Comments on: CEO Statements That Should Make You Worry

By: plebeianswillrevolt

plebeianswillrevolt — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:16:24 +0000

One of the corporate ‘Nomenklatura’ – he’s grossly overpaid, and holds his job not by having accomplished anything REAL but only because he’s one of the annointed corporate ‘masters’. Bob doesn’t like people disagreeing with him and doesn’t like anyone smarter than him. This is not good because he’s not that smart. He’s good at scheming and politics but REAL accomplishments that better a business….. not much of a track record.

He was godawful as EVP of operations at Paine Webber. he never dfid come up with the new broker system he was tasked with. As soon as it was revealed to be all smoke and mirrors, he bailed for Met LIfe. All he did there was screw the policyholders and make the execs rich.

He was never going to be able to transform AIG – he was hired only to provide the ILLUSION of ‘improvement’. The job is proving to be harder than he thought so he’s running back to hsi estate in Croatia.

By: Laurie Kulikowski

Laurie Kulikowski — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:47:35 +0000

Check out an article I wrote on the same theme, in early October.

http://www.thestreet.com/story/10606195/1/citi-communication-breakdown.html

By: arkadaş arıyorum

arkadaş arıyorum — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:46:37 +0000

Also maybe being more hard-nosed with the big bank CEOs about lending out to consumers after they had been…

By: siirbahcesi

siirbahcesi — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:44:58 +0000

I assume he is mainly talking about the government’s resolution authority. Also maybe being more hard-nosed with the big bank CEOs about lending out to consumers after they had been bailed out by the U.S. taxpayer thanks.

By: Jake

Jake — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:44:31 +0000

It’s perfectly fair while they owe us their existence. If they could stand on their own, we wouldn’t need to be so interested in their “innocuous” statements.

By: Min

Min — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 01:26:39 +0000

“Our distinctiveness is we connect the world better than anyone else. We have a great capability of building a business around that. And we are in the process of building a culture around that.”

“That’s Vikram Pandit on his company, Citigroup, as reported in The New York Times. What does it mean? Your guess is as good as mine.”

He is confusing Citigroup with the Internet. He is reinflating the previous bubble. ;)

By: Ted K

Ted K — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 21:07:20 +0000

Columbia University Professor Joseph Stiglitz says we should regret not nationalizing the banks. I assume he is mainly talking about the government’s resolution authority. Also maybe being more hard-nosed with the big bank CEOs about lending out to consumers after they had been bailed out by the U.S. taxpayer.

Firms like Goldman Sachs are still paying gigantic salaries to executives. Here is the link to Stiglitz comments and story by Judy Chen. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aGR4KXaGwxd8

By: Jim Coffman

Jim Coffman — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 15:15:28 +0000

I’m surprised Citi said anything given that most zombies can’t speak. Pandit’s jibberish is simply an unintended admission that death is near. No more life-support — pull the plug.

By: jake chase

jake chase — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 13:33:51 +0000

If you strung together all the CEO statements of the last twenty years we wouldn’t need a comedy channel or William Gaddis either. This morning on CNBC Warren Buffet told the world he is buying Burlington Northern because the railroad provides an energy efficient solution to the movement of goods. He’s doing it for the environment! I’m not kidding. Every one of these guys is braindead from having his a$$ kissed for twenty years. But as Buffet says himself, you don’t know who is swimming naked until the tide goes out.

People think Citi is a business. It is merely the carcess of a promotion, the crowing achievement of a guy who started running pump and dump operations in the sixties. Notice that when the music stopped Sandy’s ox wasn’t gored.

By: Boris

Boris — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 05:09:13 +0000

Being silent would (as James points out) suggest that they were silently going about the real work of fixing the mess they have made. They will never do that. So blah, blah, blah it is, as they go about the business of collecting their oversize paychecks from we, the people (lower case letters, in their minds).

By: Boris

Boris — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 05:05:07 +0000

Fair or not, Citibank is the posterchild for this mess. To say the others are all doing it too is correct, but C provides the archetype. I see no need to be “fair” to any of these clowns.

By: Bayard

Bayard — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 04:30:27 +0000

It seems that the statements made within earshot, publicly, by all of the big bankers, are nothing but meaningless hogwash, but the truth would be unpopular. They should just stay quiet, and, if asked, feign innocence and say “no comment.”

What’s the deal? Do they tell the truth, or remain silent. Silent, obviously!!

By: Ted K

Ted K — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 23:46:14 +0000

That Vikram Pandit quote doesn’t make me worry. It makes me laugh. If you have to throw out vague statements like that, it shows Pandit’s been told by legal “Try to convince them we’re in telecommunications!!! Ixnay on the ‘banking’ word!!!”

By: jhm

jhm — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 15:52:43 +0000

The problem is that ‘nickel and diming as many retail customers as possible while buying up the competing banks, so that people have less local branches to chose from (and try to get Federal dollars too)’ is a strategy which doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue.

By: oldgal

oldgal — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 15:51:16 +0000

To spotlight Vikram Pandit is a bit unfair. You could have probably picked any one of the tbtf CEOs and found many equally innocuous statements. One of these institutions has a 30 page vision statement that is total word spaghetti.