Showing posts with label bank failures. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bank failures. Show all posts

Monday, December 14, 2009

The prez is shocked, SHOCKED. . . .


Given the appointments, actions and inactions of the Obama Administration over the last 10 months and change, the president's remarks to CBS' 60 Minutes seem to be, at a minimum, somewhat incongruous.

THIS IS the polite way of saying what a lot of people must be thinking right now, which goes something like: "You gotta be f***ing kiddin' me! He thinks anybody is f***in' buying this s***?!?"

The importance of not listening to what people say but, instead, watching what they do is highlighted by Matt Taibbi's magnum opus in the latest edition of Rolling Stone.

Friday, May 08, 2009

Drawing a line in the sand trap

The Republican Party has had it with the strong-arm tactics of the Obama Administration, and its leading pols are saying enough is enough.

In fact, one GOP senator is drawing a line in the sand trap on No. 16, telling the evil Democrats to cease and desist molesting fine, upstanding Americans whose jobs may be threatened by the socialist cabal.

THAT WOULD BE (ahem) the CEOs of Wall Street banks who blew up the economy and now suckle at the federal teat. Somehow, James Rowley of Bloomberg stopped ROTFLMAO-ing just long enough to pound out this story:
A leading Senate Republican warned the Obama administration against removing chief executive officers at banks that received U.S. assistance, saying “the great fear” would be government management of companies.

“If you think that Washington can run car companies and banks and so on, well, then you’ve not been paying attention to how we’ve been doing back here,” Senator Jon Kyl said of the Treasury’s threat of management changes at banks getting “exceptional” aid. Last month, the administration forced out General Motors Corp. CEO Rick Wagoner as a condition for more U.S. aid.

While a financial review showed most banks don’t require new assistance from the Treasury, “the government appears to still have control over the major banks to the extent of saying they’ve got to raise capital,” Kyl said in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt,” airing today.

This continued government leverage over companies such as Bank of America Corp. and Citigroup Inc. “does raise some questions,” Kyl said. “Hopefully they can all get out of that relatively quickly.”

Kyl, the Senate’s No. 2 Republican, also said it would be “absolutely unnecessary” for Congress to create a commission to investigate harsh tactics that the Central Intelligence Agency used to interrogate suspected al-Qaeda operatives seized after the Sept. 11 attacks.
PRO-ROBBER BARONS, pro-torture -- now that's what I call a winning political strategy. (Did the Chinese Communists take over the GOP while I was sleeping?) It can't be too soon until this spent political party just goes away and spares us any more of this vulgar spectacle.

Don't consider this an endorsement of the Democrats; it's just that we can deal with only one plague at a time. And this is the GOP's time.

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Every bank collapse has a silver lining

Yes, Citibank may go down the tubes, sucking God knows what else down with it, with this Associated Press story reporting that a Persian Gulf bailout may not be enough to offset a subprime-sized hole in the bow.
Citigroup shares sank about 6 percent to their lowest level in more than nine years, as stockholders recoiled at forecasts of more losses at the troubled bank and comments from a Middle East fund executive that Citi must raise more cash to stay in business.

Samir al-Ansari, chief executive of the $13 billion government-owned investment firm Dubai International Capital, said Tuesday at a private equity conference that it will take more than the combined efforts of the Gulf’s wealthiest investors — the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, the Kuwait Investment Authority and Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal — to save Citigroup.

Back in January, Citi raised $12.5 billion from a group of investors including the Kuwait Investment Authority, the Government of Singapore Investment Corp. and Prince Alwaleed. And last year, Citi nabbed $7.6 billion from the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, a sovereign wealth fund owned by the ruling elite of the United Arab Emirates, the world’s fourth-largest oil exporter, in return for a 4.9 percent stake.

(snip)


Citigroup shares — which have shed about 50 percent since the credit markets froze up last summer — dropped another 5.6 percent to $21.80 in early afternoon trading Tuesday on the New York Stock Exchange.

In January, Citigroup reported losses of almost $10 billion in the fourth quarter, spurred by $18 billion in write-downs. In addition to capital injections from sovereign wealth funds, the bank has been raising cash through small asset sales of nonessential assets and nearly halving its dividend in January.

“Not only do they need to raise more money, but they should’ve suspended their dividend six months ago,” said Christopher Whalen, managing director of consulting firm Institutional Risk Analytics. “They’re trying to do this in bite-size pieces. But everyone’s still waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

Citi Chief Financial Officer Gary Crittenden said in January the $12.5 billion stake, along with a $2 billion stock sale the bank completed soon afterward, was enough to address “potential capital shortfall under multiple scenarios.”

“They’re saying it’s enough — it’s not enough,” Whalen said, noting that further losses from consumer debt will draw down Citi’s cash levels.
THAT would be bad.

On the other hand, if Citi goes bust, we'll all get a lot less junk mail hawking credit cards we don't want and can't afford to have.

Many trees, alas, could be saved -- living another day to suck greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere. You have to like that, at least.