This morning newspapers across America will feature full-page ads by Citigroup reassuring everyone that the economic situation isn’t hurting the company but rather it is the fear-mongering by competitors bringing them down. Likewise if the Feds had only allowed them to merge with Wachovia, Citi would be sitting on their haunches enjoying tea right now.
There are two wildly different stories here. I expect the wheels are not quite falling off as some might suggest, nor do I buy the “we’re doing great” rhetoric of CEO Vikram Pandit. If customers are indeed bailing, where are they going? At this point no one is questioning these are dangerous times, but in what way will the increasing global hysteria serve to help anyone’s situation?
I am reminded of the classic scene in It’s a Wonderful Life when at the beginning of the depression the film’s hero George Bailey prevents a bank run by appealing to the sensibilities of his friends and customers. Pandit is trying to communicate that same kind of “everybody just chill” sentiment.
It doesn’t help when even politicians are throwing around the D-word to make every one of their points strike home. The global fear being perpetuated is turning into a self-fulfilling prophecy with no end in sight. We have the 1930s so deeply ingrained into our collective psyche that the mere reference of it makes us shutter and break into mass hysteria.
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[...] their expensive newspaper ads insisting all is well, it turns out that Citigroup is in fact – wait for it – having problems! Now [...]