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What’s Up with Citigroup?
On Monday, Citigroup received permission from its regulators to buy back the remaining $20 billion in preferred shares held by Treasury because of its investments under TARP. (Treasury invested $25...
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The Citi Never Weeps
On the first day of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, Phil Angelides demonstrated a gift for powerful and memorable metaphor: accusing Goldman Sachs of essentially selling defective cars and...
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Design or Incompetence?
Or both? In late summer or early fall, Citibank was running a promotion: if you opened a new account or moved a certain amount of money to your bank account, you would get a $200 bonus within three...
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Questions For Mr. Pandit
By Simon Johnson Today, perhaps following our earlier recommendation, Mr. Vikram Pandit – CEO of Citigroup – will appear before the congressional oversight panel for TARP. (Official website, with...
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Is Vikram Pandit in Favor of Real Reform?
Testifying today before the TARP Congressional Oversight Panel, Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit took pains to strike the right notes. Near the beginning of his prepared testimony, he said, “First, however,...
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More Bank Marketing
By James Kwak I’ve already criticized Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit’s testimony before the TARP Congressional Oversight Panel on Thursday, but there’s one thing I left out. Citigroup, like other banks...
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Vikram Pandit Has No Clothes
By Simon Johnson Vikram Pandit heads Citigroup, one of the world’s largest and most powerful banks. Writing in the Financial Times Thursday morning, with regard to the higher capital standards...
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Why Not Break-Up Citigroup?
By Simon Johnson Earlier this week, Richard Fisher – President of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank – captured the growing political mood with regard to very large banks: “I believe that too-big-to-fail...
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What Good Is the SEC?
By James Kwak This week’s Atlantic column is my somewhat belated response to Judge Jed Rakoff’s latest SEC takedown, this time rejecting a proposed settlement with Citigroup over a CDO-squared that the...
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Remember Citigroup
By Simon Johnson On Thursday of last week, four senators unveiled the 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act. The pushback from people representing the megabanks was immediate but also completely lame – the...
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“All You Need for a Financial Crisis . . .
By James Kwak . . . are excess optimism and Citibank.” That’s a saying that someone, probably Simon, repeated to me a few years ago. Crash of 1929, Latin American debt crisis, early 1990s real estate...
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Résumé Put Hall of Fame
By James Kwak Before 2006, people used to talk about the Greenspan put: the idea that, should the going get rough in the markets, Chairman Al would bail everybody out. But there’s something even better...
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Citigroup CEO Named To “Key Administration Post”
By Simon Johnson Just a few short days ago, it looked like Citigroup was on the ropes. The company’s proposal for redistributing capital back to shareholders was rejected by the Board of Governors of...
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Citigroup Will Be Broken Up
By Simon Johnson Citigroup is a very large bank that has amassed a huge amount of political power. Its current and former executives consistently push laws and regulations in the direction of allowing...
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What Is Citigroup Hiding From Its Shareholders Now?
By Simon Johnson In the early and mid-2000s, Citigroup had compensation practices that can fairly be described as a disaster for shareholders (and for the broader economy). Top executives, such as...
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