Insanity! - Citi Plans Crisis Derivatives

Credit specialists at Citi are considering launching the first derivatives intended to pay out in the event of a financial crisis. The firm has drawn up plans for a tradable liquidity index, known as the CLX, on which products could be structured that allow buyers to hedge a spike in funding costs.'

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Report Slams Bank Links to Clusterbomb Production

Leading banks have funded arms manufacturers, whose products include cluster bombs, to the tune of $5 billion in the past two years, despite an international accord to ban such weapons, a study said Thursday.

The report by Profundo consultancy and several NGOs said the banks loaned money to companies whose products include cluster bombs or their components.

It did not say the funds went directly to make cluster bombs. The manufacturers could use the money for any of their production lines.

The top five loan providers were Bank of America, Citigroup , JP Morgan, Barclays and Goldman Sachs, the study said.'

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Geithner’s Appointment Book: Taking Orders from the International Bankers

Geithner is a consummate Wall Street insider. He was the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. He was a Senior Fellow in the International Economics department of the Council on Foreign Relations, a member of the Group of Thirty (a Rockefeller operation), worked for Kissinger Associates, and is a member of the Trilateral Commission. Lawrence Summers was his mentor. He is a Robert Rubin protégé. Rubin, Clinton’s Treasury Secretary, was Chairman of Citigroup. Summers, also a Clinton Treasury Secretary, was Chief Economist for the World Bank and was tapped by Obama to be the director of the White House National Economic Council. Geithner also sits on the board of the Bank for International Settlements, the mega-globalist outfit that enjoys immunity from virtually all regulation, scrutiny and accountability.

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A $100 Million Bonus

Citigroup (C) is considering paying a $100 million bonus -- to one guy.

This is the same Citigroup that received $45 billion in bailout money. The same Citigroup that will soon be 34% owned by the U.S. government. The same Citigroup that has lost 95% of its share value since 2007.

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The Wall Street White House

Robert Hormats, Vice Chairman of Goldman Sachs, is to be installed as Under Secretary of Economics, Business, and Agricultural Affairs. This comes as one more, probably unnecessary reminder of the total control exercised by Wall Street over the Obama administration’s economic and financial policy. True, Hormats is “a talker rather than a decider” according to one former White House official, but he will find plenty of old friends used to making decisions, almost all of them uniformly disastrous for the U.S. and global economy.

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Grand Theft Auto: How Stevie the Rat Bankrupted GM

Screw the autoworkers.

They may be crying about General Motors' bankruptcy today. But dumping 40,000 of the last 60,000 union jobs into a mass grave won't spoil Jamie Dimon's day.

Dimon is the CEO of JP Morgan Chase bank. While GM workers are losing their retirement health benefits, their jobs, their life savings; while shareholders are getting zilch and many creditors getting hosed, a few privileged GM lenders - led by Morgan and Citibank - expect to get back 100% of their loans to GM, a stunning $6 billion.

The way these banks are getting their $6 billion bonanza is stone cold illegal.

I smell a rat.

Stevie the Rat, to be precise. Steven Rattner, Barack Obama's 'Car Czar' - the man who essentially ordered GM into bankruptcy this morning.

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Citigroup collapses! Banking Shutdown Possible

It pains me deeply to announce that, despite the massive government rescue, yesterday’s collapse of Citigroup could ultimately lead to a shutdown of the global banking system.
For many years, I hoped this would never happen, and I thought we might be able to avoid it.

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Citibank Thanks America For Filling Its Begging Bowl With a Royal One Finger Salute

Talk about biting the hand that feeds you!Last week, while Congress was engineering a bailout package of the taxpayers’ money to rescue Citibank and save the economy, Citibank was sending out notices to its cardholders of a new and usurious policy — a policy that could drown consumers and help sink the economy.

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