Well Vikram Panidt lied to Congress what does that mean? Are there any consequences for lying to Congress?

"Citigroup Chief Executive Vikram Pandit received nearly $11 million of compensation in 2008. A month earlier, he testified to Congress that his compensation for 2008 was just $1 million."My compensation for the year 2008 was my salary, which was $1 million," he told the House Committee on Financial Services on February 11, failing to mention his sign-on and retention awards, as well as stock and option awards."

There’s more to read on Huffington Post.

If only he could have had more time.

So even after they were bailed out with all of that tax-payer money they refuse to lend.

While inter-bank lending rates have fallen since Congress approved the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program on Oct. 3, most bank lending to consumers remains tight and interest rates high. The average credit-card rate was 14.33 percent on Dec. 16, according to IndexCreditCards.com in Cleveland, almost unchanged from 14.41 percent in October 2007.

This is absolutely pathetic. Just think of how Washington grilled the auto industry executives but have let the banks have a free lunch. I’m not a fan of the big three automakers either, but seriously the government is going to have to open these banks up. If they don’t start lending then I’d say don’t reward them with your deposit accounts.

So now they’re talking about selling of parts of the corporation or merging with another bank. What a shame it has come to this for the world’s most powerful financial institution. All that greed has finally come back to haunt them. They (and other financial institutions) pushed for deregulation in the late 90’s and they sure got it. Truthfully, ever since I read books like Credit Card Nation and Maxed Out I’ve lost all respect for these executives. The worst part is all the workers who have lost their jobs due to the collapse of the US financial sector. I don’t care about the board of directors or the executives, but the employees who have lost their jobs due to the recklessness of these managers were done a grave injustice. It also appears that history does indeed repeat itself over and over again.