Citibank: Teetering Since 1812

You know the rest of that story. Citi is now on life support, owing its continued survival to $45 billion--so far--in federal aid. Its beleaguered top-management team is trying to undo most of the 1998 merger with Travelers. And the new Obama Administration is faced with the somewhat conflicting priorities of trying to avert a depression, nurse Citi and other banks back to health and prevent a repeat of the excesses that led to today's troubles--all while taking care that the U.S. government doesn't dig its own financial grave in the process.

What Citi's history illustrates is that these are not new dilemmas and that they've never been perfectly resolved. Banks and financial systems are inherently fragile, beset by a natural tendency to careen from fear to greed and back. We're deep in the fear part of the cycle right now. So what should government do?

In the 1800s, it stood by while banks failed. That's not a real option today. The modern world simply isn't prepared to survive a financial shutdown. But handing banks cash and hoping things will work out is no solution either. What's needed is a new beginning: new management, new investors, new boards of directors, in some cases new institutions. That's how Citi, and the financial system in general, returned to health in the past. And that's what the next stage of the bank bailout will have to emphasize if it's going to stand a chance of success.

To read Justin Fox's daily take on business and the economy, go to time.com/curiouscapitalist

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