Bank of America Shocker: How Much More Will Taxpayers Take?

Enough blogging and enough talking. It's time to declare all those worthless derivatives worthless and let the cards fall where they may.

I was PISSED when I read the feds were pressuring B of A to assist the Lehman Brothers or Merryl Lynch. You do realize they are bailing out Merryl Lynch more then Bank of America. That is my bank!!! Also, that 'Suddenly it was Paulson and Bernanke," part actually happened I think. B of A did NOT want to get involved, but from what I remember reading they WERE pressured into *helping the US*. This SUCKS!!!!

Decaf guys, decaf. This endless talk about "nuking" the shareholders and bondholders is amazing and getting dull. Get a one way ticket to Venezula if you're such big fans of nationalization.

How dumb do they think we are? The Bush regime lied about 9/11 saying "who could have known?" while they had been warned over and over that it would happen. They lied about the Iraq war and five years later some people are still waiting to find WMDs. And while the housing bubble burst and millions of mortages went into default, the Bush regime denied a recession and Cheney said, "who could have known?" and some people still believed them. That's pretty dumb.

When will american people go out to the street and protest about this high level of corruption?. How much more are you guys willing to take???. No problem, don't worry, next week everything will be back to normal. Until february/march when bankers (and auto makers) need yet another bailout!!!!

Do we have a choice????

How can you bail out Merrill Lynch when they fired the CEO, Stan ONeal that made the unwise purchase of the west coast sub-prime bank- Franklin. Then paid him his 160million severance package! I'm sure they could have stiffed him for the severance and then litigated the issue for a couple of years and maybe won. BofA shouldn't be given another penny if the officers have golden parachutes in place...it's just to much conflict of interest...runing the Bank into the ground to just leave with a fist-full of cash! Somebody wake up Congress, tell the President Elect not to do it!

Thank you Aaron....well written and perfectly correct. THE NEXT DISASTER! Wait till the pension funds are found underfunded or NOT FUNDED at all. I don't have enough money in my retirement 401k and they're going to push to shore up other's retirements at the taxpayer expense. IT"S COMING!!!!

The Ivy League geniuses are at it again.

2 simple rule changes ... and this madness ends. 1. Mark these complex financial assets to model and not to market. 2. Uptick rule

All I know, is that our forefathers that founded this country would have been dumping the tea overboard about 6 months ago. When is it enough? I feel a tea party coming on. No taxation without representation!

Lewis lays off older workers. Let him join them. I doubt any of them cost stockholders the amount he has. How about those options BOA employees. Tough break.

I've never been real big on conspiracy scenarios but, you know, I'm getting to that point. Is the market falling due to a crisis of confidence? Well, maybe... but the lack of confidence is justified. I pity Pres-elect Obama. He's a senator so he has some responsibility here, but he is going to end up carrying the can for 50 years of financial mis-management. God bless & preserve him. (No, I didn't vote for him and I'm not a Democrat, just a citizen of the USA.)

I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that most politicians are idiots and or bloodsuckers of American tax payers monies. I truly believe that the American people are becoming very cynical and untrusting of our Goverment which is loosing credibility on daily basis with decisions like the BOA and other unregulated criminal distribution of tax money indicate.

Apparently they think we're as stupid as Henry. The government has screwed us from the start. Ever since they started pushing home ownership on Americans who couldn't pay for it. Henry is stupider than he looks if he actually believed that BoA did this of their own free will. He probably thinks that's exactly what happened with Countrywide and Bear. BoA would've scooped up Lehman if they'd gotten the same sweetheart deal that JP Morgan got. And BoA has been the government's whipping boy since then. Yes someone should be held accountable, and those people are Ben Bernanke and Henry Paulson. Fire those clowns. They're the ones that keep pushing crap companies onto the balance sheets of good companies, just like the Bush administration took up the initiative that ended up putting crap housing loans on the American public that lead to this whole mess. If the government had started doing the bloodletting from the start, let Citi fail, let Bear fail, let Lehman fail, let Merrill fail, let GM file for bankruptcy and let Cerebus pump more cash into Chrysler instead of the taxpayers. Then we would be well on our way to getting out of this mess. And BoA would still have Countrywide and nearly have it turned around. Don't make my dividend get slashed because your administration (I didn't vote for those guys) botched this thing from the start and made the company I invested clean up their mess. Lewis knew this purchase was a reach. He knew they shouldn't do it, and your government forced his hand. So don't get all uppity and self-richeous when your government has to back Lewis and BoA up because they've been taking shots on the chin to help everyone out for quite a while now. That's my investment paying my dividend. All that our (that's you and me) taxpayer money is doing is covering up the mistakes of your government, causing my investment to sour, and causing my dividend to get slashed. I hope your proud. No go do some actual research before they put you on camera again. It might help.

The outrage should also be directed at the fact that while they're gathering taxpayer money, BOA is also throwing money in the form of retention bonuses to the ML brokers brought over. These bonuses equate to a full year compensation for a lot of brokers. You do the math - this comp ranges from $500K to $3MM - if half of the borkers get this that's at least 5,000 brokers. It may not look like much to what the Goldman buddies have gotten from the govt but it's enough to get even more outraged. Maybe the Bull should have just died - instead it's carcass is stinking up the whole room and making anyone around it sick.

With each new financial crisis it becomes increasingly clear that Paulson, Bernanke and those in positions of authority don't have any more clue of what is happening and how to stop it than do the CEO's and boards of the failing firms. This can't have a happy ending.

how come we aren't tossing the tea into the sea yet? Anyone for a tea party? No taxation without representation! The only way to fix this problem is to take back our government from the political idiots who control it now, be it by force or peace!

Don’t worry, folks. These guys will get theirs. The tables are turning.

I guess more Bailouts will be a "normal" thing now.Just bailout everything.I am sure this is just the start of bailouts!!!More to come,line up,bailout the world next.