The incomparable Yves Smith, whose blog, Naked Capitalism, is justifiably the number one financial blog, earlier this month started the Bank of America Death Watch (actually I think she means having to be bailed out again or sold). I’m on board with that.
Reuters says “Bank of America’s shareholders are resigning themselves to life on skid row” because “Until the legal claims can be resolved and BofA’s exposure to more losses clarified, the stock price looks set to stay in the gutter.”
The sordid details of BofA’s predicament are elucidated elsewhere. It’s mortal wounds are mostly self-inflicted. If not for the bailouts and loans it already got courtesy of the taxpayers, BofA would already just be a sad memory for its pensionless employees and wiped out shareholders.
The trolls and shills are out in force, of course, attacking Ms Smith for her supposed bias, hysteria, wishful thinking and attempts to whip up a public panic. But the banksters and their (public and private) sycophants have deliberately lied to the public so consistently for so many years, while Ms Smith’s blistering blog posts have almost always been right on target, who you gonna believe? The Obama administration and Warren Buffett notwithstanding, my money, if I had any, would be on Yves Smith.
I know, when one of the TBTF banks turns out to also be too rotten to save, it’s the end of the world and we’re all going to hell. But I also know that most of us already have a one-way ticket to hell, thanks in large measure to the depredations of BofA and its friends. So seeing BofA go to hell at the same time or a little ahead of us feels like justice.
When Nixon died I was glad I had outlived him, but I was ashamed of feeling good about the death of another human being. I will harbor no such compunctions when BofA meets its well-deserved end. The pleasure I will take in watching BofA twist slowly, agonizingly, in the wind, Lehman-style, before expiring, will be undiluted, unalloyed and pure.
As Yves Smith says, “It couldn’t happen to a nicer bank.”