Obama is Bush part 3

Consumers Confident Wells Fargo Will Survive

Wells Fargo's assets are concentrated in California -- but supposedly Wells Fargo was infinitely more conservative than any of its competitors. At the same time, Wells supposedly made similar returns to its more risky competitors. I for one do not believe there is such a thing as a free lunch

Now Wells has merged with Wachovia, paying whatever positive nominal sum for a bank with a negative net worth. Wachovia comes with the disaster that finished it off -- Great Western Savings ... whose underwater assets are based in California.

Even if Well's asset mix was markedly better than the market average before (which is hard to swallow) -- they now must add in all the garbage they got from Great Western via Wachovia. There is no way asset quality could possibly be anything but worse following the merger

And as Bank America has learned, if you pay a positive amount for an asset worth less than zero -- you will have future losses