The Bush administration's bailout of Citigroup might be a sign of more to come, and that's a worry for everyone. Not just American taxpayers but right around the world.

The most incompetent president in US history has announced that there might be more rescues. "We have made these kind of decisions in the past, made one last night, and if need be we're going to make these kind of decisions to safeguard our financial system in the future."

That is seriously scary. Think about it. Citigroup has more than $3 trillion in assets - about one third is off the balance sheet. All this deal does is have government agencies taking $27 billion of preferred shares in Citi, while agreeing to absorb losses above $29 billion on $306 billion of the bank's assets. Nowhere $3 trillion, so what's the bet that Citi will be back for more?

What's emerged is a clear model for bailouts: the US government explicitly insures against losses on toxic assets, and US taxpayers foot the bill.

As Bloomberg notes, it will put US taxpayers at more risk as debt writedowns continue to escalate. This is very different from the original TARP program where the US government said it would buy toxic assets directly from bad financial institutions. That's been replaced by an approach which will see direct injections of capital and liquidity. And let's be clear, risk is being transferred from shareholders to taxpayers. It's called privatizing profits, and socializing losses.