“Citigroup Inc.” on The Daily Caller

NEW YORK (AP) — The Federal Reserve on Tuesday said the largest U.S. banks and financial companies should hold extra cash on their balance sheets to cushion themselves against financial crises. (more)

Judge Rakoff got to have his insurrection when he rejected the SECs $285 million settlement with Citigroup last month. (more)

NEW YORK (AP) — Citigroup Inc. is eliminating 4,500 jobs in its latest effort to cut costs. The bank will take a $400 million charge in the fourth quarter as a result. (more)

NEW YORK — Moody’s Investors Service has lowered some of the debt ratings for Bank of America Corp., Wells Fargo & Co. and Citigroup Inc., saying it is now less likely that the U.S. government would step in and prevent the lenders from failing in a crisis. (more)

Citigroup Inc.’s first-quarter profit fell 32% as shrinking loans and poor trading results pressured revenue while expenses surged. (more)

1.) How the left astroturfed net neutrality into existence — Despite what you may have heard, yesterday’s net neutrality vote at the FCC wasn’t the result of millions of Americans or even tens of thousands of Americans waking up and saying, “I think I am going to suddenly care about this!” No, like most Washington success stories, yesterday’s enslavement of the Internet was made possible by a small group of people with a lot of money. “After McCain-Feingold passed, several of the foundations involved in the effort began shifting their attention to “media reform”—a movement to impose government controls on Internet companies somewhat related to the long-defunct “Fairness Doctrine” that used to regulate TV and radio companies,” writes the WSJ’s John Fund. Those outfits are Pew Charitable Trusts, Bill Moyers’s Schumann Center for Media and Democracy, the Joyce Foundation, George Soros’s Open Society Institute, the Ford Foundation, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, all of which have given money to left-wing froth factory Free Press. As a result of Free Press’s close ties to staffers for FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, net neutrality crusaders gamed the debate from the beginning: “Some of the same foundations that have spent years funding net neutrality advocacy research ended up funding the FCC-commissioned study that evaluated net neutrality research.” (more)

– ”While the general consensus seems to be that Warren will get the chance to head the consumer-centered agency she claims to have come up with, it has not gone unnoticed that the Obama administration appears to be dragging its feet on her nomination.” TheDC’s Amanda Carey can tell you why: Warren is an obnoxious human being. “[She] has gotten major criticism in the way she’s carried out her duties,” George Mason law professor Todd Zywicki told TheDC. “There are serious concerns about her impartiality and that she uses these jobs as a platform for self promotion.” A bankruptcy attorney who worked with Warren on the National Bankruptcy Review Commission added his own anecdotes to claims that Warren is only in this for the chance at a daytime talk show. For example: When it came time for the committee to draft its report, Warren hijacked the process, substantially rewrote several sections, and told everyone else involved in the project to suck an egg. Such was their ire that the rest of the commissioners wrote a dissenting report correcting Warren’s version. Then again, Warren will fit right in with the baby daddies, slum lords, tax evaders, and mockers of the mentally disabled who currently pollute the White House.
Share:   (more)

Democratic Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick may well be the least popular governor in the United States. (more)

Citigroup Inc., 18 percent owned by the U.S. government, is testing a website to let millionaires’ children manage their allowances, while alerting parents and bankers when scions blow through cash too quickly. (more)

Editor’s Note: Daily Caller High is a group of young writers cutting their teeth in the world of political punditry. (more)

JPMorgan Chase & Company kicked off earnings season for the nation’s big banks on Thursday with news of a strong gain in second-quarter profit. (more)

BP Plc (BP: 27.72, 0.67, 2.48%) has approached four major banks in an effort to raise money either through a private placement of debt and lines of credit, looking to raise as much as $10 billion sometime this week to help pay tens of billions of dollars in liabilities stemming from its massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, FOX Business Network has learned. (more)

Increasingly obvious perils of government debt have given rise to public concern, and even alarm. Though some people argue the alarm is exaggerated, there is a growing segment of the population that is thinking long and hard about the future of our country in ways we have not seen before. In this article, I discuss the principled basis for practical solutions. In particular, I argue the principle of subsidiarity should be central in our deliberations as we forge ahead. (more)

Everything about Debrahlee Lorenzana is hot. Even her name sizzles. At five-foot-six and 125 pounds, with soft eyes and flawless bronze skin, she is J.Lo curves meets Jessica Simpson rack meets Audrey Hepburn elegance—a head-turning beauty. (more)

One year ago, General Motors, once the largest and richest company in the country if not the world, entered into an emergency bankruptcy that cost billions of dollars, eliminated thousands of jobs, closed hundreds of dealerships, ended several product lines, left stockholders and debt holders with huge losses and gave the U.S. Treasury a majority share of the company. Now, some commentators are claiming that the auto rescue has been a success. (more)

Greece suffers from unsustainable public-sector debt, low productivity, and an overall uncompetitive economy. In 2009, the government’s fiscal deficit was 13.6 percent of Greece’s gross domestic product (GDP) and its outstanding debt stood at 115 percent of its GDP. Lenders were losing confidence in Greece’s ability to repay them. Before the loan agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the EU announced on May 2, they were demanding an almost 10 percentage points premium over lending rates to Germany, which worsened Greece’s deficit. Even with the large corrective measures Greece has agreed to undertake, its debt is projected to increase to 149 percent of GDP in 2012 before beginning to shrink in 2014. (more)

Financial reform marches on: House Financial Services Committee Chairman Rep. Barney Frank, Massachusetts Democrat, will lead the conference to resolve the differences between the Senate and House financial reform bills, which Democrats want to finish and send to President Obama before the July 4 recess. The conference is expected to include a dozen senators, including seven Democrats and five Republicans. Senator Chris Dodd, Connecticut Democrat, who drafted and owned the Senate bill, will be on the conference, as well as Senator Lincoln, Arkansas Democrat. Republican Sens. Richard Shelby of Alabama and Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, who opposed the Senate bill, will reportedly be on the panel, and the Senate is expected to name its full conference committee members on Monday evening. House Speaker Pelosi, California Democrat, will name the members of the panel from the House, but may wait until the second week in June to do so, aides said. Frank has said the conference may take about a month, and has indicated that he would like the proceedings televised on C-SPAN. (more)

Watching the liberal media claw at Rand Paul like a pack of rabid hyenas has been particularly frustrating, considering Paul could so easily turn the the fight around on them. (more)

Senators ought to know they shouldn’t make promises they can’t keep. (more)

Financial reform next steps: There have been reports that Democratic leaders are looking to move the financial reform bill, possibly with a vote to end debate as early as Monday, and a vote on the bill itself Tuesday. Late Thursday, it appeared that votes would continue through the night. Amendments will continue to be filed Friday, but no votes are expected. More Senate votes are scheduled for Monday and, “We’ll be in until at least the early part of next week,” according to Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd, Connecticut Democrat. Reconciliation of any Senate bill with the December House bill, may progress very differently than it did for health-care bill, where the House simply approved the bill that the Senate passed. In the case of financial reform, the plan may be for a formal “conference,” perhaps televised, with House and Senate leaders and administration officials discussing, debating and making changes. Both the House and Senate must vote again before it can be sent to President Obama. (more)