Interesting to see that Citigroup may take a further multi-billion dollar hit as a further consequence of the sub-prime lending fiasco. Now nothing makes me angrier than strategic incompetence, not because of the harm it does to investors – they know they are putting their money in the hands of people who may flush it away – but because of the ordinary folk who get burned.
Now a few people walked away from all this with nice multi-million dollar bonuses, when anyone with half a brain already knew the house of cards was going to collapse. I’m sure the finance guys made sure the numbers looked right when the strategy continued to be pushed forward. But it’s strategic managers’ responsibility to look over the horizon and check what might be coming towards them.
So here’s the question – will those same strategic managers now go get back the money from the people who took those bonuses and return it to the ordinary people who suffered? And if not, why not?