’re thinking….. they think… as long as someone else is willing to do my suffering and give me cash, I’ll just keep going on like I always do. Woo hoo!!.. make that steak medium rare please!!!
Can Paulson, Bush and Bernake really be this ignorant?
You know, all this garbage is causing me to ask a question:
If all these banks are being bailed out, why wouldn’t they then report to all credit report companies that their customers who are reported as being delinquent have now had all their debts paid?. I mean, isn’t that what the original intent of all this crap sandwich was about? Isn’t it?….. of course, you all will still owe those enterprises the money and they are going to hoard and pocket the rest. Are you are comfortable with this bail out many of you supported? hmmm… are you?
That needs to be repeated and understood.
A falling home price has absolutely no effect on a borrower’s ability to make mortgage payments.
Mortgage deadbeats are intentionally bailing out because their flipping schemes failed – NOT because of any inability to pay what they owe.
Call it what it is…
“The LOOT the TREASURY as you leave office Plan”
The bailouts will continue until the US Govt. owns a substantial portion of every key major business in the US. The auto industry, banks & financial institutions, Healthcare, Air Travel, Power, and so on.
The government will continue so long as there are people to physically protect the clowns in the government from being physically removed from D.C. and thrown to the streets where they belong.
Socialism *will* happen. It would be best to spend time figuring out how you are going to live as opposed to wasting time pretending that we can do something about what is going on. The only things that can change all this now are illegal, so there is no point in trying.