Citigroup bailout NOT the light at end of tunnel

First, there’s plenty of indications GE is shaky. Probably not shaky enough to need a bailout, but shaky nonetheless. And, who knows who will line up at the hog trough next?

As for the bailout itself, we’re paying more for the company than it’s worth on paper right now? At least it’s not a total pig in a poke. Dividends above 1 percent are forbidden. That’s about the only silver lining here; the turds in the punchbowl are legion, including Citi folks who got it into this mess getting to keep their jobs.

Otherwise, We the People are supposed to eat up to 90 percent of Citi’s bad money. (What happened to the “bad bank” being touted last week? I guess We the People are the bad bank.)

And its sheer size has analysts thinking that we could indeed still have further trains coming down the track like this:

“It looks enormous in size and scope,” said Tony Morriss, senior currency strategist at ANZ Bank in Sydney. “Does this mean support for other financial institutions will be this big? Does this mean there will be more problems around calculation of so-called toxic assets?”

And, it was a big enough big in a poke to let CEO Vikram Pandit stay on the job, which means the Paulson Gang still refuses to hold up a “oral hazard” standard:

“You’re seeing an inept management team being rewarded by the U.S. government,” said William Smith, chief executive of Smith Asset Management in New York, which owns Citigroup stock.

And, while the Paulson Gang continues to fret over massive banks like Citi, and BushCo says bank mergers will just solve all our problems, your Main Street-level banks are still doing well, Washington Monthly says.