Memo To Citigroup CEO Michael Corbat: Does Your Crony Capitalist Plunder Know No Shame?

The times are few and far between that I am in agreement with Senator Elizabeth Warren’s brand of Big Government liberalism. But I do applaud her willingness to stand up to the Wall Street lobby machine; her capacity to recognize and call-out the egregious gambling dens that have metastasized there; and her insistence that never again should the hard-pressed taxpayers of America be forced to bailout the crony capitalist plunder that is enabled by the Fed’s free money madness.

But now comes a naked Wall Street raid on the taxpayers that’s beyond the pale; and it would have sailed right through in the dead of night absent Elizabeth Warren’s intrepid opposition. Bravo, Senator!

I am referring to the Citigroup-drafted sneak attack on Washington’s tepid effort to curtail the more egregious gambling habits of some of the big banks. These incorrigible larcenists have been trying to gut the “push out” provisions of Dodd-Frank for more than three years now, yet the latter boils down to a simple and urgently necessary injunction to the banks. Namely, you can’t roll the dice in the “derivatives” gambling halls with taxpayer guaranteed deposits.

In light of the inherent dangers of what even Warren Buffet once called “financial weapons of mass destruction”, it is self-evident that no bank—not even the mighty Citigroup—–should be allowed to bring these incendiary devices within a country-mile of the taxpayer enabled FDIC guarantee program. So what Dodd-Frank does is to say go ahead and swing for the fences, but do it in a holding company subsidiary. If something subsequently goes boom in the night, its on your earnings and bonus—–not the taxpayers’ hard earned bucks.

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