hey the institutional investors are pulling out of investing in other public companies. Why should a individual invest in a company when the gov't gets dividends first then investors next.

Don't you think the government should demand a return on its $45 billion investment? But I don't think a shareholder can set the dividend.

As long as you don't mind gambling on whether the feds will wipe out shareholders in the process, such as Fannie, Freddie and AIG.

If I were to choose my gamble, I would choose F over C or BAC.

For Geitner being the "only man in the entire world" to run the treasury, it sure would be nice if he could come up with some definitive decisions. Unless, he and Obama just want to thoroughly bankrupt the entire stock market.

With Fannie and Freddie, the government took them over. This deal would be to convert an investment already there into equity. Far different.

Maybe, maybe not. Everything is still in negotiation, currently the talk is to take an additional stake, but who is to say that idea can't change in a heartbeat?

Furthermore, C has over 5 billion outstanding shares, convert the government's preferreds to enough common stock to give them a 40% stake and you are talking a HUGE dilution. That end result, might as well wipe out shareholders.

Well, can't argue that. If you already own Citi and the Feds create a lot of new shares by converting their investment to equity, that "dilutes" the value of the stock you hold. Long term though, what do you want? Stock that's right now diluted or a bank that the government doesn't know how to fix? I'm still thinking this is a good tip, the government's supposed plan to buy Citi.

"...The government picks the winner..."

What have we devolved to? This is NOT the America I grew up in.

Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, and Charles Schumer will have yet another little piggy bank to feed their friends.

"Long term though, what do you want?"

Well, if I could turn back the clock, I would have liked the feds to keep their nose out of everything and allowed the strong companies to eat the weak companies.

I also would have liked to see the feds regulate as necessary, instead of the deafening silence. Even capitalism needs a few rules and the idea of allowing banks to become casinos was the first of many bad ideas.

This is the second piece of poor advice I've read that is posted by this blogger-- and from her qualifications she doesn't seem to bright either.

If the government buys into something, chances are nationalization isn't too far behind. In fact, buying what the government does is a very BAD idea when the government is approaching the same level of insolvency as the institution it is buying.

In truth, Geithner did us all a big favor on Tuesday by exposing himself as a stooge of the banking industry. Now everyone can see that the banks are working the deal from the inside. Geithner has assembled a phalanx of Wall Street flim-flam men to fill out the roster at Treasury. His chief-of-staff is lobbyist from Goldman Sachs. The new deputy secretary of state is a former CEO of Citigroup. Another CFO from Citigroup is now assistant to the president, and deputy national security adviser for International Economic Affairs. And one of his deputies also came from Citigroup. One new member of the president's Economic Recovery Advisory Board comes from UBS, which is currently being investigated for helping rich clients evade taxes. The Obama White House is a beehive of big money guys and Wall Street speculators.

The banking lobby has already set the agenda. All the hooplah about "financial rescue" is just a smokescreen to hide the fact that the same scofflaws who ripped off investors for zillions of dollars are back for their next big sting; a quick vacuuming of the public till to save themselves from bankruptcy. It's a joke. Obama floated into office on a wave of Wall Street campaign contributions and now it's payback time. Prepare to get fleeced. Geithner is fine-tuning a "public-private" partnership for his buddies so they can keep their fiefdom intact while shifting trillions of dollars of toxic assets onto the people's balance sheet. They've affixed themselves to Treasury like scabs on a leper. Geithner is "their guy", a Trojan Horse for the banking oligarchs. He's already admitted that his main goal is to, "keep the banks in private hands". That says it all, doesn't
http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney02182009.html