Update: Lynch (D-MA) unloads on Geithner; Market Mover Wednesday: Geithner, Paulson AIG testimony on the Hill…
Gee Lynch in Massachusetts seems a little edgy wonder why?!
CNBC will carry the hearings on livestream here (10:00am EST) . WSJ covers the emails here. Lots of previous posts on the AIG bailout. FD-We are former employees/shareholders…
Update: CNBC reports Lewis to step down by end of year; Cuomo/BofA Smackdown: It’s On! (again)
Update 09/30: Charlie Gasparino is reporting that Ken Lewis has been pushed out (the stmt says he stepped down but I call BS)!! This is HUGE! WOTS was he had TOTAL BACKING OF THE BOARD! Recall BofA is centred in Charlotte, NC far from the Wall St shenanigans but Lewis got sucked into the ‘eeeevil banker’ canard PLUS the added bonus of ‘hide the bonuses’ with Thain. I for one would never want Andy Cuomo on my trail if I had a blessed thing to hide!
Vodpod videos no longer available.
(Reminder FD- MiM are shareholders in both BofA and were MER shareholders as well pre merger)
Bank of America’s CEO Ken Lewis, the embattled head of the nation’s biggest bank, told the board he plans to step down by the end of the year.
Lewis wasn’t asked to step down and the decision was not the result of any regulatory action, sources told CNBC. No successor has been named yet….
Original post after the break:
Hank Paulson on the Hill…
Reminder, here is where we were almost a year ago now, the world was ending and Hank was in a sea of flotsam and jetsom trying to keep us afloat..do I like what he did, hell no, am I glad TOTUS and Timmeh werent alone at the reins then? Hell yes!
Update: Video as it is available…
Watching them grill Hank on the Hill
Live feed here
IMO this is bad, very very bad..
This is what they would do with a CIA investigation of ‘Torture’…go back and question shxt they knew about and never opened their mouths about before to look good….
They are going back and questioning every aspect of decisions they KNEW at the time were being madem, that they rolled over for..
After 9/11, after the collapse of Lehman, things were not ‘normal’
Never thought I could feel bad for Hank but I do..
This is a witch hunt and a kangaroo court and a clusterfark all rolled into one…
These people have NO CLUE about the financial system, and the things they are allowing Team TOTUS to do RIGHT NOW IMO far outweigh what Hank did with TARP and BofA and Merrill…
Shit Chrysler Senior Debtholders were threatened a few months ago, none of these Congress critters made a peep..
These are the same tools who LOVED them some Hank in October of 2008…
Hank does not look well….
The Critters are frankly really interrogating him at this point…cutting him off…beating him up and bullying him in fact with emails he has never seen…this is a guy they schmoozed like crazy, a guy who like it or not saved the system form collapsing, I do not agree with everything they did and didnt want TARP but we HAVE A FINANCIAL SYSTEM TODAY b/c Hank did something, unlike the Congress who was clueless and led by Nancy who was busy interfering with national elections and not minding the store….
Dennis Kucinich has bene on a MISSION to get Ken Lewis fired and BofA shareholders a nifty lawsuit, he is on CNBC now attacking Paulson….
Update: CIT Group files bankruptcy; No Government aid for CIT….Thursday Market Mover: Paulson on the Hill…
Update: 11/2/09: Bad, sad news, CIT Group went belly-up this weekend despite the 2B taxpayer infusion and the Carl Icahn offer. Bad news for small business. But it is an attempt to dump the debt and live on, so maybe it will live to fight another day.
CIT Group Inc. filed for bankruptcy protection Sunday, in a final attempt to restructure and keep the doors open at the century-old commercial lender.
Now, the lender to nearly a million small and midsize businesses must maintain its customer base as it tries to rehabilitate under Chapter 11 protection. Most financial firms sell off assets or liquidate in bankruptcy amid fears that customers will draw down credit lines and spark a run on the bank.
But CIT garnered support from about 90% of voting debt holders for a prepackaged reorganization plan that could allow the lender to speed through Chapter 11 and emerge with a new business model by year’s end. Under the plan, bondholders will exchange their debt for new debt that matures later, as well as nearly all the equity in a reorganized CIT.
The bankruptcy stay would eliminate some $10 billion in debt from the lender’s balance sheet, the company said. CIT has been weighed down by more than $30 billion in bond debt.
A $2.3 billion taxpayer bailout extended to CIT late last year under the Bush administration will be wiped out in the bankruptcy. Common shareholders will be wiped out, too.
The plan is among the first attempts to restructure a financial firm in bankruptcy court and have it emerge relatively intact. The board approved CIT’s decision to seek Chapter 11 protection in a meeting Sunday. “The board appreciated that this is a [historic] sort of filing,” said a person close to the lender. “It is clearly unprecedented.”…
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Charlie Gasparino is reporting on CNBC’s Kudlow that Sheila (Bair of FDIC) brought the hammer down and drew the line in the sand saying NO MORE BAILOUTS…shxt it would have to be on small business that the money train dried up eh?
Well, we love Sheila here at MiM (we wanted her or Jamie Dimon of JPMC for Treasury)and Timmeh was saying from Saudia Arabia that he was confident they would find a way to do the bailout, so we enjoy it when his toes are stepped on, bitter and petty that’s us today fer shure, BWAAAAHAAAA.
Hope Sheila’s foot met Timmeh’s axx on this one, FDIC should have the too big to fail wipeout authority IMO not the Fed and for Gawds sake not the Treasury….
CNBC on imminent CIT bankruptcy following FDIC and Treasury decision not to bailout…
… CIT Group, a major lender to small- and mid-sized U.S. businesses, said on Wednesday that talks with the government to bail out the company had ended, a development that could make bankruptcy likely.
…”Discussions with government agencies have ceased,” the New York-based company said in a statement. “There is no appreciable likelihood of additional government support being provided over the near term.”
The announcement came after last-ditch talks in which Treasury Department had been concerned about a worsening liquidity crunch at CIT over the last few days, and that government aid would not put the lender on a path to recovery….
Tomorrow BIG NEWS will be HANK PAULSON testifying on Capitol Hill about the Merrill BofA shenanigans, should be lots of fun. Hanks is the man who handed free market capitalism over to the government and then retired with hundreds of thousands of Golden Slacks shares…..Hank Hank Hank, when he sees whatis happening now how does he feel? He opened this door and TOTUS swagga’d through it….
Our MANY posts on Hank, Timmeh, AIG, Merrill, BofA, CITIBANK, Sheila, are too numerous to link…
Smashing Pumpins fan made video with footage of Tours in France, courtesy of buissonland
Update: Bernanke gets Grilled on the Hill…
Update: Ben doing very very well in his testimony, Markets are ecstatic about it, Dow up 148…
Fed Chairman Bernanke under subpoena before Issa and Towns’ House Oversight and Government Reform Panel on BofA/Merrill merger
CNBC Live Stream Here
Ben’s prepared statement:
…Bernanke, in prepared testimony to a House committee investigating the matter, said he did not threaten action against Bank of America’s CEO Kenneth Lewis or the bank’s board members if they decided to abandon the takeover.
“Neither I nor any member of the Federal Reserve ever directed, instructed or advised Bank of America to withhold from public disclosure any information relating to Merrill Lynch, including its losses, compensation packages or bonuses or any other related matter,” the Fed chief said.It marked Bernanke’s first public comments since the House committee launched an investigation earlier this year into whether he or other government officials bullied Bank of America to stick with its plan to combine the two financial powers after Lewis found out about Merrill’s financial woes….
FD-MiM are shareholders…a list of our previous posts here
Update: Paulson to Lewis on BofA Merrill Merger, An Offer He Couldn’t Refuse?
Update: In Depth View via Bloomberg:
Vodpod videos no longer available.
Our previous posts on the Clash of these Bank, Trading and Finance Titans here
Disclaimer: MiM are Merrill/BofA shareholders, our view is pretty damn biased as a result..
Was Timmeh in the room and in the loop? He was head of NY Fed then, betcha he was in the loop…..
Andrew Cuomo has his teeth in and he has that bulldog lockjaw thing happenin’ as he gets ready to run in 2010, Cuomo v Giuliani would be sweet!
Ken Lewis is SOL, shareholders are rightfully pixxed as all get out if he let Hank bully him into waiving withdrawing form the merger under MAC provisions. Material Adverse Change, which is what the MER losses were at that point according to Lewis’ testimony to Cuomo
…BUT even if he stood up to Hank and pushed ahead and went to court in DE, Hank is right in what he told Lewis anyway, DE is a tough fight on MAC, and it would have likely turned out BofA could NOT withdraw under MAC as with proper DUE DILIGENCE they should have KNOWN these losses were coming…either way Lewis is Fired CEO Walking…
Moderate in the Middle 