So here we have the largest U.S. bank by assets, fresh off an $8.8 billion quarterly loss, which was its biggest ever. And the people in charge of running it have a monstrous credibility gap, largely of their own making. Once again, we’re all on the hook.
Bank accounting sounds boring, but it's really a creative endeavor:
As recently as late 2010, Bank of America still clung to the position that none of the $4.4 billion of goodwill from its 2008 purchase of Countrywide Financial Corp. had lost a dollar of value.
There are crooks and gamers in the financial services industry, but it's clear that some of these guys really believed their own bullshit -- and Countrywide reeked long before B of A bought it.
From Matt Taibbi on HuffPo today, referencing Senator Hagan's involvement/support for another: little bit of corporate welfare:
[link here; please avoid reprinting long swaths of copyrighted material. ec]
"For those who don’t know about it, tax repatriation is one of the all-time long cons and also one of the most supremely evil achievements of the Washington lobbying community, which has perhaps told more shameless lies about this one topic than about any other in modern history – which is saying a lot, considering the many absurd things that are said and done by lobbyists in our nation’s capital..."
Posted by: Bill Bush | Jul 21, 2011 at 01:37 PM
Updated link for that Bloomberg piece.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-21/curse-those-who-built-bank-of-america-jonathan-weil-correct-.html
Posted by: James | Jul 21, 2011 at 05:36 PM
Thanks. Fixed.
Posted by: Ed Cone | Jul 21, 2011 at 05:46 PM