Thread: I-N-S-O-L-V-E-N-T: Citigroup Was In Debt To The Fed 7 Out Of

I-N-S-O-L-V-E-N-T: Citigroup Was In Debt To The Fed 7 Out Of Every 10 Days From August 2007 Through April 2010

Sunday, August 21, 2011

Bloomberg notes, in an article entitled "Wall Street Aristocracy Got $1.2T in Loans":

Citigroup was in debt to the Fed on seven out of every 10 days from August 2007 through April 2010, the most frequent U.S. borrower among the 100 biggest publicly traded firms by pre- crisis market valuation. On average, the bank had a daily balance at the Fed of almost $20 billion.

“Citibank basically was sustained by the Fed for a very long time,â€

Wall Street Aristocracy Got $1.2T in Loans

By Bradley Keoun and Phil Kuntz - Aug 21, 2011 6:01 PM CT .

Citigroup Inc. (C) and Bank of America Corp. (BAC) were the reigning champions of finance in 2006 as home prices peaked, leading the 10 biggest U.S. banks and brokerage firms to their best year ever with $104 billion of profits.

By 2008, the housing market’s collapse forced those companies to take more than six times as much, $669 billion, in emergency loans from the U.S. Federal Reserve. The loans dwarfed the $160 billion in public bailouts the top 10 got from the U.S. Treasury, yet until now the full amounts have remained secret.

Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke’s unprecedented effort to keep the economy from plunging into depression included lending banks and other companies as much as $1.2 trillion of public money, about the same amount U.S. homeowners currently owe on 6.5 million delinquent and foreclosed mortgages. The largest borrower, Morgan Stanley (MS), got as much as $107.3 billion, while Citigroup took $99.5 billion and Bank of America $91.4 billion, according to a Bloomberg News compilation of data obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests, months of litigation and an act of Congress.

“These are all whopping numbers,â€