Common equity in Bank of America is either worthless or very close to it and now Greece could be the tipping point

from rt...

European leaders reach a deal on the debt but if politicians decide there is no "credit event" and credit default swaps don't get paid -- it could leave large US banks "naked," according to independent analyst Reggie Middleton of Boom Bust blog. It could be a tipping point for Bank of America which he believes is insolvent and seeing pressure from all sides.

yeah, well, eurozone leaders THOUGHT they had reached a deal on greek debt...

reuters...

Greece risks meltdown after bailout vote bombshell

The Greek government faced possible collapse on Tuesday as ruling party lawmakers demanded Prime Minister George Papandreou resign for throwing the nation's euro membership into jeopardy with a shock call for a referendum.

Caught unawares by his high-risk gamble, the leaders of France and Germany summoned Papandreou to crisis talks in Cannes on Wednesday to push for a quick implehttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifmentation of Greece's new bailout deal ahead of a summit of the G20 major world economies.

The euro and global stocks were pummeled on financial markets after the Greek move threw into question the survival of crucial efforts to contain the euro zone's sovereign debt crisis.

how very interesting - and perhaps even democratic - that papandreou actually thinks the citizens of greece should have a say...

a commentator, writing in spiegel, agrees with papandreou...

Papandreou Is Right to Let the Greeks Decide

It must be said right at the beginning: The Greeks will, for a change, decide for themselves how they and their country will move forward.

They have had no real opportunity to do so for quite some time. For about a year and a half, this once proud country has been under foreign administration; it is de facto no longer a sovereign state. The government's most important task has been dragging the austerity programs and structural reforms though parliament and implementing them. These are dictated by the strict troika of the EU Commission, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund. Otherwise there will be no more bailout money, and the country would go bankrupt.

To no longer be the master of their own finances, to be begging for money and ready to do almost anything for it -- this is as humiliating for penniless states as it is for poor people. It injures the soul, stirs up anger and creates desperation. Knowing that the situation is also largely self-inflicted only makes things worse.

That the Greek Premier Georgios Papandreou wants to consult his people on the financial restructuring of the country seems like an act of desperation appropriate to the dramatic principle of 'committing suicide in fear of death.' The voters will decide whether to endorse the decisions made in Brussels or not.

[...]

Until the referendum in Greece, there will be an intense debate about the two alternatives: Brutal rehabilitation within the euro zone or state bankruptcy with a reintroduction of the drachma.

It will demonstrate that it is not about the choice between hell and paradise. Both paths will be difficult and grueling. Each citizen must decide for themselves what they believe to be the better choice. They will consider whether they want to risk their assets with an exit from the common currency -- savings would be worth hardly anything in a return to the drachma.

But at least every Greek gets to decide, and can no longer complain about their government bowing to international demands. And even if the Greeks ultimately say no, and in the worst case scenario the country leaves the euro zone, the consequences seem less dicey than they did a year ago.

let the chips fall where they may... at least the greeks can once again lay claim to being a sovereign state rather than a wholly-owned subsidiary of the global banksters...

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Finally, some action against bank malfeasance

imho, this should have happened quite some time ago and, yes, i know the wheels of justice turn slowly, but...

New York AG filing civil charges against BofA

The New York Attorney General's office is filing civil charges against Bank of America and its former CEO Ken Lewis, saying the bank misled investors about Merrill Lynch when it acquired the Wall Street bank in late 2008.

Civil charges were also being filed against Joe Price, the bank's former chief financial officer.

Lewis stepped down from Bank of America on Dec. 31 after almost a year of strife that followed the bank's purchase of Merrill Lynch.

Bank of America has been accused of failing to properly disclose losses at Merrill and bonuses paid to investment bank employees before the deal closed.

the banksters and our super-rich elites have had to face virtually NO accountability for the havoc they've created... quite the contrary, in fact... they've been systematically REWARDED for it at every turn... their greed has left the u.s. middle class in shambles and taken an even more horrific toll on the most vulnerable world economies, yet perps like ken lewis waltzes on out with his pockets lined with millions and millions of dollars... we simply can't continue to tolerate this kind of shit and kudos to the ny attorney general for having the cojones to step up to the plate... maybe he's picking up where spitzer left off...

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Fuck no, AIG... Go screw yourself... B of A can kiss my ass and Lehman can put it where the sun don't shine...

i'm on vacation visiting my son and his wife in montana and taking a well-deserved break from the non-stop ugliness of national and world events, but i simply can't let these pass without comment...

first of all, not only no to aig, but FUCK, NO...!

A.I.G. Seeks $40 Billion in Fed Aid to Survive

The American International Group is seeking a bridge loan from the Federal Reserve as it faces a potential downgrade from credit ratings agencies.

and, as far as these three criminal enterprises, i hope b of a chokes on merrill and lehman deserves to die...

Offer for Merrill Accepted; Lehman Nears Liquidation

In one of the most dramatic days in Wall Street history, Merrill Lynch agreed to sell itself to Bank of America for about $50 billion, while Lehman Brothers headed toward bankruptcy.

p.s. for aig, lehman and merrill: boo-fucking-hoo..

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Euro hits $1.59, Merril Lynch continues its free fall, oil climbs past $115 a barrel, and rice is now 3x higher than 2007

please note... ALL of these stories are interconnected in very fundamental ways, all of which point to the continuing collapse of the global financial markets... hitting bottom, imho, is a long way off...

is it even possible to comprehend $30B worth of losses in one company in only three quarters...?

Merrill Lynch announces job cuts after $2 billion loss

Merrill Lynch, the investment bank, posted a loss Thursday and announced that it would lay off about 2,900 additional workers. Including about 1,000 jobs already eliminated this year, the company's work force is to shrink by 10 percent, or about 4,000 jobs, over the course of 2008.

The bank reported worst-than-expected earnings for the first quarter, including $6.5 billion in write-downs and adjustments to assets in its mortgage, leveraged finance and other divisions. The write-downs bring the total taken by Merrill Lynch in the last three quarters to more than $30 billion.

i'm working with a gentleman here who lives in france but is an employee of the u.s. company that runs the project... he is paid in dollars which he converts to euros... he has lost nearly HALF the value of his salary over the past year...

The euro retreated from a record high against the dollar in choppy trade Thursday after a top euro zone official called recent euro appreciation "undesirable."

[...]

That sparked concern that G7 officials may be considering coordinated currency intervention to stem the dollar's decline.

it wasn't very long ago, only a matter of six months, that oil over $100 a barrel seemed unimaginable...

Oil prices hit all-time highs above $115 a barrel Thursday as the dollar continued to weaken and on reports that oil and gasoline stocks in the United States were lower than expected.

and look at rice, a food staple for more than 2/3 of the world's population...

The sense of crisis in the rice market showed no signs of easing as prices continued their record climb and a tender from the Philippines, the world's top importer, attracted offers to sell only about two-thirds of the half-a-million tons it had sought, Reuters reported from Bangkok.

In Bangkok, Thai 100 percent B-grade white rice, considered the world's benchmark, hit $950 per ton, three times its price at the start of 2007.

i don't know how anyone can look at the above four items and not sense impending doom...

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$15B, £7.6B, €35B, -20% - dumping the increasingly disastrous financial news over the weekend

yep... keep leakin' it out, folks, in time-tested, bush administration fashion, over the weekend, when people aren't paying attention... (pssssst... people ain't really payin' any attention anyway...)

CITIGROUP and Merrill Lynch will heap further pain on Wall Street this week as they reveal additional sub-prime write-downs totalling $15 billion (£7.6 billion) or more.

In another sign of the intense pressure on leading banks, Deutsche Bank is attempting to offload some of its €35 billion (£28 billion) of toxic debt to a consortium of private-equity firms.

Huge exposure to American mortgages is expected to result in Citi taking a $10 billion hit to its accounts, dragging the bank to a first-quarter loss of almost $3 billion. Some analysts believe Citi’s write-downs could stretch to as much as $12 billion.

Merrill will suffer $5 billion of write-downs, analysts say, which would push the bank $2.7 billion into the red.

It is expected to knock a further 20% from the value of its sub-prime holdings, in spite of the fact that it announced $18 billion of write-downs only three months ago.

The new rash of Wall Street losses and write-downs come in addition to the billions that have already been recorded.

does ANYBODY, ANYWHERE have ANY IDEA of just how bad this is...? talk about whistling past the graveyard...!

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Goldman Sachs and its alumni - the people who own us

despite the on-going train wreck in the world credit markets, goldman sachs continues to scoop up massive amounts of cash... just look at this...

[F]or Goldman’s chief executive, Lloyd C. Blankfein, this is turning out to be a very good year. He will surely earn more than the $54.3 million he made last year. If he gets a 20 percent raise — in line with the growth of Goldman’s compensation pool — he will take home at least $65 million. Some expect his pay, which is directly tied to the firm’s performance, to climb as high as $75 million.

[...]

Goldman’s stock has significantly outperformed its peers. At the end of last week it was up about 13 percent for the year, compared with a drop of almost 14 percent for the XBD, the broker-dealer index that includes the leading Wall Street banks. Merrill Lynch, Bear Stearns and Citigroup are down almost 40 percent this year.

besides blankfein, somebody whose name is unfamiliar to me, but who could still earn a possible SEVENTY FIVE MILLION FRIGGIN' GODDAM DOLLARS THIS YEAR, who the hell ARE the people this world-class money vacuum cleaner has spawned...? well, just look at THIS list...

Last week, John A. Thain, a former Goldman co-president, accepted the top position at Merrill Lynch, while a fellow Goldman alumnus, Duncan L. Niederauer, took Mr. Thain’s job running the New York Stock Exchange. Another fellow veteran trader, Daniel Och, took his $30 billion hedge fund public.

still unfamiliar names to me... but, wait... there's MORE...

Robert E. Rubin, a former Goldman head, is the new chairman of Citigroup. In Washington, another former chief, Henry M. Paulson Jr., is the Treasury secretary, having been recruited by Joshua B. Bolten, the White House chief of staff and yet another former Goldman executive.

The heads of the Canadian and Italian central banks are Goldman alumni. The World Bank president, Robert B. Zoellick, is another. Jon S. Corzine, once a co-chairman, is the governor of New Jersey. And in academia, Robert S. Kaplan, a former vice chairman, has just been picked as the interim head of Harvard University’s $35 billion endowment.

ah... NOW, we're gettin' down to it... are ya gettin' the picture here...? THESE, my friends, are the folks who OWN us, lock, stock, and barrel... they are also the ones who are calling the shots, these and their buddies at the council on foreign relations, the center for strategic and international studies, the center for a new american security, and, of course, let we forget, those at the carnegie endowment, the ford and guggenheim foundations that mettle helped us learn more about earlier today... keep 'em in mind, cuz what they say and do ends up being the way things will eventually come down...

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