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Thursday, April 23, 2009

News / Biz Hey, Ken: Mum's the word

Posted By on Thu, Apr 23, 2009 at 1:30 PM

First off, let's hope this is not true. This type of nonsense is the opposite of what our government is charged with.

Second, what's up with Ben Bernanke? Seriously.

President Obama, we understand you're busy, but we're in some deep economic shit. Make some time to find someone new who is interested in looking out for the best interests of the American people over the best interests of the banking elite.

Henry Paulson, well, let's hope he's strung up with the rest of the Bush administration criminals.

Bank of America Corp. Chief Executive Kenneth Lewis says Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and former Treasury Department chief Henry Paulson pressured the bank not to discuss its increasingly troubled plan to buy Merrill Lynch & Co.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Lewis, testifying under oath before New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo in February, said he believed Paulson and Bernanke were instructing him to keep silent about Merrill’s financial problems. Merrill lost $15.3 billion in the fourth quarter.

According to the newspaper’s review of the transcript, Lewis said the federal government wanted him to keep quiet while the two sides negotiated government funding to help BofA absorb Merrill. BofA bought the troubled brokerage on Jan. 1 for $29.1 billion, including $8.6 billion in preferred stock. The deal resulted in BofA’s receiving an additional $20 billion in federal bailout funds under the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

Read the rest of this Charlotte Business Journal article here.

Watch Paul Krugman, an Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times and vocal Obama critic, assess Henry Paulson's handling of the economic crisis during a Countdown segment before last year's election:

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