Too Big To Fail

Obama wants to ride the populist wave of anger against the big banks and with good reason. Here's a question: Why did Vikram Pandit, CEO of Citigroup, get to keep his job? According to the AP, Pandit claimed that Citigroup was profitable up through February and has agreed to take a $1 a year salary until Citi is profitable again. To date we have bailed out Citi to the tune of $45 billion. The government forced them to cancel their order for a $50 million corporate jet BUT they spent $400 million for the naming rights of Met's stadium. Timothy Geithner let Pandit keep his job while offing the board, a move that is usually reserved for shareholders or the mafia.

The first time this came up we let the losers dictate the terms of the bailout. Scum of the earth like Limbaugh and the entire Fox network were getting the ignorant masses worked up into a Santorum (Santorum "that frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex." thanks to Dan Savage) by tossing around terms like NATIONALIZATION and SOCIALISM. Why do these guys get any play? Haven't they been entirely discredited? Look at Sweden's bailout. By taking over the banks Sweden not only solved their banking crisis (one that is remarkably similar to ours) but the final cost was less than 2% of GDP. Our crisis approached 60% of GDP and could have soared even higher. I still think Geithner is a stooge for Wall Street.

I don't know if Obama will win this one, stocks took a tumble around the world and if 401k's start shrinking again populist anger will not hold. The best thing to do is start getting an education about money. If you check this out a few times a week it will all start to make sense (unfortunately) site: Planet Money and listen to the podcast.