Posted on 08/03/2009 10:40:30 AM PDT by Kartographer
Bank of America has agreed to pay a $33 million penalty to settle government charges that it misled investors about Merrill Lynch's plans to pay bonuses to its employees.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
I have never had an account at B of A and I won’t take any bookkeeping clients who use them.
What could explain this deal? To make the deal bonuses needed to be paid to the individuals involved. They suspected they would be caught and fined. When they were they paid the fines with taxpayer bailout money.
Everybody comes out with what they wanted. The payment from the fine goes to the government so they are greased also. All the players get a taste. The taxpayer pays for everything and wonders what happened and most taxpayers figure that that the penalty paid was fitting punishment.
Just speculation on my part. I could be wrong on this. However this thought style usually gets the correct answer.
The trick in all scams is to take gains personally and to give liabilities to the taxpayers. Does that help any?
33 million is simply a few pennies in terms of the money involved in this. That said, shareholder lawsuits will eat up considerably more.
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