Tag Archives: Economy

Citigroup to Lay Off 4,500 Workers

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Citigroup to Lay Off 4,500 Workers – NYTimes.com.

Citigroup to Lay Off 4,500 Workers - NYTimes.com

Facing stalling growth prospects around the globe, Citigroup’s chief executive, Vikram S. Pandit, said on Tuesday that the bank would lay off 4,500 workers in the coming months.

Citi will also take a $400 million charge in the fourth quarter to cover the severance and other costs related to the downsizing effort, which will reduce the bank’s work force by about 2 percent, to 262,500 employees. Citi now has roughly 100,000 fewer employees than it did at the end of 2007, before the worst of the financial crisis.

Most of the job losses will come from Citi’s back-office and investment banking operations. Its Wall Street-related business has been hard hit by a slowdown in trading volume amid the turmoil in Europe. But nearly every part of Citi’s sprawling businesses will face cuts.

Citigroup is the latest big bank to announce extensive layoffs, following similar actions by many of its rivals that have coursed through the industry since last fall. While Citi quietly began pruning its work force this summer, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Bank of New York Mellon — and almost every large European bank — have announced big job cuts.

Wall Street companies have come under intense pressure as the world economy has slowed in recent months, and their once-lucrative trading businesses have sputtered as investors have parked their cash on the sidelines. More traditional banking has also been hit hard by anemic demand for loans, as well as new regulations and consumer outcry against fees on checking accounts, debit cards and credit cards.

Speaking at the Goldman Sachs financial services conference on Tuesday, Mr. Pandit framed the layoffs as part of his plan to brace the company for an even more difficult road ahead.

“Financial services faces an extremely challenging operating environment,” he said. “These trends will likely significantly affect the competitive landscape in the coming years.”

Ever since taking over the bank almost four years ago, Mr. Pandit has been making steady progress on a plan to transform Citi from a global banking behemoth into a more nimble, corporate lender. He has shed hundreds of billions of dollars in assets to lighten its balance sheet, strengthened the bank’s risk controls and repaid the $45 billion bailout the bank received to prevent its collapse in the fall of 2008.

For his efforts, Mr. Pandit accepted a $1-a-year salary — although Citigroup’s board handed him a retention package worth at least $23.2 million earlier this year.

But as the market turmoil in Europe has rippled around the world, Mr. Pandit’s recovery strategy has lost some steam. While Citigroup has cranked out seven consecutive quarters of profits after it set aside less money to cover bad loans, the bank has struggled to increase its income. Revenue fell 10 percent to about $60 billion in the first nine months of this year, compared with the period a year ago.

In his remarks on Tuesday, Mr. Pandit said Citi’s investment banking and trading performance in the current quarter had thus far been in line with its third-quarter results. Those numbers were solid, but nowhere near the blockbuster performance its traders had turned in earlier in the year.

And he warned that the bank was unlikely to see a repeat of the $2.6 billion paper gain it realized in the third quarter, when it benefited from accounting quirks tied to the valuation of its own debt. Based on Monday’s credit spreads, Mr. Pandit said, Citi is on track to take a $600 million paper loss in the fourth quarter.

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Secret Santa Passes Out $100 Bills

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Secret Santa Passes Out $100 Bills | Care2 Causes.

Secret Santa Passes Out 0 Bills | Care2 Causes

In the poorest city in America—Reading, Pennsylvania—a tall man in a red shirt and cap (with “Elf” stitched on the back) hands out $100 bills. His back is always to the camera, his face never shows, because this Santa wants to remain anonymous.

Ron Devlin from the Reading Eagle filmed him on his visits to thrift stores, bus depots and laundromats. What is striking is not just that the man gives away $20,000 of his own money, mostly $100 bills stamped with “Secret Santa” in red. He could have passed them out like a benevolent but patronizing donor. Instead, he speaks softly and then he listens. That’s when he receives the gift of stories from surprised recipients.

One of those comes from a young man who sobs after Santa moves on to the next person. Through tears, he says, “This man said to me, ‘You’re a good man,’ and it felt good to hear that.”

Secret Santa is a successful businessman who made a promise to the original Secret Santa, Larry Stewart. When Stewart was homeless in Mississippi, he walked into a diner. He ordered a meal and then pretended he had lost his wallet. Instead of throwing him out or calling the police, Ted Horn, who owned the diner, bent down and picked up a $20 bill. “Son, you must have dropped this,” he said. That gift, and the gentle way Horn allowed him to save face, made Stewart determined to help others as soon as he had the chance.

Stewart became successful in cable television and then with his own long-distance telephone company. He never forgot Ted Horn’s gift. Year after year, Stewart passed out money as an anonymous Secret Santa. He even tracked down Ted Horn and gave him an envelope with $10,000 in it. By the time he died, Stewart had given away $1.3 million.

The Secret Santa in Reading, Pennsylvania promised to carry on the tradition. He is part of a society of Secret Santas, all of them agreeing to seven values that include anonymity, humility, humor and compassion.

There are some heart-wrenching moments in the video, but mostly there is joy. Maybe there is a Secret Santa in your town. Or maybe you want to become one, giving money or a helping hand, without thought of reward. There’s a welcome for you in an anonymous society of quiet heroes.

Congress sees 25% increase in wealth since economic collapse « The Devout Infidel

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Congress sees 25% increase in wealth since economic collapse « The Devout Infidel.

Congress sees 25% increase in wealth since economic collapse « The Devout Infidel

Members of Congress enjoyed a collective net worth of more than $2 billion dollars in 2010, a nearly 25 percent increase in two years, according to a Roll Call analysis of Members’ financial disclosure forms.

Roughly 90 percent of that increase sits in the pockets of the 50 richest Congressmen.

In 08 the minimum net worth of House Members was slightly more than $1 billion while Senators had a combined minimum worth of $651 million for a Congressional total of $1.65 billion. The minimum net worth in the House has jumped to $1.26 billion, and at least $784 million for the Senate, for a total of $2.04 billion this year.

These wealth totals do not include homes and other non-income-generating property, which is likely to tally hundreds of millions of uncounted dollars.

While wealth overall is scattered fairly evenly between the two parties Democrats hold about 80 percent of the wealth in the Senate with Republicans controlling about 78 percent of the wealth in the House.

The 50 richest Members of Congress accounted for 78 percent of the net worth in the institution in 2008 ($1.29 billion of the $1.65 billion total); by 2010 the share of the 50 richest had risen to 80 percent ($1.63 billion of the $2.04 billion total). The pie of Congressional wealth got bigger, and the richest Members are getting a bigger slice.

If you were to divide the total wealth of Congress by the number of Members you would get an average net worth of about $3.8 million (excluding non-income-producing property such as personal residences) for each Congressman. By comparison, for the rest of the country, based on statistics released by the Federal Reserve, average household net worth is around $500,000 this year (including personal residences), according to David Rosnick, an economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

Congress is also getting richer faster than the rest of the nation. According to Federal Reserve data, from the end of 2008 to end of 2010, aggregate household worth increased 12 percent.” which is about half the increase Congress achieved during the same time period.

Alan Ziobrowski, a professor of real estate at Georgia State University, has produced studies of Congressional investment patterns indicating that lawmakers in both chambers tend to fare better in their investment portfolios than the average American, in part because “[t]here is no doubt in my mind that they are trading in some way on information that is there.”

But he also points out that the Membership of Congress has turned over since 2008, making it difficult to compare wealth over time. “You’ve got different people,” he said.

In the aftermath of the 2010 elections that swept Republicans to power, about 20 percent of the Members included in the 2010 survey were not included in the 2008 survey.

Plundered from the pages of the WordPress Blog: The Devout Infidel