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Last December, with its stock hovering around $15 per share, Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis made a startling discovery: Merrill Lynch — the giant his bank was in the process of acquiring — was in far worse shape than he had dreamed.
This week, thanks to documents released by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, we discovered new details on what appears to be the real reason Lewis finalized the merger despite Merrill’s obvious troubles.
According to Lewis, he had told former Treasury Secretary Paulson and Fed Chairman Bernanke that he wanted to back out of the merger with Merrill. Whether he had the legal ability to do so or not is a separate issue. What matters is that, according to Lewis, Paulson and Bernanke tacitly threatened to fire him and his entire board of directors if they backed out.
Now Lewis has testified that Paulson made it quite clear he was NOT to disclose to his shareholders how troubled Merrill was for fear that they would demand the merger be canceled.
Bottom line: When faced with the choice of saving his own job or saving his shareholders, Lewis decided to keep his mouth shut, go ahead with the merger and save his job.
He had a gun pointed to his head, the classic case of a shotgun merger; and the rest is history…
- In January, Bank of America reported a $2.4 billion fourth-quarter loss and Merrill disclosed a $15 billion loss.
- Also in January, Washington gave Bank of America $20 billion of your money to offset losses it suffered because of its shotgun marriage with Merrill.
- And as of Friday’s close, the decision made by Paulson, Bernanke and Lewis has cost shareholders as much as 43 percent of their money in just over four months, even AFTER a vigorous rally.
Even more disturbing: As the details of this latest shotgun marriage continue to emerge, it’s becoming clearer than ever that …
Washington does NOT want us to know the truth.
A disturbing pattern is taking shape here — a pattern of obfuscation and outright deceit that illustrates just how panicked Washington regulators truly are when they discuss this crisis behind closed doors.
On Friday, I posted a new article on my blog showing how Washington’s much vaunted bank stress tests have been blatantly rigged to portray our 19 largest banks as being far healthier than they truly are.
Plus, the regulators have authorized accounting rules that allow banks to …
- Inflate the book value of toxic assets they own …
- Miraculously vaporize liabilities they are responsible for, and …
- Magically erase billions of losses in their quarterly reports — treat them like they never even happened.
Let’s be clear here: Washington caused this crisis through artificially low interest rates and by blessing go-for-broke speculation by our largest financial institutions.
Now, Washington is making matters worse by playing it fast and loose with the truth — even cajoling CEOs to violate their disclosure obligation to shareholders — and as a result, our leaders are slamming investors for billions of dollars in stock market losses.
Unless we stop them now, Washington will bankrupt us all with massive bailouts of companies like Chrysler and GM that take tens of billions more of our dollars for companies that, in the end, go belly-up anyway.
This is precisely why I’ve spent the past few weeks urging you to join me in a national grass-roots campaign to make our voices heard in Washington — to sign our petition demanding that our leaders STOP these worthless, useless, pointless bail-outs before they bankrupt our entire nation.
So far, nearly 30,000 taxpayers and investors have signed our petition — but your opportunity to add your voice to ours MUST END NEXT WEEK!
Next week, we will print these petitions and the following week, I will personally deliver these demands to our nation’s leaders in Washington D.C.
I sincerely hope that yours is among the nearly 30,000 taxpayers and investors who have already joined me in this campaign. If not, you still have time: Just click here to add your voice and to join this fight to preserve our children’s futures. This is the last week to do so before I personally deliver the petitions to Washington.
This is also the last week to get an automatic credit for your purchase of The Ultimate Depression Survival Guide — for yourself, your family and all those in Washington that need to hear this message.
And to make sure our leaders get the message loud and clear, include a simple note in each package: “Stop the bail-outs before you bankrupt ALL of us!”
Look: It’s bad enough that hundreds of thousands of our fellow Americans are likely to lose their jobs when GM and Chrysler fail.
We can NOT allow Washington to add insult to injury by continuing to throw our money at companies that are going to go bust no matter what!
I urge you — join me in this campaign before it’s too late:
Click this link to order copies of The Ultimate Depression Survival Guide for our leaders and demand that they stop these pointless bail-outs.
Please remember: 100% of my royalties are being donated to the children who have been made homeless by this crisis.
And, if you purchase your copies before next week’s deadline, for each and every copy, you’ll also receive a $29.95 credit voucher good for the purchase or renewal of ANY product or service my company offers.
Then, click this link to sign our petition while you still can — so I can personally register your outrage along with mine and tens of thousands of other taxpayers and investors the week after next!
Good luck and God bless!
Martin
About Money and Markets
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