US to Take 36% Stake in Citi

Bank faces 'extremely challenging' conditions, CEO says

(NEWSER) - Citigroup plans to cut some 4,500 jobs—2% of its global workforce—in the coming months as it "faces an extremely challenging operating environment," CEO Vikram Pandit warns. Pandit, who has cut more than 100,000 jobs at Citi since taking charge in 2007, says regulatory changes and the euro zone crisis are among the factors forcing the company to cut costs as revenue slumps, Reuters reports. More»

So why haven't homeowners been bailed out?

(NEWSER) - If you were trying to get a loan in southern Florida in 2007, bankers like James Theckston were there to help. "If you had some old bag lady walking down the street and she had a decent credit score, she got a loan," Chase's then-regional VP of Home Finance tells Nicholas Kristof. And Theckston says there's no doubt that though borrowers bear some responsibility for what Kristof describes as their "harebrained decisions," the bankers "were far more culpable," writes the New York Times columnist. More»

Banks took in billions of dollars, even as they claimed to be healthy

(NEWSER) - For more than two years, the Fed and the banks it bailed out during the 2007 to 2009 financial crisis have kept many of the details of the massive, multi-trillion-dollar bailout a secret. But, thanks to Freedom of Information Act requests, 29,000 pages of bailout details are pouring out of the Fed at last, and those details are explained in an extended and damning report by Bloomberg Markets magazine. Among the biggest revelations:

• $7.77 trillion: the total amount doled out in aid by the Fed to all the banks, as of March 2009, which Bloomberg notes surpasses 50% of the value of "everything produced in the US that year." In comparison, the $700 billion TARP "at least had some strings attached," says one House Democrat. "With the Fed programs, there was nothing."

Mum on details, will pitch to EU leaders this month

(AP) - The leaders of Germany and France, the eurozone's two biggest economies, say they have reached agreement on strengthening Europe's shaky banking sector. German Chancellor Angela Merkel says she and French President Nicolas Sarkozy "are determined to do the necessary to ensure the recapitalization of Europe's banks." Merkel spoke after talks with Sarkozy at Berlin's chancellery today aimed at forging an agreement ahead of a summit of the European Union's 27 leaders later this month. More»

Movement needs clear demands to fix financial system

(NEWSER) - The biggest problem with the Occupy Wall Street movement is its demands: "It doesn’t really have any," writes Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times . While he's not anti-market like many of the protesters, Kristof does think America's financial institutions have grown out of control—"In effect, the banks socialized risk and privatized profits"—so he offers up some suggested demands to the protesters: More»