Watching
Meet the Press this Sunday and I am presented with a feel good
Citigroup ad directed at opinion makers. It's a desperate tug at the
heart strings from a wounded corporation seeking more government
favor. There are pieces of Citigroup that can stand on their own and
there others that just suck the life blood out of those that have
any left. Bernanke and Geither have studied the Japanese economic
morass of the last twenty five years, and one conclusion they seemed
to have agreed upon was that Japan was too kind to their banks. It's
time to rip Citigroup apart because in their present state they are a
leech on the economy. When the next crisis comes we can depend on
their need for further help and certainly not to be of help. And
finally and most importantly it is important to show a hard edge
where failure is allowed to over come what in crisis was determined
to be a too big to fail bank, but now that the crisis is working
towards resolution can be sold off in pieces in an FDIC manner. The
country is over banked, especially investment Banks. At one point I
believe finance represented 20% of GDP. I think no more than half
that would be healthy for the economy. Let's start by chopping
Citigroup apart.
