Free Republic

<p>The too big to fail banks have a larger share of the U.S. banking industry than they have ever had before. So if having banks that were too big to fail was a "problem" back in 2008, what is it today? As you will read about below, the total number of banks in the United States has fallen to a brand new all-time record low and that means that the health of the too big to fail banks is now more critical to our economy than ever. In 1985, there were more than 18,000 banks in the United States. Today, there are only 6,891 left, and that number continues to drop every single year. That means that more than 10,000 U.S. banks have gone out of existence since 1985. Meanwhile, the too big to fail banks just keep on getting even bigger. In fact, the six largest banks in the United States (JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley) have collectively gotten 37 percent larger over the past five years. If even one of those banks collapses, it would be absolutely crippling to the U.S. economy. If several of them were to collapse at the same time, it could potentially plunge us into an economic depression unlike anything that this nation has ever seen before.</p>

This week financial news organization CNBC gave some mainstream attention to the largest money laundering and racketeering lawsuit in United States History, in which “Banksters” and their U.S. racketeering partners are being accused of laundering of 43 trillion dollars worth of ill gotten gains. The lawsuit is said to involve officials located in the highest offices of government and the financial sector. Since this information was surprisingly revealed by the mainstream news organization there has been a very suspicious and deadly fallout at the CNBC headquarters. Within hours the original page for the article was taken down, and CNBC senior...

If you’re an amoral person with political connections, it’s possible to make a lot of money. Warren Buffett lined his pockets by making a government-subsidized investment in Goldman Sachs during the financial crisis.The rest of us suffered and he got richer, but the left seems to be okay with that perverse form of redistribution because he supports class-warfare tax hikes. Sort of like buying an indulgence in the Middle Ages.Hey, nice work if you can get it.But Buffett may be an amateur compared to the crony capitalists at Citigroup.The just-confirmed Treasury Secretary Jack Lew was given a huge bonus for...

No matter how Jack Lew performs at his Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday, his nomination to be Treasury Secretary has already produced one big winner: the Cayman Islands. The Caribbean low-tax haven is getting a political rehabilitation thanks to Mr. Lew's participation in a Cayman-based fund he invested in while working at Citigroup C +0.16% from 2006-2008. For years Democrats have denounced the Caymans, which has no corporate income tax, as a refuge for tax cheats. In 2012 President Obama ripped Mitt Romney for investments based there. But now an Obama spokesman suggests that Mr. Lew's Caymans investment, a Citigroup...

In the wake of the financial meltdown, President Barack Obama derided Wall Street bonuses as “obscene,” calling them examples of “fat cats who are getting awarded for their failure.” But now, Mr. Obama has announced that he will nominate as his next Treasury secretary Jack Lew, a man who in 2009 bagged a $950,000 bonus after his bank, Citigroup, received billions in a taxpayer-funded bailout. Mr. Lew is the former chief operating officer of Citigroup’s Alternative Investments unit—a group that bet billions against homeowners paying their mortgages.

<p>Citigroup announced on Wednesday that it would cut 11,000 jobs, reducing its work force by roughly 4 percent in an effort to cut costs.</p> <p>Under the reduction, 1,900 jobs will be eliminated in the institutional clients division. Another 6,200 positions will be removed from the bank’s consumer banking business, along with 2,600 jobs in the operations and technology group.</p>

Citigroup Inc. said it is cutting more than 11,000 positions, as a part of repositioning actions, resulting in an estimated pre-tax charges of nearly $1 billion in the fourth quarter of 2012 and some $100 million of related charges in the first half of 2013. Citi said it now expects the repositioning to generate $900 million of expense savings benefitting 2013 results and that the annual expense savings would exceed $1.1 billion annually beginning in 2014. Furthermore, the company anticipates that the actions would have a negative impact on annual revenues of less than $300 million. The repositioning, which includes...

Citigroup‘s board said on Tuesday that Vikram S. Pandit had stepped down as chief executive, effective immediately, and will be succceeded by the head of the bank’s European and Middle Eastern division, Michael L. Corbat. John P. Havens, the bank’s president and a longtime associate of Mr. Pandit’s, has also resigned. The surprising move by Mr. Pandit comes just one day after the firm reported stronger-than-expected third-quarter earnings. Excluding a number of onetime charges — including a big loss tied to the continued shedding of the Smith Barney brokerage — Citigroup earned $3.27 billion, or $1.06 a share. That bested...

On July 18th, 2012, the German government sold US$5.13 billion worth of 2-year bonds at an average yield of -0.06%. Please note the negative symbol in front of that yield number. What this means is that the German government was able to borrow money for less than nothing. When those specific bonds expire in two years’ time, the German government will pay back the original $5.13 billion minus 0.06%. Expressed another way, investors knowingly and willingly bid the German government $5.13 billion in exchange for bonds that will pay no interest and are guaranteed to lose them money on expiration.1...

Libor rates are calculated for different currencies each day under the auspices of the British Bankers' Association, using quotes that are submitted by banks on a panel, based on the banks' estimated borrowing costs. More than $800 trillion in securities and loans are linked to Libor, including $350 trillion in swaps and $10 trillion in loans, including auto and home loans, according to the CFTC. No other banks or individuals have been charged with wrongdoing. Banks that have disclosed they are being investigated include Citigroup Inc., C +3.72% Deutsche Bank AG, DBK.XE +2.02% HSBC Holdings HBC +1.00% PLC, J.P. Morgan...

Citigroup Inc (C.N) was sued for fraud by Loreley Financing over nearly $1 billion worth of collateralized debt obligations purchased in 2006 and 2007. Citigroup is accused of defrauding Loreley into purchasing "fraudulent investments that are now worthless," Loreley said in a complaint filed Tuesday in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan...

President Obama's first chief of staff Rahm Emanuel once sat on the board of troubled federal mortgage giant Freddie Mac. Bill Daley, the president's chief of staff whose departure was announced today, was previously a top executive at financial firm J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. So of course there should be little surprise that Obama's latest chief of staff, announced today by the president himself, also has deep ties to the financial industry himself. From 2006-2008, Jack Lew was chief operating officer of Citibank's alternative investments division (snip)that made billions of dollars betting "U.S. homeowners would not be able

Citigroup Inc (C.N) is cutting 4,500 staff positions worldwide and the bank expects to record a $400 million charge related to the job cuts, Chief Executive Vikram Pandit said on Tuesday. Pandit, speaking at the Goldman Sachs Financial Services Conference, said the bank's expense reduction plan generated $1.4 billion in savings so far this year, nearly 4 percent of the bank's $37.72 billion of operating expenses in the first three quarters.

While the professional Left trashes Wall Street, they might want to consider how their current President got elected.  The Sunlight Foundation reports that Barack Obama didn’t just win the Wall Street sweepstakes in 2008 over John McCain — he’s done better at getting Wall Street cash than any other President in the last 20 years: Despite his rhetorical attacks on Wall Street, a study by the Sunlight Foundation’s Influence Project shows that President Barack Obama has received more money from Wall Street than any other politician over the past 20 years, including former President George W. Bush.In 2008, Wall Street’s largesse accounted for...

U.S. banking giant Citigroup Inc. said this week it would charge $15 per month for checking account holders who kept a balance below $6,000. The firm's move comes on the heels of Bank of America's announcement this week that it would charge $5 for most debit card holders and sparked at least one desertion, the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday. Cheryl Holt of Burbank, Calif., said she was "on my way out the door right now … off to start a new account at my nearest credit union." "Should have done it years before," she added. Holt said she received...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal regulators bowed to pressure from big banks seeking a quick exit from the financial bailout program and did not uniformly apply the government's own conditions set for repaying the taxpayer funds, a new watchdog report says. The report was issued Friday by the office of Christy Romero, the acting special inspector general for the $400 billion taxpayer bailout of the financial industry and automakers. It found that regulators, to varying degrees, "bent" to pressure from the banks in late 2009 and relaxed the requirements put in only weeks earlier. The regulators also were motivated by a...

Back during the financial crisis of 2008, the American people were told that the largest banks in the United States were "too big to fail" and that was why it was necessary for the federal government to step in and bail them out. The idea was that if several of our biggest banks collapsed at the same time the financial system would not be strong enough to keep things going and economic activity all across America would simply come to a standstill. Congress was told that if the "too big to fail" banks did not receive bailouts that there would...

U.S. CEOs IN BRAZIL WITH OBAMA JEFFREY R. IMMELT - CEO, GENERAL ELECTRIC Jeffrey Robert Immelt.. Immelt will retain his post at G.E. while becoming "chairman of the Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, a newly named panel that President Obama is creating by executive order."ARIS CANDRIS - CEO, WESTINGHOUSE Prior to this appointment, Dr. Candris served as senior vice president, Nuclear Fuel, providing fuel fabrication, components and services to commercial nuclear power plants worldwide.JAMES T. HACKETT – CEO, ANADARKO PETROLEUM CORP He currently serves as a director of Fluor Corporation, Halliburton Company and The Welch Foundation.JOHN V. FARACI – CEO,...

The world is going to become richer and richer as developing economies play catch up over the coming years, according to Willem Buiter, chief economist at Citigroup. "We expect strong growth in the world economy until 2050, with average real GDP growth rates of 4.6 percent per annum until 2030 and 3.8 percent per annum between 2030 and 2050," Buiter wrote in a market research. "As a result, world GDP should rise in real PPP-adjusted terms from $72 trillion in 2010 to $380 trillion dollars in 2050," he wrote. As the world watches oil prices rise sharply amid unrest in...

Citigroup saw several red flags in the dealings of Bernard Madoff's firm years before his multibillion-dollar fraud was exposed in late 2008, the firm's liquidator said in a newly unsealed lawsuit. Irving Picard, a court-appointed trustee seeking to recover money for former Madoff clients, made the accusations in one of several complaints he has filed against big banks he says "enabled" the massive, decades-long Ponzi scheme by turning a blind eye to it. "Citi had access to and received information placing it on inquiry notice that Madoff's advisory business was potentially a fraud, and/or that Madoff was making hundreds of...