Citi wants to give this guy $100 million bucks

(noon. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

How much money is $100 million bucks?  That’s like Powerball Lottery money, for most of us a nearly unthinkable sum of money, something of which we can only fantasize.

But for Citibank, it’s just a bonus to a guy who is already super-wealthy, a guy who owns this castle in Germany:

The guy’s name is Andrew Hall, and he makes “a boatload of money for Citigroup as head of Phibro, the bank’s energy-trading unit.“

Oh wait.  Energy trading Unit?  You mean those guys who ran up the price of oil to $147 a barrel last year?  A practice which is about to be investigated?

Yeah, that’s it.  

He’s already been “bonused” with $100 million for that little rip-off scheme.  Now they want to do it again, or they fear they’ll “lose” him.  To some other group of banksters willing to pay his price.  

How many ways can one guy rape us?

First this guy rapes us at the gas pumps and in the grocery store (food prices shot through the roof, too, because of this).   Then these people rape us when they suddenly need their “bailout” and they receive BILLIONS of dollars of OUR MONEY in order to stay afloat.  And now they give this guy one hundred million dollars out of that money they extorted out of us as a BONUS?

Wow.  It’s amazing what the American people will put up with.

Of course the American people aren’t hearing about this.  Instead, they’re hearing about nutty right-wing conspiracy theories, Michael Jackson’s doctor’s whereabouts, and the made-up battle between Obama and a few Massachusetts police officers.

God knows those things are important.

So while America is hypnotized captivated by this propaganda, we continue to be robbed blind by the likes of Citibank and whoever this “Andrew Hall” crook is.  Remember the old saying “behind every great fortune is a great crime”.   Sounds cynical but it’s true in about 95% of all cases.

And I’m shocked that the article doesn’t make the connection between massive profits “energy trading” last year and the manipulation of last year’s energy market which is now about to be whitewashed investigated.

Citigroup (C) is considering paying a $100 million bonus — to one guy.

This is the same Citigroup that received $45 billion in bailout money. The same Citigroup that will soon be 34% owned by the U.S. government. The same Citigroup that has lost 95% of its share value since 2007.

Citigroup is in no position to be awarding bonuses of $10 million — let alone adding another zero to that amount. So why is it mulling such a colossally dumb move? Because the guy demanding it is probably the bank’s most valuable employee.

Enter Andrew Hall. He’s a rock star, a legend among banking circles. He makes a boatload of money for Citigroup as head of Phibro, the bank’s energy-trading unit. The Wall Street Journal calls Phibro a secretive operation, housed in a former Connecticut dairy farm, that “occasionally accounts for a disproportionate chunk of Citigroup income.”

There’s a reason it’s “secretive” in that it’s more than likely illegal.  And immoral.

I say we investigate this guy and “reward” him with a jail sentence.

Please, feel free to rip this off, steal it, post it elsewhere, you have my permission.

UPDATE:   Here’s a link to a story from the WSJ about the energy market manipulation:

Traders Blamed for Oil Spike

CFTC Will Pin ’08 Price Surge on Speculators, in a Reversal From Bush Findings

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission plans to issue a report next month suggesting speculators played a significant role in driving wild swings in oil prices — a reversal of an earlier CFTC position that augurs intensifying scrutiny on investors.

In a contentious report last year, the main U.S. futures-market regulator pinned oil-price swings primarily on supply and demand. But that analysis was based on “deeply flawed data,” Bart Chilton, one of four CFTC commissioners, said in an interview Monday.