Special Report
Liberalism Never Sleeps
According to Citigroup, our latest bailout recipient, no scheme is too left-wing to fail.
Businesses that politicians deem vital to the national interest aren’t being allowed to fail in America today, and the bigger they are, the more help they get from the government. So it’s not much of a surprise that the fine points of yet another bailout package are being worked out behind closed doors, this time for Citigroup.
Again, not surprisingly, the latest recipient of government largess is a big donor to political candidates and parties. It’s the 15th largest corporate giver, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, donating $25.1 million since 1989 in roughly even portions to the two parties. When Citigroup begged for taxpayer help, the Bush administration and congressional leaders took the call. Don’t expect a policy change from President-elect Obama’s incoming Secretary of Bailouts, Tim Geithner, and Larry Summers, soon to be head of the National Corporate Welfare Council.
It’s just the latest in a never-ending series of bailouts that Chicken Little commentators and status quo fetishists say we simply must have — or else. Companies aren’t even being asked to submit to the minor indignity of a bankruptcy proceeding before lawmakers rush in with 18-wheelers full of cash. It’s easier just to fork over taxpayer money. Forget Joseph Schumpeter’s “creative destruction.” Today the rule is survival of the un-fittest.
The complex bailout plan hatched over the weekend for Citigroup calls for the federal government to back about $306 billion in loans and securities and invest about $20 billion directly in the mammoth financial services company. The Citigroup handout brings the potential tab for Uncle Sam’s ever-expanding bailout portfolio to almost $7.8 trillion or roughly half the value of all goods and services produced in the U.S. annually.
But is it necessary? So far all the bailouts collectively have failed to inspire much confidence in investors. The Citigroup rescue may lift stock prices briefly but don’t count on it giving rise to long-term bullishness.
AND IF EVER THERE was a company that didn’t deserve a bailout,
it’s Citigroup, a Big Government lovers’ bank that funds just
about every trendy left-wing cause in America.
Long before it started drowning in red ink, the poster child for so-called corporate social responsibility was a longtime donor to left-wing pressure groups such as Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow/PUSH Coalition and Henry Paulson’s Nature Conservancy. In tax year 2003, Citigroup’s foundation gave 20 times more money to groups on the left than to groups on the right, according to Capital Research Center’s 2006 study of Fortune 100 foundation giving. (Foundation Watch, August 2006.)
Citigroup’s foundation has given a staggering $1.4 million to the alarmist World Resources Institute, as well as $509,000 to ACORN in recent years. The ACORN funding included a $500,000 grant to ACORN’s American Institute for Social Justice, which offers Saul Alinsky-style training in community organizing. Other donations to liberal groups include the Aspen Institute ($762,500), Rainbow/PUSH ($750,000), Nature Conservancy ($380,000), Rainforest Alliance ($200,000), and the Council on Foreign Relations ($50,000).
The company’s 7th Annual Citizenship Report is a dazzling compendium of all the supposed good works Citigroup claims to be doing — with its shareholders’ money. It includes reports on its commitment to diversity and to “sustainable” economic development, along with friendly greetings from Mindy Lubber, president of Ceres, the enviro-leftist investment network, and Janet Murguia, head of the liberal National Council of La Raza.
La Raza, by the way, is the same group, that, along with ACORN and the Greenlining Institute, helped to cause the subprime mortgage meltdown. After decades of demanding more loans for racial minorities, the group performed a dramatic about-face as mortgage markets collapsed, suddenly warning that lenders, realtors, and investors who bought up subprime loans could be sued under a federal law that forbids housing discrimination. It was the lenders’ responsibility to “match families to the sustainable loans that they should have gotten in the first place,” said Murguia.
But in the Citizenship Report, Murguia is all smiles. She asserts that “[b]y working together, NCLR and Citi can effectively tackle the barriers to asset development that Latino families face and eliminate the racial-ethnic wealth disparity.”
Attempting to eliminate that wealth disparity worked out really well, didn’t it? Now Citigroup faces extinction in large part precisely because it signed on to leftist groups’ crazy push to give subprime mortgages to people who couldn’t afford to pay them.
MEANWHILE, VISIONS of fat underwriting fees and commissions are dancing in Citigroup’s head. The company is keeping its fingers crossed that economy-crippling carbon emission controls are enacted. The company wholeheartedly buys into Al Gore’s global warming fantasies.
Citigroup Research put out a self-serving report, “Carbon Trading: The Sky’s the Limit,” last year, that’s irrepressibly bullish on future carbon-related investment opportunities. The paper cites the prediction by the CEO of Abu Dhabi Future Energy Co. (ADFEC) that in 2012 the carbon market will be worth $40 billion, and predicts that cap-and-trade is coming to the U.S. Not surprisingly, the report extols the virtues of controlling carbon dioxide emissions through carbon trading, rather than through the imposition of a carbon tax: Investment firms can’t earn commissions and fat underwriting fees from a carbon tax.
Last year the company said it intends to direct $50 billion “over the next 10 years to address global climate change through investments, financings and related activities to support the commercialization and growth of alternative energy and clean technology among the clients and markets it serves, as well as within its own businesses and operations.”
About the Author
Matthew Vadum is an award-winning investigative journalist at a conservative watchdog group in Washington, D.C. Vadum is also author of Subversion Inc: How Obama’s ACORN Red Shirts are Still Terrorizing and Ripping Off American Taxpayers.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (30) | Leave a comment
Related Articles
More Articles by Matthew Vadum
More Articles From Special Report
http://spectator.org/archives/2008/11/25/liberalism-never-sleeps
Follow us:
ADVERTISEMENT
SPONSORED LINKS
FLASHBACK TO: 1995
-
Pope Culture
A man of faith in a godless age is hitting Americans where it hurts.
-
Why the GOP Does Not, Like, Totally Suck
Mr. and Mrs. American Spectator Reader, let P.J. O’Rourke talk sense to your kids.
-
Dames at Sea
-
In the Absence of Guns
In Britain, defending your property can get you life.
-
The Metaphysical Martini
-
Counting the Costs of Clintonism
The debacle of this president’s administration is both a cause and a symptom of the decline of American values. Unless Congress impeaches him, that decline will go on unchecked. An eminent jurist surveys the damage and assesses the chances for the recovery of our culture.
-
Chuck McHagel
It won’t take long for conservatives to scratch this presidential wannabe off their 2008 scorecard.
-
The Legacy of Old John and Mother Fresh-Roasted
-
It’s the Best Time of the Year
The American Christmas, like the songs that celebrate it, makes room for everybody under the rainbow. Is that why so many people seem to be hostile to it?
-
The Bush Crack-Up
Was the President done in by the economy, or by the politics of the economy?
Clip of the Day
ADVERTISEMENT
Jason | 11.25.08 @ 6:25AM
I'm really glad politicians weren't like this back in the day when the horse and buggy industry began to falter.
http://rightklik.blogspot.com/
Pecos Pete| 11.25.08 @ 6:58AM
Banks should be run conservatively, however, CITI has become a casino where short-term profits and related bonuses are more important than protecting their depositors money. Will they change with a government bail out? Nope.
Anon| 11.25.08 @ 7:34AM
All
What we are viewing, daily, is the tip of the iceberg. These bail outs, handouts, et al, will be fait accompli come Jan. Past news, past pay outs and not on the burner. Jan will see the closing of the net around these Corps that have accepted the candy. CONTROL, MANAGEMENT, and last but not least, MONITORS ON THE BOARDS. This is the place that the Soros OSI folks love to be. Right at the heart of the USA economy. Imagine the boards. Sitting at the head, a Soros OSI agent, surrounded by a majority of like minded idiots. Then comes the dream of the Moveoners. Quietly, over not too long, destroy, change and re build the USA economy in the image described in their template. "Masters of Deceit" by J. Edgar Hoover. Circa 1953.
CPUSA, Democratic Strategy, Center for American Progress, folks all dedicated to the Sovietization of USA, coupled with the OSI experise and we have the final act.
end
Erich Riesenberg| 11.25.08 @ 8:16AM
"La Raza, by the way, is the same group, that, along with ACORN and the Greenlining Institute, helped to cause the subprime mortgage meltdown."
This would be funny, if you did not take yourself so seriously. If you want to blame Citigroup for its part in the mortgage problem, you can do it directly, not in a roundabout way.
DaveinPhoenix| 11.25.08 @ 8:34AM
Even with an excellent credit record with them, Citi jacked up the interest rate on my credit card. The young man on the phone explained to me that it was because of "the business climate" and that I wasn't singled out, that it affected a large number of their customers. I explained to him that business gains revenues by lowering prices and rates, not raising them. I'm transfering my balance today. But what does CitiBank care ? They're being rewarded for failure....
EAS| 11.25.08 @ 9:08AM
This explains why the financial institutions are being gifted money to spend however they see fit with not strings attached and why the domestic auto manufacturers have to have a plan in order to borrow money they plan to pay back.
Jeremiah| 11.25.08 @ 10:04AM
Crony capitalism......a liberal idea?
Maybe so. This is why terms like "liberal" and "conservative" are so inadequate.
There is a whiggish pro-business and pro-capitalism strand of liberalism that is not acknowledged by the braying bores of today's conservatism (the DeLay / Limbaugh / Palin variety).
In fact, traditional conservatism (originating in late 18th century England) was suspicious of markets and their destructive, uprooting excesses.
Liberalism (including social programs that conservatives lampoon as "bleeding heart") has always been about capitalism and the health of markets, the theory being that robust government spending keeps the "animal spirits" of the market circulating vivaciously. Give money to an elderly person regularly and he won't save it, he'll spend it. Give a kid financial aid and that money kicks in right away.
Bush and his friends would like a trillion dollars before they go.
Two trillion will be spent on Iraq (if we're lucky).
A trillion was sucked out of the middle class on behalf of the wealthiest by tax policy.
The Bush administration has been, in fact, and there's really no way any of you can dispute this, the most irresponsible administration we've seen in modern times. The rashness of his financial policy is incredible.
If you want to call this all a triumph of liberalism, fine. But the terms start getting murky and adding more confusion than is necessary.
There is crony capitalist tendencies of corporatism in both major parties. But the Democrats are far less beholden to these interests ultimately.
dgdc| 11.25.08 @ 11:00AM
All these financial institutions that are begging for money should be broken up as a condition for money. Too big to fail, well not anymore.
Sandra| 11.25.08 @ 11:45AM
Interesting since CITI was recently AWARDED the DOD contract for the "official Travel card."
Many if not most DOD civilians and military personnel will HAVE to use CITI Cards for official travel expenses.
It all started years ago (in the late 1980s) with the Government travel card being AMEX. AMEX dropped the US Gov. because they were losing money on the deal. About the same time as the start of the War in Bosnia/Balkans, and folks were deployed and not paid UNTIL after 90 days, with their accounts already 60 days overdue.
Bank of America (BofA) picked up the contracts.
So, I find it very funny that CITI is on the ropes as the switch from BofA to CITI is occuring.
Larry| 11.25.08 @ 5:16PM
My secretary just told me that her sister, who works for Citigroup, and a number of other fellow employees were treated to a free day out at Six Flags over Texas yesterday. This group needs a bailout?
I agree with most of Jeremiah's post, except the last sentence. The article proves rather conclusively that the Democrats are just as, if not more, beholden to these interests. We will see more of the same in the coming months. And I don't think Rush Limbaugh or Sarah Palin are "bores." You bore too easily, my friend.
Alan Brooks| 11.25.08 @ 6:01PM
Larry,
Um, Sarah Palin is a tough lady and selfmade and all that but her intelligence and abilities are nowhere near that of Rush.
Marc Jeric| 11.25.08 @ 9:35PM
Well, I learned some important things about Citi - it a far left outfit lending money to "underserved minorities" and is married to that globaloney warming scam. Just open "Global warming petition project" and "Manhattan Declaration" on the Internet and read the names of 31,072 scientists (including 9,021 with PhD's) stating that antropogenic global warming is a big leftwing scam. Citi should be left to fail in bankruptcy!
Roger| 11.25.08 @ 9:49PM
In all of this bailout, and the so-called credit crunch, has anyone thought,
Hey if Uncle Sam didn't take 1/2 my paycheck every 2 weeks, I wouldn't need a loan to buy a car, I could save to buy a house, I could invest in my retirement, and we the American consumer would pull us out of this in no time.
If a $500 dollar stimulus check is good for the economy, it stands to reason that if I kept my entire income I would have more $ to pump back into the economy.
Ed| 11.26.08 @ 4:57AM
This is some of the dopiest and dumbest crap so far written about the financial crisis.
To wit:
Now Citigroup faces extinction in large part precisely because it signed on to leftist groups' crazy push to give subprime mortgages to people who couldn't afford to pay them.
You have to be kidding me. Does it not occur to you that Citi - like Bear, Lehman and Merrill - went balls and all into real estate generally, and subprime specifically, because it was profitable business for a number of years?
Who would be stupid enough to believe that bankers would look at the world this way?
This too is insanely dumb:
Why don't we try a radical experiment and allow Citigroup -- with all of its foolish investments and silly distractions wholly unrelated to making a profit -- to fail?
Uh, hello? Matthew, sweetie, we tried this is September. A firm called "Lehman Brothers" was allowed to fail, maybe you need a primer on how that worked out.
And finally - "silly distractions wholly unrelated to making a profit". Serious question, have you ever worked in a real job? Had to research an opportunity and present to an investment committee?
You should maybe do that one day. All articles like this one show is that you don't have a goddamn clue what you are writing about.
Jeremiah| 11.26.08 @ 12:40PM
Ed --
I think you're not giving Matthew's theory that charitable giving and ACORN caused the economic crisis we're now facing.
Here are a few other facts Matthew left out:
1. Hurricane Katrina was caused by homosexuals.
2. Bristol Palin was knocked up by Sean Penn.
3. Katie Couric caused the Republican's big loss in November.
In a faith based world, just fill in the blanks any old way. Who cares as long as the mob from Moronia gets its red meat?
Pete Patriot| 11.26.08 @ 12:52PM
I can't say I am surprised to learn that Citi has been supporting left wing causes. A disturbing trend I noticed back in the '70s was that even at the relatively conservative business school I attended, one had to be at least sympathetic to liberalism in order to get the grades needed to advance. I wondered even then about the outcome caused by businesses hiring anti-capitalists who were able to get good grades from liberal professors.
Why would a business hire people who don't believe in capitalism? Upon graduation in '76, it was a bad time to get a job but even harder for a white male as all US corporations were scrambling to hire women and minorities to fulfill government mandated quotas. Regardless of your point of view, that is a fact. As a result, hordes of newly-minted feminists took up positions in human resource departments as gatekeepers for liberalism.
Now, I no longer have to wonder about the outcome; it is here. All the Harvard and Yale grads who dressed in drag for their pre-induction physicals to get out of Vietnam service are now running the government and our biggest corporations, and they have run them into the ground. Rather than admit failure they run to the feds to bail them out, and the feds are happy to oblige. Since the feds have been managing everything these companies do from hiring to lending based on politics rather than sound business principles, is any of this a surprise?
Pete Patriot| 11.26.08 @ 1:45PM
Liberal Orthodoxy:
1. Hurricane Katrina was caused by George Bush.
2. Bristol Palin was knocked up by her father.
3. Sarah Palin caused the Republican's big loss in November. The fact that McCain was a weak candidate had nothing to do with it.
4. If you opposed Fannie making loans to people who couldn't pay them back, you are a racist.
5. If you think Barney Frank had anything to do with the financial meltdown, you are a homophobe.
If the Kos says it, it must be true. The Idiocracy rules!
Daphne Kenward| 11.26.08 @ 10:55PM
I think George W Bush's dog Barney could have ran America better. Bush used fear monger and hoodwinked the nation. Katerina, was a shock to most, but look at what George Bush did to Iraq. He murdered millions of people. America got away lightly, you as a people only have recession, many lost their whole families.
When electing a leader the first thing to remember find some one that is Corpus mentis.
Ms. Know| 11.29.08 @ 2:53PM
Did the elitist illuminati miss it when these guys were offering to bailout another bank? So if they had the money a little less than a month ago, where is their money now?
Pingback| 3.2.09 @ 1:38AM
Capital Research Center: links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 8.28.09 @ 9:15PM
Twitter Trackbacks for The American Spectator : Liberalism Never Sleeps [spectator.o links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 11.5.09 @ 8:02PM
Big Government » Blog Archive » Citigroup Executive Pulls Out of Sham ACORN Audit Und links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 11.5.09 @ 9:54PM
Random Thoughts » Citigroup Executive Pulls Out of Sham ACORN Audit Under Pressure links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 11.10.09 @ 1:17PM
Capital Research Center: links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 11.20.09 @ 11:34AM
Why Does Citigroup Fund Groups That Hate Freedom? « NewsReal Blog links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 12.11.09 @ 6:53AM
American Watch: Congress to Enable ACORN’s Comeback? « Romanticpoet's Weblog links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 12.16.09 @ 9:26AM
Enabling ACORN’s Comeback « Victory Institute Newsdesk links to this page. Here’s an excerpt: