Are we running out of money, is the worst yet to come?

OBAMA: WE’RE OUT OF MONEY

BOB CHAPMAN: AMERICA THE DEPRESSED, NO LONGER A SAFE HAVEN FOR INVESTORS

AMERICA’S NIGHTMARE: THE OBAMA DYSTOPIA

WORRIES AT CITBANK

In Face of Great Depression II, Citi Takes Care of Its Own

Steve Homan sent this to me:

It’s all a matter of perspective. One man’s hell is another man’s heck. In fact, it’s how you define “hell,” (or “inhale” as that great deregulator, Bill Clinton, once said.).

“If you’re going through hell, keep going,” British Prime Minister Winston Churchill said as London was bombed during World War II. It also seems to be the motto of the more than 600,000 people laid off each of the past four months in the U.S. alone—plus families—as their savings dwindle and the prospect of the United States of Tent Cities looms ever larger.

Citigroup suffered huge losses during the global financial crisis of 2008 and was rescued in November 2008 in a massive bailout by the U.S. government. Its largest shareholders include funds from the Middle East and Singapore. On Feb. 27, 2009 Citigroup announced that the U.S. government would be taking a 36 percent equity stake in the company by converting $25 billion in emergency aid into common shares

Some reports have the figure at $45 billion.

So, you see, Citigroup, also, has gone through its own kind of “hell” for the last one and one-half years, according to one of its tax managers involved with the melee of saving the bank and making sense of the input of common folk’s tax dollars from the U.S. government, since the subprime mortgage housing bubble burst last summer.

The manager described “long hours—weekend hours. It’s been heck.” But he, his wife and five young children are in no danger of having to move into a tent city somewhere in the Bronx. They’re well-ensconced in their cozy, multi-million-dollar-mortgage home in a suburb in Westchester County.

He and CitiGroup “keep going” through this “heck” just as Churchill would have.

However, if the “numbers” don’t “pick up” by the end of June it could be “worse than the Great Depression” throughout the U.S, the manager said, asking for anonymity so he could keep his job. This Citi official said, after June, the common stockholders in Citi—that’s the American taxpayer—may get the real “hell”—nothing. Zippo. No value. And preferred stockholders may get common stock instead of preferred status. That’s rough, when you’re feeding seven mouths and paying a mortgage on a home with a huge yard, pets, deer in the woods, and the proverbial white picket fence.

But—as most regressives do—this manager never mentioned the more than 600,000 unemployed in each recent month—or those who used to be middle class suddenly finding themselves in tent cities in places like Kansas City and Dallas. READ IT ALL!

RESOURCES

Great Website On Making Sense Out Of The Economy From Paul Solmon of PBS News Hour

“Crooks and Liars now has a new blog, Third Branch, devoted to following the U.S. Supreme Court.”

WATCH THIS SHOW!

MOYERS ON THE SINGLE PAYER HEALTH CARE DEBATE–SEE PBS.ORG/Moyers as well

Subscribe in a reader