Americans got caught up believing they deserved to own a house even if they could not afford the monthly payments. Home owners now can't pay the mortgages and the banks are stuck with bad loan. Clearly the great majority of home owners are not financial genius. So what was Bank Of America CEO Ken Lewis thinking for not walking away from agreements to buy Countrywide, the biggest U.S. home lender,and Merrill Lynch, the largest brokerage, as the recession gained steam. This sound like more greed ,just on a larger scale.
Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America reported a fourth-quarter loss of $1.79 billion Friday, slashed its 32- cent quarterly dividend to a penny and told investors results may get worse in the quarters ahead.
“Ken Lewis didn’t take responsibility for what has happened with Merrill Lynch and Countrywide,” said Nancy Bush, an independent bank analyst based in Annandale, New Jersey. “I wanted him to say, ‘This is my fault, I paid too much for Merrill and while there may have been some severe deterioration in the fourth quarter, the buck stops here.’”
David Mildenberg and Linda Shen, over at bloomberg.com have the rest of this story.