Predator Profile: CITIGROUP

CITIGROUP

The financial octopus known as Citigroup is the result of the marriage of one of the country’s oldest and most powerful commercial banks (Citibank) and a conglomerate (Travelers Group) created by Sanford Weill to promote and exploit the weakening of federal rules governing the financial sector. During the 2008 credit crisis, a struggling Citigroup had to be bailed out by the federal government, which ignored calls for its breakup and aside from some multi-million-dollar regulatory settlements did little to curb its aggressive practices.

“Citi is a classic example of serially abusive senior management. The recent troubles are not really unique or even terribly different. Over the past 25 years Citi has gone from crisis to crisis and bailout to bailout and abusive or even outright criminal action. If there were 3 strike laws for white collar crime, Citi would have been put out of its misery 25 years ago.”

Bill Black, author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One

“The debt crisis of the early 1980s unleashed a wave of corporate mergers, buyouts and bankruptcies. These changes then paved the way for the consolidation of a new generation of financiers clustered around the large merchant banks, the institutional investors, stock brokerage firms and large insurance companies. In this process, commercial banking functions have coalesced with those of the investment banks and stock brokers, leading to the consolidation of a handful of global financial conglomerates.”

Andrew Gavin Marshall, Global Research