Word: citigroup
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Partying bank investors? That doesn't seem quite right. Since September, the bad news about banks has been nonstop - and not just at the top of the food chain. Although teetering giants like Citigroup and Bank of America grab the headlines, at the end of last year 252 institutions were on the problem list of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), up from 171 three months earlier. Seventeen banks have failed so far in 2009; expect hundreds more over the next few years. (See the top 10 financial collapses...
...banks' shareholders don't make a promising target. The stock prices of Citigroup and Bank of America, to name two especially dramatic examples, are down more than 90% from their 2007 peaks. There are arguments, relating to incentives for executives and future shareholders, for wiping out current shareholders at the most troubled banks. But that won't pay for anything - the shareholders simply don't have much more value to cough up. Same goes for those who work in the business. Many have lost their job and life savings, and most have seen their salary cut. Yes, there have been...
...banks also borrow on wholesale markets, mainly by issuing bonds. About $2.6 trillion of bank funding in the U.S., 20% of the total, comes from such debt securities, according to the FDIC. At the most troubled of the big banks, Citigroup, the figure is 27%. (Citi's domestic depositors account for just 16% - its main deposit base is overseas.) These bank bonds are mostly in the hands of large, sophisticated institutional investors - pension funds, insurance companies, mutual funds. It may be too much to ask small depositors to monitor the risks at the banks where they put their money...
Here in America, the unemployment numbers keep growing. Such icons of U.S. economic power as Citigroup, General Motors and General Electric are in trouble. The big-spending strategy employed by George W. Bush and now Obama has so far failed to turn around the economic decline. Congressional leaders are talking about the need for a second stimulus package. No one should underestimate the danger posed by these policy failures. Gigantic economic dislocations have gigantic noneconomic consequences. The Great Depression led to the rise of Nazi Germany and a militaristic Japan, the spread of communism and World...
...moment, there are few buyers for the toxic assets that are poisoning Citigroup, Bank of America and other major financial players. The unsellable loans sit on the banks' balance sheets at a huge loss, priced from zero to an optimistic 60% of what they might have sold for before the crash...