7/27/2019 Citigroup History of Being Predatory

1/4

Home Forum About Us Support Us Contact Register Log in

Global Power Project- Part 7: Banking on Influence with

Citigroup

Thursday, 25. July 2013

Citigroup- A Bank with a sordid history of predatory profiteering & criminal activity

In the second quarter of 2013, the third-largest U.S. bank by assets,Citigroup, posted a 42% increase in profits which CEO Michael Corbatpraised as a well balanced result of cost cutting programs, including

the firing of 11,000 workers.

This big bank has a sordid history of predatory profiteering and criminalactivity, not unlike all the other large banks. In the early 20th century, whatwas then National City Bank was the main bank for the RockefellerStandard Oil interests. Over ensuing decades and mergers it eventuallycame to be Citibank, and in the late 1990s, Citigroup. At that time, thebank was dealing with accusations that it had aided in the laundering ofroughly $100 million in payoffs by Mexican drug cartels.

In 2000, the mega-bank was accused of abusing borrowers andclients through predatory lending practices. The bank aroused further controversy by helping Enron evadefinancial rules which allowed the companyto hide its real financial reporting from government regulators. In2005, Citigroup paid a $2 billion settlement to Enron investors who had filed a class-action lawsuit against thebank for helping Enronhide billions of dollars in debt.

A 2005 report by Citigroup created the term plutonomy to describe the modern state capitalist system inwhich there is only the rich and everyone else; an economy in which the rich increasingly become theconsuming class, driven to a significant degree by disruptive technology-driven productivity gains, creativefinancial innovation, [and] capitalist friendly cooperative governments.

Referencing the United States, the U.K., Australia and Canada as modern plutonomies, Citigroup globalstrategist Ajay Kapur noted, The Plutonomy is here, is going to get stronger, its membership is swelling, andwhile the risks of plutonomies include war, inflation, financial crises, the end of the technological revolutionand populist political pressure, Kapur noted that the rich are likely to keep getting even richer, and enjoy

Sibel Edmonds' Boiling Frogs Post | Home of the Irate Minority http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2013/07/25/global-power-project-part-7-banking-on-influenc...

1 of 4 7/26/2013 10:18 AM

7/27/2019 Citigroup History of Being Predatory

2/4

7/27/2019 Citigroup History of Being Predatory

3/4

7/27/2019 Citigroup History of Being Predatory

4/4