Citi Investors Cheer Massive Layoffs!

[sheshe2]

Citigroup Investors Cheer Massive Layoffs, Hope For More

Nothing surpises me anymore!

The Huffington Post | By Mark Gongloff

Investors cheered the news, pushing Citigroup stock up a whopping 6 percent, which surely made new CEO Michael Corbat happy. On a tropical island somewhere, former Citi CEO Vikram Pandit, recently defenestrated without ceremony, was maybe scratching his head, wondering why he didn't get that kind of love from investors when he slashed jobs. As MarketWatch's David Weidner notes, Pandit was no slouch in that department, cutting 73,000 jobs at the time of the crisis and shedding $250 billion in assets since then.
Still, Corbat has only just begun to cut: Citigroup, the O.G. Too Big To Fail bank, is still way too big. Revenues across the banking sector are down and don't seem in a hurry to get back up, what with the sluggish global economy and regulatory crackdowns and low interest rates and what-not.

Investors weren't driving the stock price higher on Wednesday because they thought the bank's problems could be boiled down to 11,000 people, people who were probably on the lower end of the Citi pay scale anyway. They were cheering the layoffs because they demonstrated a willingness to do even more.

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Citi may be trimming fat, but it wasn't averse to letting Pandit leave with a big bonus. They were stingier to the people who lost their jobs today, according to Charlie Gasparino at Fox Business News. He reports that Citi timed the layoffs to avoid having to pay bonuses at the start of the year. Unfortunately, that's something of a Wall Street tradition.

Gasparino also reports that other banks are planning year-end layoffs. That, too, is not surprising; the too-big-to-fail set still has a lot more downsizing to do.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/05/citigroup-layoffs-december-2012_n_2246673.html

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

1. Unfortunately, that's something of a Wall Street tradition.

It's not just a Wall Street tradition. I've known a-holes to lay people off on their birthday or right before or shortly after the birth of a child. It's almost like they got a thrill out of doing it. Power.

This is the disease of business, and it isn't just a Wall Street infection.


Still it sucks having this happen right before Xmas.

[Initech]

2. These people have no souls. This is our "let them eat cake" moment. Damn them all.

[rainin]

3. Aren't stocks just like the lottery for the middle class?

Until 2008, I believed that my investment portfolio would someday fund my retirement. I got hit hard like so many others. I now believe that this is another lie designed to steal hard-earned money from millions of people. I don't believe any of it. Even though my money grew in value over the years, I'm not sure it even kept up with inflation. It was better than a bank account, but not better than gold. For those who got wiped out and lost everything, they probably wished they had put their millions under their mattresses.

[dmallind]

4. How do you get wiped out unless you sell at the bottom?

Downturns are a time to buy if you have spare cash, or at least hold unless starvation/homelessness is is immediately imminent. Luckily it did not quite get to either extreme, but in 2008-9 I would have sold my car (and every other nonessential valuable) before my stocks - the former wasn't going to recover like the latter.

While millions lost jobs, me included for a year plus, most didn't. Simply doing nothing would have resulted in their 401ks benefitting from DCA buying at historic lows, and resulted in a far far better return than banks and about equal to gold (up 70-80%) - and that's not counting any match and tax benefits if you use 401ks. Or dividends either.

The basic thing to remember - that requires no financial acumen or math wizardry whatsoever - is never ever sell in bear markets unless the absolute direst of circumstances apply. That way you'll have zero chance of being wiped out.

[raouldukelives]

5. Worse than a lottery.

They allow you to partially own companies outsourcing, destroying the environment, denying health care and creating weaponry to attack civilians at home and abroad.
When we get Citizens United, when we get deregulation, when we get climate change deniers being massively funded by corporations you can thank an investor. The partial owners of all that is anti-liberal in America today.

[rainin]

6. Interesting point. It makes us all complicit.

When in conflict, how is our position influenced by a perceived threat to our wealth? Think about congressmen and women who hold stock and make decisions that affect a company's position.

[raouldukelives]

7. And then go to work for the same company after they leave politics.

But we aren't all complicit. Only those invested in Wall St. A lot of people like to point fingers at consumers, but in many cases they have little option to choose otherwise.
The dawning of climate change as a reality has been an eye opener for many people, myself included. I wish things could be the way they were in days past. When we felt we had minimal effect on the ecosystem, when we could drive giant cars and jet around the world without a care or thought to the damage we are doing.
With the knowledge we posses now, we cannot in good conscience support those industries or corporations mortgaging the future of every living creature on the face of the earth for a little money today. We cannot stand idly by and be a observer and wait for others to take the lead though that is what many want. In much the same way I'm sure as people in the south who owned slaves and felt it was wrong. Many agreed with the sentiment and decided they would also end the practice, when everyone else did first of course.