Markets

Meredith Whitney on troubles at US banks

There are no banks in as bad a shape as Citigroup is. The commonality of the banks with the biggest write downs has been - I describe it as the lazy lenders. J.P. Morgan is at the top of the pack and Citigroup is at the bottom of the pack, together with UBS and Merrill Lynch. Greed gets you every time and laziness gets you every time and hubris gets you every time. So those lessons learned through this cycle will be quickly forgotten and there'll be new lessons, but similarly themed lessons rooted in greed, hubris, laziness that will affect the next cycle. There'll be different managers. Banks are dealing with incrementalism. It's death by 1,000 cuts. Culturally U.S. banks would love to say we wrote it off, we're done with it. But it's almost impossible in this environment because the system has been so levered up it just takes a long time to deliver. It's going to take a while - the better part of this year.