Free Republic

Donald Trump, the billionaire businessman and GOP presidential frontrunner, has taken off the gloves in his fight with Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. What was friendly jabbing in the Fox Business Channel debate has gotten nasty as Trump now directly questions Cruz's eligibility to serve as president and the $1 million loan Cruz took from Goldman Sachs to jumpstart his Senate campaign. "Goldman Sachs owns him, he will do anything they demand. Not much of a reformer!" Trump tweeted. "Ted Cruz purposely, and illegally, did not list on his personal disclosure form personally guaranteed loans from banks," Trump added. "They own...

The Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz, already facing scrutiny for not disclosing a Goldman Sachs loan he used for his 2012 Senate campaign, also failed to disclose a second loan, from Citibank, for the same race, according to a letter he sent Thursday to federal election officials. The one-page letter said that the “underlying source” of money for a series of personal loans Mr. Cruz made to his Senate campaign in Texas included both bank loans, which totaled as much as $1 million. Both loans were “inadvertently omitted” from the required filings, the letter said. Previously, Mr. Cruz has only...

Citigroup is one of three Wall Street banks attempting to keep hidden their practice of paying executives multimillion-dollar awards for entering government service. In letters delivered to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over the last month, Citi, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley seek exemption from a shareholder proposal, filed by the AFL-CIO labor coalition, which would force them to identify all executives eligible for these financial rewards, and the specific dollar amounts at stake. Critics argue these "golden parachutes" ensure more financial insiders in policy positions and favorable treatment toward Wall Street.''

It's every parent's nightmare, but true: Major U.S. corporations are funding a campaign of sophisticated, psychologically intrusive "gay" indoctrination programs targeting very young children in elementary schools across America. It’s part of a very well-planned and well-funded effort to reach children as young as possible without their parents’ intervention. The national program, called “Welcoming Schools”, skillfully works on the minds of young children in three ways: (1) Introducing the concept of homosexuality to children. (2) Telling them that homosexuality is normal and natural. (3) Telling them that their parents or friends who portray homosexuality in a less than positive way...

The Justice Department’s massive mortgage settlements against two bank giants requires them to give millions to liberal advocacy groups, and House Republicans are trying to find out why. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) and House Financial Services Chairman Jeb Hensarling asked Attorney General Eric Holder seeking details about who was involved in steering the funds from the Bank of America and Citigroup settlements this way, which they said was an unprecedented departure from other settlements. “It seems that the alleged victims are not the primary beneficiaries of these multi-billion dollar settlements,” the House chairmen said in the letter....

The mortgage market is undergoing a transformation. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are doing more credit risk-sharing deals (a sign of things to come) while Citi decides to sells its mortgage servicing portfolio. Oct. 25 (Bloomberg) By Jody Shenn — Freddie Mac “expects to complete another” sale of risk-sharing securities “shortly,” FHFA acting director Ed DeMarco said in speech yesterday afternoon. • NOTE: Freddie spokeswoman said last month it hopes to complete another deal this year; Fannie Mae execs said this month no more deals in 2013, working on one for early next year • FHFA plans for “scope and...

Big news ahead of this Friday's NFP report: •CITI TO CUT OVER 11,000 JOBS, TAKE PRETAX CHARGE $1B IN 4Q "Sandy's fault?" or better yet, "Vikram's fault." Or maybe the economy is collapsing despite all the propaganda one is spoonfed. Considering the recent termination of over 50,000 by UBS we think we know the answer. And while C stock may jump on the news, the end result is that New York and the US have both just lost 11,000 less key taxpayers most of whom are almost certainly in the $250,000+ bucket. That said we can't wait for the BLS...

Bicycles instead of cars? Dense apartment clusters instead of single homes? Community rituals instead of churches? "Human rights" instead of religious freedom? The UN Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II) which met June 3-14 [1996]in Istanbul, painted an alarming picture of the 21st century community. The American ways-free speech, individualism, travel, and Christianity-are out. A new set of economic, environmental, and social guidelines are in. Citizenship, democracy, and education have been redefined. Handpicked civil leaders will implement UN "laws", bypassing state and national representatives to work directly with the UN. And politically correct "tolerance"-meaning "the rejection of dogmatism and absolutism"...

CHART OF THE DAY: The Spanish Housing Chart That's Going To Crush The Banking System Joe Weisenthal March 28, 2012, 6:11 AM Citi's Willem Buiter is out with a big call on Spain, and how things are going to get much worse, and how ultimately the country will need outside assistance in some way. Given that Spain is much bigger than Greece, this is a very big deal. We have the full gory details of the report here. One key element of his call relates to real estate, and his belief that the collapse in that market is not done....

Obama's New Chief Of Staff Made Some Amazing Hedge Fund Investments At Citi Lisa Du Jan. 10, 2012, 3:50 PM Ever since it was announced that Jack Lew, current head of the Office of Management and Budget, would be President Barack Obama's new Chief of Staff to replace the departing William Daley, the media sphere has been abuzz with Lew's stellar political resume—having worked for several Congressmen and under both Bill and Hillary Clinton—and the fact that he is described as a "mild-mannered and steady technocrat," enjoying bi-partisan support. But the incoming chief has another facet to his work history—he's...

MUST-READ: Citi's Willem Buiter Says Europe Could Just Have Weeks Or Days Before A Financial Catastrophe Joe Weisenthal Nov. 16, 2011, 3:17 PM This is a fantastic interview with Citi's Willem Buiter on Bloomberg TV. You can hear the anger in his voice as he argues that Europe may have a matter of days before an unnecessary default and a financial catastrophe. The answer: the ECB must act fast, and ignore the Germans who don't get it. While some people don't think that the ECB can really monetize sovereign debt this way, Buiter believes there's absolutely nothing preventing the ECB...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The fees keep coming. Citi is the latest big bank to slap customers with a round of fee hikes. This time, on its checking accounts. Starting in December, customers who hold its mid-level Citibank Account will be charged $20 a month if they fail to maintain a minimum balance of $15,000 in their combined accounts. Previously, account holders had to carry a minimum balance of $6,000. At the same time, customers who have the bank's EZ Checking account will start being charged $15 a month if they don't carry a minimum balance of $6,000. Citi says...

Would you buy a bond guaranteed by the full faith and credit of the United States if its existence also breached U.S. law? This seemingly crazy concept might sound ridiculous, but bizarre times may call for bizarre measures. As a result, this week, Citi analyst Brett Rose (via Business Insider) suggested that the Treasury could resort to an unlikely worst-case scenario: it could just issue more Treasury securities in violation of the law. Could This Really Happen?

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...

Obama's OMB Pick Lew Headed Citi Unit That Shorted HousingJul 15 2010, 3:40 PM ET Imagine if President Obama's new OMB head had worked at one of the biggest Wall Street bailout recipients and headed a group that profited by shorting the housing market. That would be a public relations nightmare, but it also appears to be the reality the administration faces with the Jacob Lew nomination. His Citigroup unit had a big investment in the hedge fund run by John Paulson, also at the center of the SEC's Goldman Sachs lawsuit. The hedge fund made billions of dollars by...

Extract: Debrahlee Lorenzana is filing a lawsuit against Citibank because they fired her, she says, for the strangest reason: she's too hot. ....Her bosses told her that "as a result of the shape of her figure, such clothes were purportedly 'too distracting' for her male colleagues and supervisors to bear," she says

Wall Street Read of the Week: "Bob Rubin Just Wants to Be Cuddled" By Max Abelson April 30, 2010 | 6:36 p.m Until today, the London Business School-educated Iris Mack was known as a Harvard Management Company whistle-blower. From now on she will be remembered for these extraordinary words about her affair with former Treasury Secretary and Citi executive Bob Rubin: "He got this funny look on his face, and asked: 'Do you want to go upstairs and...cuddle?' So that's what this is about... And not long afterward the former Treasury Secretary had his tongue down my throat and hands...

Former Citi Chair Bob Rubin (ex-Goldman Sachs banker and Clinton Treasury Secy) was criticized by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission for not accepting blame for Citi's ill-advised drive into CDOs (collaterized mortgage-backed securities that got a $45B TARP bailout). "You were not a garden-variety board member," he was told. Rubin got a $115M paycheck sitting on Citi's board 1999-2009; Rubin is frustrated with the view that he should have been more involved in Citi's operations during the crisis.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Robert Rubin, the former financial superstar once lionized for his global crisis-fighting prowess, was scolded Thursday over the mortgage-securities disaster at Citigroup Inc. when he was a top executive there. His claim he didn't know of the risks piling up drew a sharp retort. "You can't have it both ways: You either were pulling the levers or asleep at the switch," the head of the panel investigating the roots of the financial crisis told Rubin at a hearing. Rubin expressed regret. Yet he insisted he didn't know until late in the game, when the subprime mortgage crisis...

Obama administration is preparing to sell its stake in the bank, sources say. Among the banks that rule Wall Street, Citigroup got a bailout that was bigger than the rest. Now the company is about to pay a king's ransom for its federal rescue. The Obama administration is making final preparations to sell its stake in the New York bank, according to industry and federal sources. At today's prices, the sale would net more than $8 billion, by far the largest profit returned from any firm that accepted bailout funds and the transaction would be the second-largest stock sale in...