Tuesday, December 16, 2008

RUBIN NAMED IN SUIT ALLEGING CITIGROUP PONZI SCHEME

Paul Tharp, NY Post - A new Citigroup scandal is engulfing Robert Rubin and his former disciple Chuck Prince for their roles in an alleged Ponzi-style scheme that's now choking world banking.

Director Rubin and ousted CEO Prince - and their lieutenants over the past five years - are named in a federal lawsuit for an alleged complex cover-up of toxic securities that spread across the globe, wiping out trillions of dollars in their destructive paths.

Investor-plaintiffs in the suit accuse Citi management of overseeing the repackaging of unmarketable collateralized debt obligations that no one wanted - and then reselling them to Citi and hiding the poisonous exposure off the books in shell entities.

The lawsuit said that when the bottom fell out of the shaky assets in the past year, Citi's stock collapsed, wiping out more than $122 billion of shareholder value.

However, Rubin and other top insiders were able to keep Citi shares afloat until they could cash out more than $150 million for themselves in "suspicious" stock sales "calculated to maximize the personal benefits from undisclosed inside information," the lawsuit said.

The latest troubles for Rubin, Prince and others emerged in a 500-page investigation by Citigroup investors represented by law firm Kirby McInerney. . .

Rubin cleared $30.6 million on his stock sales, while Prince got $26.5 million, former COO Robert Druskin got nearly $32 million and former Global Wealth Management unit chief Todd Thomson got $25.7 million, the suit said.

Citi denied the allegations and said it "will defend against it vigorously."
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1 comment:

RoseCovered Glasses said...

TWO COLLAPSING TOWERS - WALL STREET AND THE MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

While we observe Wall Street go through an implosion and our lawmakers mortgage the future of America with the associated bailout, let us keep an eye on another adjacent and related tower with a weak foundation, teetering dangerously in the wind. The Military Industrial Complex (MIC) is also subject to bad decision-making by misinformed and manipulated government officials.

HISTORY

Congress has just funded the MIC for the next fiscal year at only slightly less than the one-time 700B necessary to bail out the US Financial catastrophe. The Pentagon now burns 60 cents of every tax dollar. The MIC is monumentally dangerous and has led our country into a continuing series of costly, fraudulent wars since Korea. Eisenhower forecasted the danger in his departing speech:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y06NSBBRtY

The most recent MIC adventure is being fought in the memory of 3,000 dead civilians attacked by a terrorist the US created by not leaving the Middle East after the first Gulf War. That excursion has killed thousands of our finest youth and maimed the lives of countless others. The average American will pay for this ruin in decades to come through taxes supporting hospital care, social services and veteran's homes.

HOW DO I KNOW?

I am a 2 tour Vietnam Veteran who recently retired after 36 misguided years working in the defense industrial complex on many of the weapons systems being used by our forces as we speak. Given a clearly defined mission and the best armaments and systems in the world, I believed that another Vietnam could be avoided for the American Soldier.

I was wrong.

I live in a Veteran's home, having recently undergone treatment through the VA for PTSD and Depression, long overdue some 40 years after the Tet Offensive that cap stoned my military 2nd tour in Southeast Asia with a lifetime of illness:

http://rosecoveredglasses.blogspot.com/2006/11/odyssey-of-armaments.html

Politicians make no difference. I saw this on a daily basis from inside the MIC. The real power in the massive machine is vested in people that never go away, are not elected or appointed and stay for 40 years, training their replacements carefully in the details that no newcomer can fully grasp and manage in 4 years in office.

ABOUT THE MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

It is corrupt and driven by corporate influence:

http://www.playboy.com/magazine/features/lockheed/index.html


http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/03/spyagency200703


http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/11/halliburton200711


It is broken and riddled with incompetence:

http://rosecoveredglasses.blogspot.com/2008/04/us-federal-government-procurement.html


http://rosecoveredglasses.blogspot.com/2007/01/what-american-public-must-know-about.html


THE COLLAPSE

The MIC, like Wall Street, will go bust and then be re-scaled, fixed and re-designed to run efficiently and prudently, just like any other big machine that runs poorly or becomes obsolete or dangerous. The situation will right itself through yet another trauma.

A government ENRON is on the horizon, with an associated house cleaning. The next president will come and go along with his appointees and politicos. They will try to fix the financial mess and become pawns of corporate America in widening our military influence attempting to mend corporate bank accounts. But the MIC tower will implode as well - the next big event in government you will watch is the collapse of that establishment.

HOPE

Non-profit visionaries and small business know the course that must be taken and they are taking it:

http://techinsider.nextgov.com/2008/04/einstein.php

These "Action People" are not in our government. They are more practical than that. They are the communicators, the true venture capitalists setting up worldwide non-profit foundations (Gates and Buffet for example). They are like the Bill Moyers, perpetually exposing waste fraud and abuse and then going one step further to fix it from the inside. They are the young inspirational members of the small business base in this country that will be tasked with picking up the pieces and re-inventing the future so our government can follow along.

As a volunteer counselor, handling 30 cases a week through SCORE I see every form of unique small business inventiveness imaginable - efficiently created, using technology to the max and not seeking financing to the hilt - only the opportunity to succeed:

http://www.smalltofeds.blogspot.com/

http://www.score.org/

The US GDP is still the largest in the world.

Our high technology cannot be matched.

We have enough weapons systems and science to beat all our competitors and solve our problems.

We need to come home.

11:04 AM

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