Did The Government Force Bank of America To Buy Merrill?
We’ve very publicly called for the ouster of Bank of America head Ken Lewis. Under his leadership, Band Of America march right up to the edge of the abyss and then jumped right off. If not for a huge government safety net, Bank of America would be gone. The acquisitions of toxic waste dumps like Merrill Lynch and Countrywide Financial were particuarly boneheaded. Could we be wrong in holding Lewis responsibile for this disaster? We’ve previously said that we based our call for Lewis to be fired based on the idea that there wasn’t some secret backroom Treasury deal where Hank Paulson forced him to take one for the team. But what if there was? Fortune says that when Lewis figured out how bad things were at Merrill, he tried to back out of the deal. But the Committee To Save The World told him it was too late for that. He had to buy Merrill. From Fortune: When Lewis saw Merrill’s write-downs mounting, he wanted to get out of the deal. BofA also faced a disastrous fourth quarter as losses
