Government Pressures Bank of America
[Guest post by DRJ]
The AP summarizes a Wall Street Journal article (subscription required) that reports the U.S. government is pressuring Bank of America to name new directors with more banking experience to its Board of Directors. However, the government doesn’t own an interest in BOA and most of BOA’s problems arise from acquiescing to government pressure to acquire Merrill Lynch.
I think I understand: BOA needs new directors because the old management and directors didn’t know when to ignore government pressure. So should BOA ignore this government pressure, or not?
— DRJ
If they have any integrity left for their shareholders they’ll tell the administration to take their attitude and…well, you know. The only reason the other banks are furiously attempting to return the bailout monies is because of all the gov’t strings attached, along with the obvious command – and – control policies that have this governing politic so enthralled at the moment.
Dmac (1ddf7e) — 5/15/2009 @ 2:11 pmThose of us in Illinois predicted that the country wouldn’t like or appreciate Chicago-style politics at the national level. This is the White House version of Rahm’s fish in a newspaper sent to someone with whom he disagreed.
rochf (ae9c58) — 5/15/2009 @ 2:15 pmGeorge Will said it best.
The administration’s central activity — the political allocation of wealth and opportunity — is not merely susceptible to corruption, it is corruption.
Mike K (2cf494) — 5/15/2009 @ 2:17 pmI was able to get the whole article by searching for a text string on Google News.
Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R., (ebf8f5) — 5/15/2009 @ 2:17 pmYes, by all means re-arrange the deck chairs. Whatever you do, don’t mention implementing accountability, because that can blow back in an ugly way, especially if you’re an elected official.
We never mention accountability.
Apogee (e2dc9b) — 5/15/2009 @ 2:46 pmThe government needs to set a ceiling on remuneration too, to accompany its requirement for more experience.
cboldt (3d73dd) — 5/15/2009 @ 4:05 pm“The only reason the other banks are furiously attempting to return the bailout monies is because of all the gov’t strings attached……”
Dmac – Obama doesn’t want to be in the banking business, or the car business, he said so himself. Heh!
When the banks can’t return the TARP money because one of the strings is the government’s determination of whether or not you are adequately capitalized, you are truly fucked. In the old days, the government might have just forced a merger between an unhealthy institution and a healthy one to clean up a problem. Now it seems like Obama is forcing the shareholders of everybank affected to take pipe.
Shared sacrifice for bank nationalization in advance of imagined worst case scenarios in computer models. Global warming comes to banking!
daleyrocks (5d22c0) — 5/15/2009 @ 4:10 pmYou can generally breach the subscription wall at WSJ if you Google the article title.
Kevin Murphy (805c5b) — 5/15/2009 @ 4:23 pmI like Will’s quote. Good stuff.
JD (fc72cc) — 5/15/2009 @ 4:59 pmThe only way B of A can do the right thing here is appoint new directors who are not acceptable to the Obama regime.
Ken Hahn (5b16f5) — 5/16/2009 @ 2:30 amFascism will come with a smiley face…
Patricia (2183bb) — 5/16/2009 @ 8:27 am“California – Uber Allies, Allies Uber, California!”
Opps – channelled the dead kennedys there for a second.
GarryOwen!
[Ob_ma, may his name be praised, thinks he is Hugo Chavez – at least the end result to the economy will be the same. Onward comrades to our glorious future!]
Californio (6657ce) — 5/17/2009 @ 1:01 am