I just can't quit you, Carlos Slim. [krakatoa]

I've often wondered, what exactly is the criteria for breaking into the upper echelons of corporate America?

Shrewd business sense?

Superior people skills?

Given the past decade of perplexing business moves by so many large corporations, I can't say for sure if those are important. Apparently, what is important is the ability to take a glaringly obvious statement and refashion it into a more wordy glaringly obvious statement.

Take for instance the following declarative: "We screwed the pooch."

There's something that the average Joe can wrap his head around. Something we can digest, and move on to the next step, whatever that may be.

Now however, with the application of advanced CEO lingual virtuosity, the statement turns into:

"We got here by lending money, and putting money to work in the U.S. real estate market, in a size that was probably larger than what we ought to have done on a diversification basis."

Obvious, yes, but it lends the illusion that there is perhaps a subject expert behind the statement, and implies there is a strategy to improve business processes.

Nothing of course, is really going to change. If pressed to describe their plans for turning around their business, we taxpayers essentially receive the following response:

"I'm the one fucking this cat. You just shut up and hold its head."

Luckily for us all, deep pockets are coming to the rescue.

A Mexican brokerage controlled by Carlos Slim, one of the world's wealthiest people, spent about $150 million to buy nearly 29 million Citigroup shares between Nov 19 and Nov 25.

Meanwhile, Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal last week said he plans to boost his stake in the bank to 5 percent from less than 4 percent.

I guess I can expect the shares my 24k bought to arrive in saddlebags slung across a Unicorn's silky ass?

posted by xgenghisx at 02:00 AM

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