It's hard to imagine that Citi was suing to have the right to receive even more bailout money so they could buy the failing Wachovia only last October. Ahh, those were the days of capitalism, Republican style. When else and where else could a failure have the opportunity to buy another failure on the taxpayers dime? And where else but in America could so many failures from such an ugly behemoth get jobs with an administration calling for change? The crisis is not something that requires small tweaking here and there. The crisis is not going to end until someone gets serious.
By any measure, the federal government’s latest rescue for Citigroup is perhaps the most daring attempt yet to stabilize the nation’s beleaguered banks.
But it almost certainly won’t be the last. No sooner did the Treasury Department announce on Friday that it would increase its ownership in Citigroup than the questions began to swirl.
The big question, of course, is this: Will this plan, the third since October, be the one that finally works? Will it shore up this $2 trillion behemoth? Or is the outcome that the banks and the government are so desperately trying to avoid — nationalization, under whatever guise — only a matter of time?
Wall Street’s judgment was swift and brutal. Citigroup’s share price, which a little over two years ago was flying high at $55, plunged 96 cents to a mere $1.50. Other banking shares also fell hard, underscoring the acute anxiety over where this will end and what the government will do next.
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