Headline on the WSJ website this evening:

“U.S. Weighs Further Steps For Citi”

Come on guys, I’m not a big fan of nationalization or whatever label you want to put on it but it’s time to put this nag out of its misery. Clearly if this kind of talk is floating around there are intractable problems that suggest a final decision.

It would be nice to believe that may be forthcoming but this quote from the Journal isn’t comforting:

Also complicating matters, U.S. officials don’t have a template for winding down a company of Citigroup’s size and complexity, which Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke made clear at a Senate hearing last week.

“I’d like to challenge the Congress to give us a framework, where we can resolve a multinational complicated financial conglomerate like Citigroup, like AIG, or others, if that became necessary,” Mr. Bernanke told the Senate budget committee.

That alone should be just cause to remove Bernanke as well as most of the members of Congress. If indeed we are in a position at this stage of the game in which we still don’t have sufficient legal room to put an end to one or more of these dinosaurs and a plan for doing so does not exist then malfesance is too gentle a word to apply to all concerned.

If that doesn’t make your blood boil a bit then consider this.

The Obama administration is trying to counter criticism that its efforts to stabilize financial markets have been unsuccessful. In a private meeting Monday night with House Democrats, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said the administration’s efforts were working, and said policy makers had “done more in weeks” to address problems than other countries had done in years, according to a senior House aide who attended the meeting.

Unfortunately the article fails to mention if he enumerated all the steps that he has taken. Presumably, he is working on the list.