Today's Outrage: Citi Takes Cash to Spain
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson gives the U.S. bank $45 billion in taxpayer money to keep it afloat and get it to pump some money into the emaciated U.S. lending system and what does Citi do?
Buy a Spanish highway-operator.
Yes, you heard right. A Citigroup infrastructure fund agreed to take over Spain's Itinere from Sacyr Vallehermoso in a deal valued at about $10 billion, which includes about $6.3 billion in debt that Citi will take on.
Just what Citi needs: more debt.
Of course, Citi officials will tell us this is good debt, unlike the $306 billion in risky assets U.S. regulators agreed to backstop last week as part of a $20 billion taxpayer-funded cash injection to shore up the bank. That's on top of the $25 billion in federal bailout money Citi received earlier this year.
U.S. taxpayers are definitely getting a great return on that investment.
I'll bet Paulson just can't wait to hand over another $10 billion to Citi when the bank complains that the global recession is eating into the tolls it thought it would be collecting in Spain.
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson gives the U.S. bank $45 billion in taxpayer money to keep it afloat and get it to pump some money into the emaciated U.S. lending system and what does Citi do?
Buy a Spanish highway-operator.
Yes, you heard right. A Citigroup infrastructure fund agreed to take over Spain's Itinere from Sacyr Vallehermoso in a deal valued at about $10 billion, which includes about $6.3 billion in debt that Citi will take on.
Just what Citi needs: more debt.
Of course, Citi officials will tell us this is good debt, unlike the $306 billion in risky assets U.S. regulators agreed to backstop last week as part of a $20 billion taxpayer-funded cash injection to shore up the bank. That's on top of the $25 billion in federal bailout money Citi received earlier this year.
U.S. taxpayers are definitely getting a great return on that investment.
I'll bet Paulson just can't wait to hand over another $10 billion to Citi when the bank complains that the global recession is eating into the tolls it thought it would be collecting in Spain.
