The news that Citi is supporting cramdown legislation (with some conditions) is heartening.

However, it does raise some questions, most notably, “Why, after being bailed out by the US government, do they have a seat at the table at all,” and “Why are they supporting this at all?”

As to the first question, I put it down to the corruption that is Washington, DC business as usual.

As to the second, I am sure that part of this is a desire to be in on the process to shape it in the most advantageous way possible, but I think the real interest here is that Citi manages a lot of mortgages for the holders of mortgage backed securities, and as such, they carry much of the costs of a foreclosure process, but they carry none of the costs of s cram-down.