Pandit is the new George Castanza

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2f988dc0-2796-11df-b0f1-00144feabdc0.html

Vikram Pandit, chief executive of Citigroup, on Thursday blamed short selling rather than any self-inflicted weakness for the bank’s near-collapse in 2008 and thanked taxpayers for its government bail-out.

“There were a number of instances post the Lehman collapse ... where the markets were not really functioning in a rational way – they were frozen,” Mr Pandit said.

Mr Pandit added: “This was not a fundamental situation. It was not about the capital we had, not about the funding we had at that time.”

Christopher Whalen, managing director of Institutional Risk Analytics, took issue with Mr Pandit. “His bank has got the highest [credit] loss rate of any of the big four,” he said. “The shorts were just responding – the emperor had no clothes.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UXC6Xnt8bg

Frank Partnoy on Citibank Fraud/Fiction