Episode 160: Sandy Weill and Citigroup (Part 1)

The first part of our 3 part series exploring the saga of Citigroup, the first American bank to become too big to fail. We follow the career of its billionaire CEO Sandy Weill: a rich kid from Brooklyn who had a dream to climb the corporate ladder by smashing up a million people's pensions, health benefits, salaries, and then to make a corporate monstrosity that would cook up fake documents to steal their house as well. When we talk about too big to fail banks we are talking about government sponsored entities. These are "private" banks run by private boards of directors that pay the profits to private individuals but are almost entirely funded with public (taxpayer) money. This series will study how this strange system came to be and hopefully motivate enough people to demand it end.

Citations:

• Tearing Down the Walls: How Sandy Weill Fought His Way to the Top of the Financial World. . .and Then Nearly Lost It All (Free Press)
  The primary source for this episode was the biography "Tearing down the Walls" by Monica Langley