My take on the Citibank bailout

By Libby Spencer

The legalized looting of the Treasury continues apace. The Fed apparently reached an agreement to guarantee $306 billion worth of Citibank's shitpile and toss them $20 billion in cash from Paulson's slush fund. And what are they going to do with the money? Send 1,000 jobs to the Philippines.

"We're investing in systems and processes, and next year we will have another 1,000 (workers)," Citigroup's country business manager Mark Jones was quoted as saying.

He added that the new jobs to be created in the Philippines would be for Citigroup's call center and financial reporting operations.

And why are they bailing out yet another corporate behemoth that outsources US jobs, yet refusing to rescue the Big 3 in Detroit, who despite their problems actually employ Americans you ask? Bob Reich has the answer.

...That's because Wall Street's self-serving view of the unique role of financial institutions is mirrored in the two agencies that run the American economy -- the Treasury and the Fed. Their job, as they see it, is to keep the financial economy "sound," by which they mean keeping Wall Street's own investors and creditors reasonably happy.

Because the public doesn't understand the intricacies of finance, it's easily persuaded that this is definition of "soundness" is the same as keeping savings flowing to the banks so that the banks can lend to them to Main Street. That's why the public and its representatives have committed $700 billion of taxpayer money to Wall Street and another $500 to $600 billion of subsidized loans to the Street from the Fed -- bailing out the investors and creditors of every major bank, including , any moment, Citi -- only to discover, at the end of this frantic and unbelievably expensive exercise, that American jobs and communities are more endangered than they were at the start.

I want to know why these thieves are going before the Fed for handouts instead of standing in front of a judge waiting for bail to be set.

(Cross-posted at The Impolitic.)