WE'RE Screwed!
- By l.t. Dravis
- Published 11/25/2008
l.t. Dravis
I created and have written the nationally distributed marketing newsletter, BOTH SIDES NOW, since 2003. I authored two books, BOTH SIDES NOW, Sell Like Professional Athletes Win and DEATH OF A SALES MANAGER. In 2008, I introduced a daily column for national syndication to newspapers.
By l.t. Dravis
WASHINGTON,
DC - Monday, September 24, 2008 – Why are we spending hundreds of billions of
our dollars to save Citigroup?
We’re
taxpayers and the Bush Administration and Congress have put us in debt more
than $10 trillion, we’re losing our businesses and jobs at the fastest rate in
decades, our retirement accounts are going bust, and trillions of dollars we
invested in the stock market, are gone . . . perhaps forever.
Tragically,
our children and grandchildren will pay for the sins we committed by electing
and re-electing the wrong people.
That
fact was underscored this weekend when Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke, abetted
by George W. Bush, negotiated a secret deal to put us another $325 billion or
so in debt.
Why
does Citigroup need a bailout?
Because
its management got greedy and funded thousands upon thousands of subprime
(translation: potentially high profit) mortgages for people who couldn’t afford
them.
And,
because it got greedy and mismanaged its business, Citigroup lost money every
quarter for the past four quarters.
The
consequence of that greed and mismanagement was revealed yesterday when we
learned that Bush, Bernanke, and Paulson agreed to give Citigroup a $20 billion
cash bonus plus in excess of $300 billion in deferred bonuses.
Citigroup
agreed to not pay more than a penny a share in the form of dividends for three
years without approval from the federal government.
But
why limit dividends? Why not require Citigroup to pay 75% of dividends to the
taxpayers who made it possible for the company to be around to ever pay any
dividends?
And
why not require Citigroup to pay those dividends to taxpayers until it repays
our investment?
Citigroup
also agreed to limit compensation and bonuses for executives.
Limit
bonuses?
What
bonuses?
Why
would any of the grossly incompetent Citigroup executives who created this mess
or stood by and watched their colleagues create this mess, still have jobs,
much less be eligible for a bonus of any kind?
The
agreement ‘asks’, but does not require Citigroup to ‘take steps to help’
homeowners facing foreclosure.
Why
can’t any portion of those hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars we are
giving Citigroup go to revamp, revise, and refinance mortgages that have been
foreclosed or will be foreclosed?
By
the way, where’s the money coming from?
If
any of the original $700 billion bailout ‘budget’ approved by Congress is still
available, the Treasury Department will borrow and/or print the cash required
to make this deal happen while the FED will ‘loan’ Citigroup enough cash to
finance the remaining balance of its losses.
And
where the FED will get the actual currency to ‘loan’ Citigroup?
Where
else but to the same foreign banks and/or domestic printing presses?
And,
what do we taxpayers give and get?
We
give Citigroup approximately $325 billion in cash and loans and we get $7
billion in ‘preferred shares’ of Citigroup stock.
$325
billion for $7 billion?
Hmmmm.
Some
deal.
By
the way, what did George W. Bush, the obviously detached outgoing President,
have to say about the Citigroup deal?
If
anyone actually cares, the lame duck President threatened to reward other
financial institutions for their greed and incompetence by saying, “If need be,
we will make these kinds of decisions to safeguard our financial system in the
future.”
So,
where does this leave us?
Decorum
prevents me from getting too graphic here, so permit me to simply say, “We’re
screwed!”
What
do you think?
Copyright © 2008 by LTD Associates West, Ltd. All rights
reserved.
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