Bank of America (
NYSE:BAC,
Stock Forum), a member of the ‘Too Big to Fail’ financial institution family that helped cripple the global economy in 2009 with shady and outright illegal dealings mostly involving its handling of toxic subprime mortgages, is under the gun by the US Justice Department and according to sources, may actually be on the hook for $12.0 billion in order to settle Justice Department probes.
Neither the Justice Department nor Bank of America would comment on the proceedings although those familiar with the negotiations were quoted in a Wall Street Journal article published yesterday naming the multi-billion dollar figure.
It was also reported in that article, that as much as $5.0 billion of $12.0 billion would allocated toward consumer relief in order to reduce principal amounts and monthly payments, and paying for blight removal in struggling neighborhoods.
Having a look at Bank of America’s ‘colorful’ and extensive track record however, takes the wind out of this announcement. This is an institution that after promising to help the mortgage holders it had screwed continued with illegal robo-signing activity in order to pursue predatorily and illegal foreclosures on said mortgage holders, even after being caught out by government agencies.
Add that to a collection of other heinous offenses such as LIBOR rate fixing, the off-loading of much of their toxic debt to both Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and state pension funds in Iowa, Maine and Mississippi, the bank’s sly shifting of Merril Lynch’s monstrous toxic debt onto the bank’s federally insured balance sheet leaving the American tax payer on the hook for an estimated $55.0 trillion in potential losses and you have an institution that has repeatedly stuck it to the government and the tax payer with no remorse and a corporate hand approximately $7.7 trillion dollars deep in public coffers through secret loans handed out by the Fed.
So if pigs begin to fly and the $12.0 billion is set as a fine, it doesn’t even come close to repaying the damage this ‘bank’ has wreaked upon the American public and the World economy, and if the Bank of America actually does pay up, it’s coming out of the tax payer’s pocket. It’s time to put a gun to the corporate head of this ridiculously run and openly thieving institution, and put it out of our misery.