TheStreet.com TV Recap: Off-Balance-Sheet Risks

Any time there are off-balance-sheet obligations that aren't easily accessible when looking at a company's financials, like Citigroup's (C Quote) seven troubled structured investment vehicles, it can be an Enron-esque situation, Jim Cramer said on TheStreet.com TV's Wall Street Confidential Web video Friday.

This is what Enron did with the Raptor portfolio, "which was really just a lot of obligations that you didn't realize," he explained. The seven SIVs were always Citigroup's obligations, and Cramer said he doesn't understand why they were able to be kept off-balance sheet in the first place. "It seems like the accounting profession just routinely lets us down," he said.

Cramer: Citi's Enron-esqe Black Hole

Richard Bove, a financial strategist at Punk Ziegel & Co., says Citigroup is not going to have to cut its dividend, but Cramer doesn't know how that will be possible. Cramer said Citigroup, which he owns for his charitable trust, Action Alerts PLUS, is his "biggest disappointment this year."

Cramer said he feels very strongly that Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit can undo everything that was brought in by former CEO Chuck Prince, "but he would have to first undo the ridiculous hedge fund acquisition that brought Pandit in."

The triple-A ratings Citi's SIVs have "are a meaningless concept" because the ratings agencies didn't really focus on what they put triple-A ratings on, he said, and the defaults on triple-A paper are running very high. "We see that from Countrywide (CFC Quote), although it's not self-evident," Cramer said.