It seems the bleeding’s just begun. Several media reports are saying that Bank of America will close up to 600 branches, and will split into separate commercial and consumer units. WCNC-TV Channel 36 reports that analysts tell them the moves are a sign that BofA will be laying off many more employees than was first announced earlier this week. The new layoffs would be in addition to the 30,000 job cuts already in store for the bank’s employees. The Charlotte television station was the first to report the news; the story was picked up quickly by Huffington Post, which linked to the WCNC website. As we are writing this, the WCNC story on BofA is down, probably due to being swamped by readers around the nation.
Oh well, another day, another BofA slaughter. First, the bank plays a part in the near-collapse of the U.S. economy, something from which we’re nowhere near recovering. Now, it is sloughing off employees like so much dandruff, taking jobs from people who worked hard so that Bank of America honchos could get gigantic bonuses. But so what, as long as the investors are happy… right?
Remember that item we ran a couple of hours ago? The one about Bank of America splitting in two and closing 600 more branches? Well, forget about it. WCNC Channel 36, which broke the story this morning — leading CL, Huffington Post and other websites to pick it up — has retracted it. Here is the complete text of WCNC’s retraction:
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — NewsChannel 36 wants to correct a report we had about Bank of America Thursday morning.
A CNN newswire service we subscribe to indicated that Bank of America was splitting into two units — consumer and commercial.
The CNN report we gave you is not correct, according to a spokesperson from Bank of America.
There are no new branches shutting down just the original 600 reported back in March.
We apologize for this error.
Goes to show there’s a downside to everyone being so interconnected, I guess. In any case, the comments at the end of our previous blog post still apply to BofA, in honor of their valuable service to the nation and their employees. Here they are again:
First, the bank plays a part in the near-collapse of the U.S. economy, something from which we’re nowhere near recovering. Now, it is sloughing off employees like so much dandruff, taking jobs from people who worked hard so that Bank of America honchos could get gigantic bonuses. But so what, as long as the investors are happy… right?
This article appears in Sep 6-12, 2011.
The contemporary corporation is not concerned with making customers happy, only investors. To that end customers are presented with information overload to baffle and confuse them, which is really an ingenious marketing ploy to rob them. An informed consumer is their greatest enemy, so no holds are barred to prevent this from happening. If the banks were really serving the consumer, rather than robbing them, the investors wouldn’t have to worry. Sadly, that is not the case.
great reporting – so glad yahoo picked this up.
i agree with every syllable of your last paragrph.
Matt Taibbi is so right – why is half of wall street not on the ropes.
Moniyhan seems to be trying.
Ken Lewis is who blew that franchise up.
Actually would love to know if BofA has liquidated their position in ICE, InterContinental Exchange.
That’s the second hedge no one is discussing. It was one hedge to hijack the securitization process and blow up the economy but the second hedge, ICE, and the potential influencing of especially Brent and other commodities as well has yet to come to light.
And that goes back to the CFTC Modernization Act of 2000 that allowed for this whole nightmare to unfold.
The Act allowed for complicated derivatives to be traded on PRIVATE eclectronic exchanges AND deregulated commodity trading. So ICE was a platform from which to play both hedges – golden and still protected although nat gas did get recaptured under regulation as the spike in price was too detremental to our farmers.
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The last paragraph is right on the mark. And to go further, just replace BofA with most any other corporate name and it still fits. The American worker, who works hard and is loyal, gets no respect. Our government aids and abets this attitude.