Bank of America CEO may have worsen things, but he's not the only one guilty


gillmanjason

The announcement of Ken Lewis’ retirement is sure to be ear candy to the Michael Moore-worshipping, statist kool-aid drinkers out there.

The only thing they might further be praying for now is some kind of investigation finding Lewis guilty for not informing shareholders of the condition of Merrill-Lynch prior to pulling the trigger on the buy. Or not executing the available Material Adverse Change clause once it was shown that Merrill was even worse than initially thought.

The problem is that these people, who you might have heard in the past crying “The king is great! All hail the king!”, magically seem to ignore facts that happen to make their demigod of larger government look not so pious; media included.

A quick recap for those who don’t know. Earlier this year, Ken Lewis, CEO and Chairman of Bank of America, got railed for failing to inform investors about the horrible condition of Merrill before purchasing it. Not only did he get the lashing from hell in the PR department, but he also got an investigation from Andrew Cuomo, the New York Attorney General, as well as an eying from other regulators.

If these were all the facts, I would normally agree that Lewis should he held liable and possible face government penalties. Buying a bad company, especially without the ok from the board or shareholders? Bad juju.

But these aren’t all the facts. One fact that no one really likes to mention is that Bernanke and Paulson railroaded Lewis into buying Merrill by threatening his job. Another fact is they didn’t want him to execute the MAC clause once things really went south, yet again backed up with the threat of forcing Lewis, and the rest of the board, out of Bank of America.

And just to dispel any thoughts that I might be practicing some CBS-style fake reporting(http://tinyurl.com/y97db7x): Here (http://tinyurl.com/ddv36h) are the (http://tinyurl.com/ya35htf) supporting documents (http://tinyurl.com/ya5tqqf).

Actually, come to think of it, I think Lewis should still be held responsible. The SS was merely following orders from Adolf Hitler and I’m not going to cut them any slack.

Just like Hitler was held responsible for ordering the execution of Jews, people should hold Bernanke and Paulson equally, if not more responsible, for putting Lewis and the rest of the board in a position of harming shareholders by making threats on their job if they didn’t buy Merrill, or they bought it and executed the MAC clause.

That is, unless you enjoy the kool-aid. If that’s the case, come on over — I’ve got a party that would make Jim Jones envious.

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