Stop the Charade, Nationalize Citi
http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/article/157347/Stop-the-Charade,-Nationalize-Citi
After approaching $5 early Tuesday, Citi shares rebounded midday on reports the company is both close to selling Smith Barney and ready to abandon the financial services "supermarket" model.
But lost in the headline excitement over the strategy shift and pending sale of Smith Barney is a sobering reality: Even after receiving $45 billion of direct federal funds and another $250 billion in debt guarantees, Citigroup needs to raise yet still more money. (Splitting the company into a "bad bank-good bank" structure, as is also reportedly being contemplated, is a positive step - but let's assume Citi will still need more capital, with the government being the most likely provider.)
Before the government puts another dime of taxpayer funds into Citi, let's stop the charade and fully nationalize the company, including:
* The removal of the current management team, including the board of directors, ideally with some clawback of executive pay.
* A wipeout of existing stakeholders, debt and equity alike.
* Forced write-down of bad debt.
Such a plan - which certainly applied to all troubled banks, as Henry Blodget writes - would have to be done in a way that protects customers and takes into account risks to Citi's counterparties; notably, other big banks and insurers like AIG that may too come back for more government largess.
But at the end of the day, the government could create a new class of shareholders, a.k.a. U.S. taxpayers, who will have an opportunity to profit from any upside. That's instead of the current situation of average Americans being stuck subsidizing those who took the risk of investing in Citi and other firms, and are benefiting from (if not overtly advocating for) the grotesque philosophy of privatized gains and socialized risks.
******************
I like the thinking, but I find it hard to believe that this will actually happen