tagged w/ Citigroup
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A federal judge angrily blocked Citigroup Inc’s proposed $285 million settlement over the sale of toxic mortgage debt, excoriating the top U.S. market regulator over how it reaches corporate fraud settlements.A federal judge angrily blocked Citigroup Inc’s proposed $285 million settlement... more
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A homeless-themed party might sound like a good idea for a Halloween celebration. But what if it’s celebrated at a foreclosure law firm that handles mortgage issues for all the major banks and whose business actually leaves people homeless?
Unlike many costume Halloween parties, the black-humor masquerade has sparked overwhelming anger. Employees of Steven J. Baum, which represents lenders including Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo, are being blamed for mocking the homeowners their law firm targets with foreclosure.
Photos from their annual Halloween Party were released by New York Times columnist Joe Nocera. He got photos from a former employee of the foreclosure law firm, who asked to remain anonymous because she “feared retaliation.”
“In an email, she said that she wanted me to see them because they showed an appalling lack of compassion toward the homeowners — invariably poor and down on their luck — that the Baum firm had brought foreclosure proceedings against,” Nocera wrote in his October 28 column.
In one picture, two Baum employees are dressed like homeless people, with fake dirt on their faces. One of them holds a bottle in a paper bag, and the other holds a sign around her neck that reads: “3rd party squatter. I lost my home and I was never served.”
Nocera explains that his source said that “I was never served” is meant to mock “the typical excuse” of the homeowner trying to evade foreclosure proceedings, he writes.
The other woman in the photo holds a bottle of liquor in a paper bag and pushes a shopping cart with a sign reading "will work for food."
There was also another photo showing a coffin with a picture of a woman whose eyes have been cut out. A sign on the coffin reads: “Rest in Peace. Crazy Susie.” Nocera explains that this is a reference to Susan Chana Lask, a lawyer who “had filed a class-action suit against Steven J. Baum and had posted a YouTube video denouncing the firm’s foreclosure practices.”
According to Nocera, the firm is already under investigation by New York’s attorney general, and it recently agreed to pay $2 million to resolve an investigation by the Department of Justice into whether it had "filed misleading pleadings, affidavits and mortgage assignments in the state and federal courts of New York."
In a statement released by Steven J. Baum, the company stated that Nocera’s column was “another attempt by The New York Times to attack our firm and our work.”
http://rt.com/news/foreclosure-firm-halloween-homeless-203/A homeless-themed party might sound like a good idea for a Halloween celebration. But... more
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Según el analista de MetAnálisis, la ausencia de vendedores fue lo que permitió el repunte del IPC. No obstante, será necesario que aumente la demanda para mantener la recuperación de los precios.Según el analista de MetAnálisis, la ausencia de vendedores fue lo que... more
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Según los analistas de Infosel, los resultados de Citigroup y los acontecimientos internacionales han sido eclipsados por la rebaja de la perspectiva de la deuda de los EE.UU.Según los analistas de Infosel, los resultados de Citigroup y los... more
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La Bolsa de México dejaría una buena señal si supera las 36.520 unidades, y si mejora el volumen negociado, sin embargo, reiteramos que algunas emisoras ya presentan precios atractivos si se compran con objetivos de mediano y largo plazo.La Bolsa de México dejaría una buena señal si supera las 36.520... more
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Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s chairman and chief executive officer, warned against raising base salaries on Wall Street under eight months before his own more than tripled to $2 million.
Goldman Sachs prefers paying compensation in bonuses that are contingent on the firm’s performance, rather than offering guarantees or high salaries, Blankfein said inside a June 16 interview with staff from the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, a recording of which was made public this month. On Jan. 28, the New York-based firm disclosed it had raised salaries for Blankfein and four other top executives that had been $600,000.Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s chairman and chief executive... more
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Según los analistas de Research for Traders, los papeles del banco estadounidense podrían seguir cayendo por debajo del nivel de 5 dólares cada uno.Según los analistas de Research for Traders, los papeles del banco... more
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Citigroup Inc is hoping that one of the country's most famous customer service gurus can help it rebuild its reputation -- one Tweet at a time.
Frank Eliason, who gained national media attention for his unorthodox customer service methods at cable television provider Comcast Corp, joined Citigroup in August to direct social media strategy.
In the past five months, he has overseen the launch of a Facebook page, YouTube videos and new blogs for the bank. But most of all, he is helping Citigroup learn to use Twitter, the website that made him famous at Comcast.
Most banks still use Twitter largely for marketing, but Eliason is hoping to use the service more to respond to aggrieved customers, the way he did at Comcast.
Twitter is part of a broader effort by Citigroup to reach out to the younger, wealthy urban Americans that it wants as banking customers -- and to improve the bank's tarnished image. Eliason hopes his methods can help do both.
"It's really about building trust and building rapport ... The benefits are not about selling. Hopefully, long-term, you create the right customer experience, you will sell," he said in an interview with Reuters on Monday.
Since the financial crisis, Chief Executive Vikram Pandit has slimmed down the company and abandoned the bank's onetime ambitions to have branches across the United States.
Citigroup has only about 1,000 branches in the United States, compared with several thousand each at rivals Bank of America Corp and JPMorgan Chase & Co.Citigroup Inc is hoping that one of the country's most famous customer service... more
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Citigroup Inc is hoping that one of the country's most famous customer service gurus can help it rebuild its reputation -- one Tweet at a time.
link: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE70355620110104Citigroup Inc is hoping that one of the country's most famous customer service... more
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Los inversores vuelven a mostrarse animados luego de que los Estados Unidos anunciaran que mantendrán los beneficios impositivos implementados por el gobierno de George Bush.Los inversores vuelven a mostrarse animados luego de que los Estados Unidos anunciaran... more
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Bill Moyers signs off his last broadcast with an editorial discussion on why plutocracy and democracy don't mix. In 2005, Citigroup coined the term Plutonomy: An economic system where the priviledged few ensure that the rich get richer with government on their side.Bill Moyers signs off his last broadcast with an editorial discussion on why... more
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Georgetown Professor Tells Congress: “Citigroup, Bank Of America, JPMorgan & Wells Fargo Are All INSOLVENT”Georgetown Professor Tells Congress: “Citigroup, Bank Of America, JPMorgan &... more
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EMI's owner Terra Firma, has lost their legal battle against Citigroup Thursday after the US court ruled that the bank didn't trick the private equity group into overpaying for EMI.
Terra Firma was disappointed with the ruling saying "We believe this was an important action to bring and that we had a repsonsibility to our investors to bring it". Terra paid £4.2bn for EMI in 2007.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11699413EMI's owner Terra Firma, has lost their legal battle against Citigroup Thursday... more
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Ed. Note: This blog is available for any organization or outlet to republish or excerpt. Please feel free to share it widely!
by Zach Carter, Media Consortium blogger
Undue corporate influence over U.S. elections has been a serious problem in American politics for decades, but this year’s Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission made things worse. Worst of all, we may never know the extent of the damage.
Citizens United freed corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money backing specific political candidates, and without congressional action, those expenditures can be completely anonymous. Major corporations are already capitalizing on the new legal landscape by the millions, and the public doesn’t really know who is buying what influence or why.
That’s why The Media Consortium will be carefully watching the effects of this ruling in the run up to this year’s midterm elections. Every day through Nov. 4, we’ll bring you some of the best independent reporting on the effects of corporate spending in an attempt to measure just how widespread the effect of Citizens United will be on this—and the next—election. Keep your eye on “Campaign Cash” as we follow this issue in the coming weeks. If you want to tweet about it, use the hashtag #campaigncash.
The impact of Citizens United
As Harvard University Law School Professor Lawrence Lessig explains in an interview with The Nation’s Christopher Hayes, the Citizens United v. FEC decision represents one of many ways that corporations buy political favors.
Prior to the ruling, companies couldn’t spend money to directly advocate the election of a particular political candidate during election season. They could form Political Action Committees (PACs) to support or attack specific candidates, but those PACs had to be funded by individuals who worked for the company and couldn’t be funded from the corporation’s treasury directly. The executives of Goldman Sachs, for instance, could band together to form GoldmanPAC and spend their money on whatever candidates they wished—and many corporate employees exercised that right and spent freely on elections through their corporate PACs.
Now corporations can spend as much as they want and actual corporate funds—not just organized individuals—can also be deployed, making massive amounts of corporate cash eligible for political purchasing.
But the scariest part of Citizens United, as Lessig emphasizes, is the money that isn’t spent. That is, if a firm makes it known that they are willing spend millions of dollars to fight any politician who opposes them on a particular policy issue, representatives and senators might begin changing their voting behavior in Congress before the company actually has to put up the cash.
And ultimately, Citizens United didn’t just legalize unlimited corporate expenses on elections. It also allows those expenses to be anonymous. If companies launder their political cash through a front group, that third-party spender doesn’t have to disclose who its donors are.
This isn’t your local Chamber of Commerce
As Harry Hanbury details for GRITtv, this laundering scheme is essentially the business model for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce– a lobbying powerhouse in the nation’s capital. Don’t be fooled by its name—the U.S. Chamber has almost nothing to do with the local small business coalitions who help strengthen local economies.
As Hanbury notes, 40 percent of the U.S. Chamber’s 2008 funding came from just 26 corporations. The group represents many of the nation’s largest and most irresponsible corporations, from those responsible for the financial meltdown on Wall Street to BP, the company that spilled millions of barrels worth of oil in the Gulf this summer. The Chamber’s branding allows them to disguise their political as a coalition of local businesses while it does dirty work for corporate titans.
When BP was publicly promising to do everything in its power to fix the massive oil disaster it created in the Gulf of Mexico, it was also funneling money to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. And what was the Chamber up to? It was lobbying furiously to protect BP from new rules that would force the company to pay for oil disaster clean-up. The Wall Street banks did the same thing as financial reform legislation moved through Congress, and companies never have to disclose these expenditures to the public.
So it’s no surprise that the Chamber responded to Citizens United by immediately announcing a 40 percent boost in its political spending operations. So much corporate money then flowed into the Chamber that the group chose to boost this budget again by 50 percent, allocating $75 million for its 2010 war chest. So far, the Chamber’s ads have favored Republican’s 93 percent of the time. No entity spends more on politics than the Chamber—not even the political parties themselves.
Corporations top the list of big election spenders
But while the future of corporate spending in campaigns looks bleak after Citizens United, corporations are still barred from contributing directly to political campaigns. A company might take out a television ad attacking Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL), but it can’t make unlimited contributions directly to Grayson’s challenger, Republican Dan Webster.
Nevertheless, corporate employees and company PACs have already been spending lavishly on elections for decades. In a feature for Mother Jones, Dave Gilson compiles the 75 biggest political spenders, both companies and trade groups, from 1989 through 2010, and breaks them down by industry. Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, and Morgan Stanley are all among the top 20 most extravagant political spenders—but the American Bankers Association, a trade group that all four belong to, is also in the top 10. If you’re wondering how Wall Street was able to secure its massive taxpayer bailout in the face of widespread voter outrage, this is your answer.
To soften the Citizens United blow, Congress has been debating the Democracy is Strengthened by Casting Light on Spending in Elections (DISCLOSE) Act, which would require companies to disclose all of their political expenditures as well as requiring front-groups like the Chamber to list the identities and amounts of its donors. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Christopher Van Hollen (D-MD) and Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI), cleared the House this summer but was stymied by a Republican filibuster in the Senate.
Undoing the damage dealt by Citizens United through something like the DISCLOSE Act will help, but it won’t make our democracy totally safe from corporate abuse. As Lessig notes, the day before the decision was handed down, U.S. election financing was already encouraging rampant corruption and in need of serious reform.
Lessig suggests banning political expenditures by corporations altogether, and placing a hard cap on the amount that individuals can contribute. By limiting individual donations to $100, the ability of corporate PACs to funnel cash into the political process would be thwarted.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the mid-term elections and campaign financing by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit The Media Consortium for more articles on these issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, The Pulse, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.Ed. Note: This blog is available for any organization or outlet to republish or... more
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EMI is set to begin legal battle in New York Monday as owner Terra Firma and investment bank Citigroup face a legal battle.
Citi is accused of tricking private equity group Terra Firma into overspending record label EMI for £4.2bn in 2007, which they denied. Unless a last minute deal is reached, it will be disputed in the New York courts. EMI has recently agreed to pay off the £197m deficit in their pension scheme which will last until April 2016.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11564683EMI is set to begin legal battle in New York Monday as owner Terra Firma and... more
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