The Bank Swindle: Putting it in Perspective
Saturday, February 14, 2009 19:23
The US government has given Citigroup $45 billion in direct cash injections while guaranteeing another $291 billion of the banks toxic (worthless) assets. Citi’s cost to the taxpayer now totals $336 billion.
Think you over paid? You did. The entire market capitalization of Citigroup is only $19 billion which means that anyone can buy the entire company and assume full control for $19 billion. Taxpayers have paid Citi almost 18 times what the entire company is worth, while receiving no control, voting rights, or even an ATM fee reversal!
Bank of America is a similar story. $183 billion in injections and guarantees of worthless assets on a company that can be bought and controlled entirely for $27 billion.
Bank of America and Citigroup have already cost the US taxpayer a whopping $519 billion.
To put things in better perspective, at $519 billion, you could completely own and control General Motors, Alcoa, American Express, The Disney Corporation, McDonalds, Home Depot, Hewlett Packard, Merck, Du Pont, Boeing, Caterpillar, Intel, 3M, and Kraft foods while still having a cool $6 billion in cash left over.
Nearly half of a trillion dollars has gone to Citigroup and Bank of America alone. The government has overpaid by more than 11 times the total value of the two companies and has absolutely nothing to show for it. The taxpayers receive no dividend or interest payments, have no ownership or control, and are at the mercy of paying back interest and fees to organizations running on public money.
Think about that while you hear more about the “Nationalizing the banks” campaign being sold in the media. How much more are we to pay for these companies?
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Lenny says:
February 14th, 2009 at 8:22 pm
I have a sick feeling that one of them is planning to buy the responsible local bank that I go to.
Tursas says:
February 14th, 2009 at 8:23 pm
We do not need to nationalize the banks, we need only to do the same that UK did in 1946. They nationalized their “FED” that was called “Central Bank”.
Our FED just told that their balance sheet stands around US$ 2 trillion or less than 20% of our GDP.
After this simple nationalization move our robber barons, the Citi’s, BA’s & JPM’s will run to their new master and the order will be restored. If we do not act this way we have no hope of solving anything at all.