Citi is a shambles, so are the feds. As a nation we cannot borrow anymore. Excuses to not let the dead lie where they are can no longer be argued. CDS blowing up? Make them unenforceable. Overseas depositors? Sorry, no FDIC for you. Hey, that’s the line I’d be getting from Iceland, Hungary, and a host of other places.

“No bank is adequately capitalized today”

So all banks are effectively bankrupt. That could be a bad thing.

The larger significance is Citi is one of NYC’s rapidly vanishing claims to world financial preeminence.

One by one the internally rotted-out Ivy League-NYC Ponzi structures are imploding, just like obsolete skyscrapers being demo’d one after the next.

Who with enough intelligence to have lots of money would ever again trust the toxic human waste dump that “New York” has mutated into? At this point it only represents overweening arrogance, unlimited personal greed accompanied by unlimited mendacity and amoral dishonesty.

Those aspects are not mitigated by the slightest degree of genuine excellence in anything.

“New York, New York”, your day is past, your goose is cooked. Stick a fork in you, you are DONE!

The faster John Carpenter’s prophetic vision is realized the sooner things will improve for real Americans.

Here sneering at you from Flyover Country.

No proximate cause? C has such exposure to China Syndrome MBSs, especially in its private SIV, that if those are not sold at par, or finish at or near par in the due course of time they are capital dead many times over. No private buyers will touch the rot, and Paulson just announced that the Guvmint won’t be buying. [The whole idea of Tres buying MBSs was exactly to save C and the other dead dinos.] C cannot stand still given ongoing market declines, it must have continuing capital infusions in the $25-50B range, quarterly, for several years, if it is to continue to exist. Congress just turned Paulson down on further access to Play Dough of that volume. The consequence of those two announcements in DC was that the capital markets would assuredly turn against the most exposed behemoths, both because the latter were known to be rotting zombies without further Guvmint cosmetic applications, and because half or more of the Big Boys have to be killed off for the potential survivors to in fact survive on the decidedly smaller pool of available investment capital. The context after those two announcements is roughly comparable to February of this year, when the number of players surely exceeded the volume of new capital. C is the most vulnerable player, that’s all, and the capital markets are edging away.

The Phantom of the Index staggers, lurches, reaches for the taxpayers throat, and . . . .

Full disclosure: C just sent me a three paragraph letter saying that they would raise my rate to 29.9% in the event of a single late payment or default, not that I’ve ever missed on the product that they bought from someone else, despite their constant games with the due date. Or I could close my account in the next billing cycle and pay in full (and for the record I could do that, the amount is small, and I’m net in cash). I’m hoping that they fail, ’cause I’d rather do business with someone else.

And I’m with Satan 533 above, the capital sucked up to die by C over the last year and a half could have created a comparable new, _solvent_ institution. This is the kind of waste that comes from trying to reanimate the dead-but-not-gone; a crime against nature, in other words. The real problem of a failure by C are the systemic risks, so Paulson is barking orders into the speaking tube, “Feed them more taxpayers children, NOW I said!” But it’s useless. In the movie, the raging zombies burst into the executive suite, and chew Paulson’s face off. In reality, he’ll get on a private jet and fly away with his loot to comfortable obscurity. *blecchhh*

No proximate cause? C has such exposure to China Syndrome MBSs, especially in its private SIV, that if those are not sold at par, or finish at or near par in the due course of time they are capital dead many times over. No private buyers will touch the rot, and Paulson just announced that the Guvmint won’t be buying. [The whole idea of Tres buying MBSs was exactly to save C and the other dead dinos.] C cannot stand still given ongoing market declines, it must have continuing capital infusions in the $25-50B range, quarterly, for several years, if it is to continue to exist. Congress just turned Paulson down on further access to Play Dough of that volume. The consequence of those two announcements in DC was that the capital markets would assuredly turn against the most exposed behemoths, both because the latter were known to be rotting zombies without further Guvmint cosmetic applications, and because half or more of the Big Boys have to be killed off for the potential survivors to in fact survive on the decidedly smaller pool of available investment capital. The context after those two announcements is roughly comparable to February of this year, when the number of players surely exceeded the volume of new capital. C is the most vulnerable player, that’s all, and the capital markets are edging away.

The Phantom of the Index staggers, lurches, reaches for the taxpayers throat, and . . . .

Full disclosure: C just sent me a three paragraph letter saying that they would raise my rate to 29.9% in the event of a single late payment or default, not that I’ve ever missed on the product that they bought from someone else, despite their constant games with the due date. Or I could close my account in the next billing cycle and pay in full (and for the record I could do that, the amount is small, and I’m net in cash). I’m hoping that they fail, ’cause I’d rather do business with someone else.

And I’m with Satan 533 above, the capital sucked up to die by C over the last year and a half could have created a comparable new, _solvent_ institution. This is the kind of waste that comes from trying to reanimate the dead-but-not-gone; a crime against nature, in other words. The real problem of a failure by C are the systemic risks, so Paulson is barking orders into the speaking tube, “Feed them more taxpayers children, NOW I said!” But it’s useless. In the movie, the raging zombies burst into the executive suite, and chew Paulson’s face off. In reality, he’ll get on a private jet and fly away with his loot to comfortable obscurity. *blecchhh*

//Remember, good satan, that we do not save Citi for Citi. We save Citi for everyone foolish enough to lend to them, deposit money with them, or write CDS contracts on their head.//