Friday, February 6, 2009

Absurd, Ken? Not really.

Ken Lewis, Bank of America's chief executive officer, swears talk of bank "nationalization" is absurd.

There's no chance, he says, Bank of America will be "nationalized," or taken over by the government.
Watch the video here.
Really? Absurd? That's not what others are saying. An article in Time makes a persuasive case that nationalization may be the inevitable path out of the nation's banking crisis. Check it out here.


- posted by Mary Schulken






8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I believe what is absurd is that Ken Lewis still has his job. He should be thrown out with no compensation of any kind and nationalization of BofA is a realistic means to get it back under control. The current management team cannot be trusted.

Anonymous said...

wow no wonder hes buying up all those shares

Anonymous said...

Every socialist is a disguised dictator!!

Anonymous said...

Oh, yeah. I'm going to take financial advice from someone who works for McClatchy, a company that is mere days away from being delisted from the stock market.

Anonymous said...

First anon said: "The current management team cannot be trusted."

Which one? The BofA team or the Feds that forced them into the ML fiasco?

I'd believe a banker before a politician any day.

Anonymous said...

I agree with you Nancy, but I think this may be helping the government overtake the banking industry. Most small banks that asked for money have not gotten any. Only ones getting money are the big banks and CITI is losing a bundle just like BOA. The government says it bought preferred stock in the banks. I do not think you have to sell stock back if you do not want to.

Anonymous said...

I don't know if Ken Lewis deserves to keep his job or not, but I do know I want a "sacrifical cow" to bear away my frustrations and anger and that cow might as well be Lewis.

Anonymous said...

I do part of my banking at SECU (the credit union). They don't seem to be having any problems, and the execs there make a comfortable living, not gazillions of dollars. At what point do people acknowledge that unvarnished greed might be at work here? Did Hugh McColl HAVE to buy banks and keep getting bigger? What was wrong with running a top-notch regional bank and making, maybe $400,000 a year? Couldn't he live on that? The problem was allowing these monopolies to grow.