barnburner

No Happy Ending for Auction Rate Securities Mess - Barron's

Well, maybe I paraphrased what sebiamo said.

No Happy Ending for Auction Rate Securities Mess - Barron's

sebiamo, great post. It really pisses me off to see these investment bank (an other) CEOs leave the company on the brink of bankruptcy and walk away with a golden parachute and a million dollar bonus. As you said, if we are going to be put in the position of having to bail these bastards out then the least that we can expect is oversight and regulation with teeth-like jail terms and restitution for the investor

The Bank of America Bug

If the Fed wasnt backing the countrywide deal maybe BAC wouldnt have done the deal. Everyone knows about the credit card potential risk hanging over the financial heads of banks but it hasnt happened yet and if things were as bad as touted by the pundits one would think the unraveling would have begun by now. It´s interesting that BAC is going to lay off 7500 employees but there is no talk (yet) of cutting the dividend.

Bank of America's Parking Meter Play

I have an Alaska Airlines credit card but it's really a Bank of Americas "Alaska Airlines credit card". I like the air-miles that pile up in my Alaska account BUT - Three years ago I moved to Mexico. I started to put a lot of charges on my card which was nice as everyone in Mexico accepted the card and I got the international exchange rate on each transaction which was a better deal than changing money at the banks here in Mexico. Alas, the good deal went away and BAC now charges me 2.99% foreign exchange transaction fee for each use of the card outside the U.S. so even though I pay my card off every month I am still getting whacked the foreign exchange transaction fee Plus the yearly fee just for the privilege of having the damn card