RIP Bank of America
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- mrktmkr0
A sad day for American capitalism. You know, Ken Lewis is a friend of mine, and he doesn't nearly deserve the shit he's taken over the past few quarters. The Merrill acquisition was a bold move, a gutsy move, to be commended, and not informing the shareholders about the nature of its loans might have been a tough call, but was on balance entirely necessary in my mind, when you take the long view.
Did you know that Ken is the only two-time winner of American Banker newspaper’s “Banker of the Year” award?
- you think europe is a fluke? they will be smashing banks all over the US before this years out...robotron3k
- mrktmkr0
- < Just another low-life Wall Street Scumbag!utopian
- Who? The hedge wanna-be troll or Ken Lewis?TheBIueOne
- he looks like he's pretty happy about something...a_iver
- there is a child on fire in the room.monNom
- ********0
fuck them all
- dirtydesign0
buy gold coins. banks are fucked.
- until they outlaw private gold ownership... like 1933monNom
- utopian0
New York subpoenas Ken Lewis in Merrill Lynch investigation
By Stephen Foley in New YorkSaturday, 21 February 2009
Ken Lewis, the chief executive of Bank of America, has been subpoenaed in a New York state investigation into whether the company misled investors about its takeover of Merrill Lynch last year.
Andrew Cuomo, the New York attorney general, is examining whether secret information about the size of bonuses to be paid to Merrill staff should have been made public, and whether Merrill broke the law when it brought forward payments so that they went out before BofA took control of the company.
The controversy over the early bonuses was one of the factors in the sacking last month of John Thain, the Merrill chief who had assumed a new role inside BofA. Mr Thain himself gave testimony to Mr Cuomo’s investigation this week, it has emerged.
In an all-day questioning on Thursday, Mr Thain was asked about $4bn (£2.8bn) in early bonuses paid to Merrill employees and why the BofA merger agreement contained a secret attachment outlining the maximum Merrill could pay.
It is not clear when Mr Lewis will be interviewed.
As well as the issue of the bonuses, the BofA boss is expected to be quizzed on what he knew about Merrill’s spiralling losses, and when he knew it.
Between the signing of the merger agreement, in the frantic hours before the collapse of rival Lehman Brothers last September, and the closure of the deal on 1 January, Merrill posted a $15.3bn quarterly loss – a sum so huge that BofA initially tried to back out of the deal, before finally agreeing to accept money and guarantees from the US government to cover the costs. The internal wrangling was not disclosed to shareholders at the time.
Mr Cuomo’s BofA investigation is part of the attorney general’s wider pursuit of wrongdoing on Wall Street during the credit crisis.
- mrktmkr0
utopian, do you automatically hate someone because they are smarter, richer, more successful, or smarter than you?
How childish to joke about the death of a good man, a family man, a successful executive, a man who has been awarded American Banker newspaper’s “Banker of the Year” award, not once, but two times!
- wuppty fuckin do. the fucker is corrupt and the world will be slightly better without him._me_
- Please, tell us about your yacht and your recent trip to dubaiTheBIueOne
- *yawninstrmntl
- I am not the one being subpoenaed, nor am I the one who bankrupted America!utopian
- utopian0
I hope that every greedy mother Fu$%@# on Wall Street losing everything including their: trophy wifes, yachts, McMansions, Lear jets, country club memberships, pensions, savings, tax-free off-shore investments and their FU hand tailored Italian suits!
- utopian0
Federalize the U.S. banking system, the government can not do a worst job then the: scumbag, elitist, Wall Street Bankers and Neocon free-market, deregulators who bankrupted America!
- mrktmkr0
Your hatred of the economic system that has allowed you to earn a decent living is truly disgusting and perverse.
- andrewwwahlin0
bankers are the dredge of society
- jevad0
So glad I sold my BOA last year
- ********0
>Federalize the U.S. banking system, the government can not do a worst job then the:
>scumbag, elitist, Wall Street Bankers and Neocon free-market, deregulators who bankrupted
>America!There is nothing immediately wrong with the free market, the financial crisis is rooted in much deeper and more fundamental problems. The free market is an excellent system per se, except that it is proven not to work when being left completely to itself. Joseph E. Stiglitz won a Nobel prize for proving it mathematically in 2001. Government is best at governing, market is best at regulating. Its just that the difference between the two is taught to us as two opposites, though they hardly fall in the same category. What is better: the car I'm driving or the point of my destination? Any sane person understands that the comparison is illogical.
"Capitalism relies on morality" -- one famous businessman writing from prison, I forgot his name. The question is that since it is only an economic system, but in the way it overrules all other aspects of life, if it is moral enough to harbor the next civilizations? I think the world will slowly move away from defining itself economically.
- Capitalism relies on oversight. Without some regulations, greed runs rampant, which is what we have hereformed
- ukit0
Financial companies and the government got carried away with greed. They created these ridiculous amounts of leverage and thought they could make money out of thin air.
This is pretty amazing:
Just in 2000, total amount of derivatives was less than total economic output of the world. Now it's several times the world total.
Credit default swaps based on mortgages, grew from almost nothing to being, by themselves, greater than total world GDP just during the last 8 years.
- TheBIueOne0
Interesting watch:
http://fora.tv/2009/01/27/Nassim…
