The time has come to break up the large money center banks, or nationalize the entire industry. Like the sheep they are, they all followed each over the cliff and may be taking down the entire economy by next year.
Fed chief Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Paulson are a day late and a dollar short in trying to reverse the inevitable decline of America into the abyss from which Japan, China, India, and the entire Pacific basi comes out triumphant.
If we have a major recession/depression next year, why would Japan and China want to continue to hold on to U.S. government debt?
I'm starting to polish up my apple selling skills and practicing singing "Buddy Can You Spare a Dime".

The suits at Citibank should be jailed for fiscal malfeasance. In Iran they would be horse whipped to death!

We have the National Mortgage Complaint Center & The Corporate Whistleblower Center & we are still wondering why Wall Street calls it "credit crisis fears", as if its not already happening? Whats worse we have been saying for two years that 2008 scares us to death because of all of the adjustable rate mortgage "re-sets". CFC is in very deep, deep trouble on this, as are others. We happen to think Citi will survive, as will Washington Mutual, but this is all about to get very ugly. The next shoe to drop in this mess will be pension funds lining up in front of Congress for a bail out. Homebuilders are about to become radioactive, so we are telling people to get out of Financials & Homebuilders before things get worse. We think at least half of the top 10 US homebuilders will be BK by this time next year. We think greed without a thought about tomorrow has led us to where we are today.

As a former employee of Citibank I must state that I am not surprised that Citi will be laying off employees. When the "SUITS" mess up the employees must pay with their jobs. Oh for the days when Citibank was headed by Walter Wriston. Unfortunately the clowns that have taken over have destroyed a company that in the past was considered the NUMBER ONE BANK.

Does this mean there won't be anybody left to call me when I'm late on a payment ? Yippee!

ok...so ...he has lost 62,000 jobs for his employees since April, and HE gets a golden parachute? He definitely is a Prince. In ANY other country...he would be held accountable along with his senior managers (and the ones who have just left, for other banks) for this disasterous mismanagement of money...how can they call themselves bankers...they are overpaid crooks, who are NEVER held accountable for these global economic crises they put us in...scary.

Does this mean there won't be anybody left to call me when I'm late on a payment ? Yippee!

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Yes, they won't call you before they rip your pants off.

You better believe this holiday season won't be merry for many. I've been gone since mid-October and I STILL haven't received my severance or my Record of Employment. Wait. It gets better. I've now lost stock awarded, due to the current stock price. While we were still employed there, a colleague received a ROE with someone else's name but her SSN on it. So the average Citi employee gets screwed all over, while the Prince rides off with 68 million bucks for his boo-boo. Gotta love that.

As an ex-employee of Citigroup, I have to agree with management's reduction in force strategy. Citi's better days will come from moving many of the operations overseas to Bangalore. Face it, India is where the growth will come from in the future. Highly educated, English-speaking, hard working/non-whiners with a zest for success. Plus, their compensation packages are a miniscule percent of what we pay the "Dilbert-types" in the good old U.S.A.
Citi needs to jettison it's retail banking business (credit cards included) which is a dog. Their credit risk criteria for consumer loans is lax which has led to high default rates.
Right now Citigroup employees must feel as though they are on the TITANIC. There are, however, some Citi employees in denial about the impending "carnage

I work for retail banking w/ Citi and I have to disagree with moving jobs overseas. Not only because I will be directly impacted, but because I speak with clients every day who are completely frustrated with attempting to communicate with reps in India. Our processing centers are in India, and cause our processing time to be higher than any financial institution I've worked with. Not because Indians are less intelligent, but language barriers do slow the lending process.

I would make a modest estimate and say that 10% of home equity applications that I work with personally have been withdrawn due to frustration with processors in India, per month.

Indians are non-whiners because if they complain they are fired, simple as that. In Bangalore, the Citibank call center has a sign that says "if you have a resume, we will hire you." If you've ever visited these centers you will know that they are piled into call centers nearly on top of each other. It's apalling.

Any American that supports the transition of American jobs overseas is supporting the extinction of the middle-class. Some people have to work for a living, and despite what your belief on the matter may be, it is not all black and white. There are many hardworking Americans in this country that have to live in fear of losing their jobs to India and the Phillipines. It is simply not right, and Americans who support this phenomenon are unpatriotic and selfish. That type of thoughtless selfishness is exactly what has gotten the US into this mess of problems.

Of course, the scale will have to slide the opposite way eventually. Once this becomes a welfare nation, with a staggering unemployment rate and tax cuts for the rich suddenly shorting federal and state funded public assistance programs, who will we look to to save our collective asses?

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There's no doubt that this holiday season won't be very merry for people who work for the big financial services firms. Former CEO Chuck Prince, though, won't have any worries thanks to the $68 million golden parachute he received for destroying $64 billion in market value.

The entire CITI board of directors should be fired, fined and throw into jail for this CRAP. It's legalized highway robbery. This CEO should have gotten a kick in the ass and shown the door, at the very least.

American business better wake up and stop this CEO wholesale PLUNDERING of our businesses. Why do we REWARD CEO's for ruining our companies by giving them GOLDEN PARACHUTES, then letting them off the hook scott-free.