http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Inves...67.html?sec=topStories&pos=main&asset=&ccode= Investigators say the Fed threatened bank CEO WASHINGTON (AP) -- Congressional investigators say they have seen internal documents that prove the Federal Reserve threatened to force the ouster of Bank of America CEO Kenneth Lewis if he didn't follow through with plans to buy Merrill Lynch & Co. Will Ken Lewis sing like a canary in Thurday's hearing?
Does anybody anywhere ever consider the consequences of their actions? I have never understood people doing anything as stupid as this and leaving a paper trail. It simply makes no sense to do this, then go home and wonder when you'll get caught. I just don't get the (lack of ) logic.
Somebody is going to jail for this. You watch. I bet this is Bernanke's Watergate. Man, if I was a BOA shareholder .... Talk about abuse of power if not outright theft.
Instead of buying bonds and monetizing debt, Bernanke better start buying BOA common big time, because until that stock gets to where it would have been pre-Merrill merger there are going to be shareholders and AG's and investigators and journalists looking to put him away. More shareholders dollars were lost in BOA's government-forced merger than in the Madoff' scam.
I never thought Lewis would be vindicated in this. I did think he had serious balls for telling the ny times about it, even though I believed him.
I think Bernanke is counting on the stupidity of the American public. They have no clue what's been going on. This is all so Nixonian.
I'm curious why it is Republican congress critters leaking this stuff, when all this happened during a Republican administration under the leadership of Republican appointees. What's the real game here?
Actually I think it was the WSJ, not the Times, sorry. They ran it twice I believe, should look for a third installment soon.
I thought we were all one big happy country. Now , would it have been nice for Merrill to fail and cause a big smelly mess? I don't think so. Maybe this will be a good anti moral hazard call. You know, watch out for what the other asshole is doing lest you might be forced TO BUY THEIR STINKING CARCASS one day. Know what I mean? If this is the worst Bernake did, I give him the Nobel Prize here and move on.
I assume you own no stocks, because if you did the practice of the government, effectively, forcing a publicly traded company to cut its own throat (and violate its legal fiduciary duty to its shareholders) simply to make political appointees like the Fed members and a Treasury Secretary happy would, and I understate here, displease you greatly.