$11 million dollars to two executives? Gosh that would have been a nice bit of profit for BoA.
I agree 100%, which is why I find Moynihan’s quotes so amusing. There were many things he could have said to justify the fee like “We believe these fees will be standard fare given the new regulatory landscape of retail banking*”, instead he claimed a right to earn a profit.
It reminds me of a basketball player, Latrell Sprewell, who refused a $20M contract offer. Now, he could have said anything to justify that refusal, such as “I believe it is undervalued, and other teams will offer more”, what he actually said was “I have a family to feed.”
If you think their business model isn’t sound, then you’ve got a great opportunity to set up a competing business and run their asses into the ground. It’s been done hundreds of times.
I don’t know that it follows that the rate of mistakes would necessarily be the same or greater. It is certainly conceivable that a smaller operation would have better overall oversight and understanding of what the left and right hands are doing. I agree that focusing on these oversights as if they alone are the problem is foolish. However I do believe that taken in aggregate along with all of the other banking, investment, and mortgage issues of the past few years it begins to pain a pretty clear picture.
I’d be willing to go so far as to agree that BofA is a victim of the Fed influence and push to keep the economic growth rolling. However, I think it is also pretty obvious that the tearing down of the wall between deposit banking and investment banking is what allowed this financial disaster to reach such massive proportions. If there is nothing inherently different about these massive financial corporations I have to wonder why the amendment that has spawned this response from BofA was only targeted at banks with more than $10 billion in assets and how it ever passed? These banks have to have some lobbying power.
In the end though, there needs to be a special place in hell for Dick Durbin also. Despite his claims of being shocked, shocked I tell you, that the banks have instituted these fees, he had to have known or been told that it was a likely possibility.
Did you see BoA was up 14% last week? How is that even possible? The best stock (on a weekly basis) I have seen this year.
The financial sector received a general rise when the European deal was struck. Considering I bought a 1,000 shares when it was $6.57, it needs to go a little higher. 
Yeah, it had nothing to do with BofA itself. It had to do with the deal to fix the European problems. The whole stock market did great on that news.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/29/opinion/what-the-costumes-reveal.html?_r=1 The bankers and the people working for them don’t get it. Dressing up as a homeless person they foreclosed on, shows what they are like. It isn’t pretty.
The real horror of that story is the thought of an office holiday party that starts in the morning, runs to noon, and then you’re expected to start actually working.
In their defense, they’re financial lawyers. It’s like an accountant squared. Forgive them for not quite grasping every intricacy of the whole “party” concept.
Yes, so instead of reading his comments in specific context and in the context of what you know about businesspeople in general, you choose to take his words utterly literally so you can kid yourself the guy is a stupid asshole.
The alternative is to aim for comprehension. I suspect that wouldn’t suit you here.
There is no context for stupid. He is a not-stupid man who said a stupid thing. I guarantee, if he had a prepared speech, “we have a right to a profit” wasn’t in it. He’s giving a rah-rah speech to the “troops” and gets himself worked up over the fact that his bank is in PR hell, and said something stupid.
It’s not like he didn’t mean what he said, I firmly and truly believe that he meant what he said in the moment he said it, he just got himself to a point where he meant to say something that was stupid. Therefore, I get to feel all superior from my little desk and mock the guy who probably made more money this year than I will in my entire life. He can take it.
Your position doesn’t need further contradiction. Your last few posts contradict themselves to a degree that, were I you, I’d be embarrassed to have hit send on them. Your position is more convoluted than an orgy at a snake convention.
You’re either a troll, a retard, or a shill if you can’t see why what the CEO said was stupid.
We’re all embarrassed by different things. Me, I’d be embarrassed about defending scum sucking property lawyers who think it’s funny to mock the people they kick out into the street. But I’m odd that way, I guess.
I prefer interchange fees because my credit card kicks back some of the to me. I’m currently getting back 1.2% of the gross amount charged on the card each month. I guess that’s about a third of the interchange fee they get from the merchants. Since I pay off the card every month, and there’s no other fees, the credit card bank is effectively paying me to use their card. So I do. If they change the terms, or another bank offers a better deal, I’ll reconsider.