Cartoon of the day

Special mention

 

Wall Street hold ‘em

The series continues with the Ten of Diamonds: Chuck Prince.

“When the music stops, in terms of liquidity, things will be complicated. But as long as the music is playing, you’ve got to get up and dance. We’re still dancing.” (July 2007)

Just 4 months later the music did stop, when Citi announced a $7-11 billion loss related to subprime, forcing them into a $45 billion government bailout. As incentive to resign, Prince was rewarded a $140 million payout in salary and stock. “I’m sorry about the millions of people, average Americans, who lost their homes. And I’m sorry that our management team, starting with me, like so many others could not see the unprecedented market collapse that lay before us.” (testifying before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, 2010)

Economist of the day

According to Salon.com,

Willem Buiter, the London School of Economics professor who has delighted in launching blog posts like grenades throughout the course of the global financial crisis, has been named Citigroup’s Chief Economist.

This is from his blog post titled “Support Markets, Not Banks”:

I cannot think of a single financial institution that is too big to fail, in the sense that it would damage some systemically important social institution. . .

I recognise the upside of bail-outs for those who arrange them: they look like movers and shakers, making and shaping events. It’s heroic, in an industry where heroism can be rarely displayed. But in all of the examples mentioned above, the bail-out did more harm than good.

Now, Buiter will be taking a fat paycheck from one of the very biggest of the too-big-to-fail banks.