Ben Bernanke, Henry Paulson forced BofA CEO to lie

[redrumloa]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1240456 ... od=testMod

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and then-Treasury Department chief Henry Paulson pressured Bank of America Corp. to not discuss its increasingly troubled plan to buy Merrill Lynch & Co. -- a deal that later triggered a government bailout of BofA -- according to testimony by Kenneth Lewis, the bank's chief executive.

Mr. Lewis, testifying under oath before New York's attorney general in February, told prosecutors that he believed Messrs. Paulson and Bernanke were instructing him to keep silent about deepening financial difficulties at Merrill, the struggling brokerage giant.

Like a few of us were saying for the last 2 years, things were always much worse than the spoon fed crap we were getting in the media. It is still far worse...

 

[Fade]

Just a side note on BOA. They don't need any help to make them lie.

I once had a real estate loan that BOA bought up during the S&L fallout. For 5 years in a row they failed to forward my insurance and property tax payments on time, at the end of the year, when both were due.

The first time, I found out about the insurance quickly, when my agent called me, but it was two years later, when I found the property listed for sale because of non payment of taxes that I went ballistic.

I had to put up with that every year for a total of 5 years. No amount of phone calls to loan officers or their bosses could get them to pay on time. I'm not talking 30 days late either. It ran from 3 months to 6 months every time.

I finally couldn't take it anymore when a storm dropped a monster tree on the front of the house doing about 6 thousand dollars damage. I had it fixed and paid the bill for the damages, the insurance company cut a check payable to myself and BOA because they were the leinholder.

I had to endorse the check and send it to BOA because they wouldn't endorse the check without their own inspectors approving the repair job, and they wouldn't send the inspector until they got the check.

Guess how long it took BOA to send an inspector to look at the repairs after I sent the check to them?
Three months! And another two months before they returned my own damn money to me.

I have since found out that it was common practice for BOA to withhold these types of payments during the 80's and 90's. For them it was like finding interest free money.

As for BOA, I hope they go broke tomorrow!

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

Just a side note on BOA. They don't need any help to make them lie.

Well, that's the kind of efficiency and responsiveness only free market capitalism can provide.