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Capital Commerce

Time to Nationalize Citigroup?

March 31, 2008 03:27 PM ET | James Pethokoukis | Permanent Link

Should Citigroup's executives start working on their résumés? This from the U.K.'s Daily Telegraph:

The US Federal Reserve is examining the Nordic bank nationalisations of the 1990s as a possible interim solution to the US financial crisis. The Fed has been criticised for its rescue of Bear Stearns, which critics say has degenerated into a taxpayer gift to rich bankers. A senior official at one of the Scandinavian central banks told The Daily Telegraph that Fed strategists had stepped up contacts to learn how Norway, Sweden and Finland managed their traumatic crisis from 1991 to 1993, which brought the region's economy to its knees.... Scandinavia's bank rescue proved successful and is now a model for central bankers, unlike Japan's drawn-out response, where ailing banks were propped up in a half-public limbo for years.... Norway ensured that shareholders of insolvent lenders received nothing and the senior management was entirely purged. Two of the country's top four banks—Christiania Bank and Fokus—were seized by force majeure.

Tags: Citigroup | Federal Reserve

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