Tag Archives: BofA

The New York Times Authors the Most Ironic Sentence of the Crisis

By William K. Black

The author of the most brilliantly comedic statement ever written about the crisis is Landon Thomas, Jr.  He does not bury the lead.  Everything worth reading is in the first sentence, and it should trigger belly laughs nationwide.

“Bank of America, one of the nation’s largest banks, was found liable on Wednesday of having sold defective mortgages, a jury decision that will be seen as a victory for the government in its aggressive effort to hold banks accountable for their role in the housing crisis.”

“The government,” as a statement of fact so indisputable that it requires neither citation nor reasoning, has been engaged in an “aggressive effort to hold banks accountable for their role in the housing crisis.”  Yes, we have not seen such an aggressive effort since Captain Renault told Rick in the movie Casablanca that he was “shocked” to discover that there was gambling going on (just before being handed his gambling “winnings” which were really a bribe).

Continue reading

Is B of A the Most Embarrassing Department of Justice Suit Ever?

By William K. Black

The Department of Justice’s (DOJ) latest civil suit against Bank of America (B of A) is an embarrassment of tragic proportions on multiple dimensions.  In this version I explore “only” seven of its epic fails.

The two most obvious fails (except to the most of the media, which failed to mention either) are that the DOJ has once again refused to prosecute either the elite bankers or bank that committed what the DOJ describes as massive frauds and that the DOJ has refused to bring even a civil suit against the senior officers of the banks despite filing a complaint that alleges facts showing that those officers committed multiple felonies that made them wealthy by causing massive harm to others.  Those two fails should have been the lead in every article about the civil suit.

Continue reading

Why are there no famous financial whistleblowers in this crisis?

By William K. Black

This column discusses one of the more subtle issues raised by the Department of Justice’s (DOJ’s) civil fraud action against Bank of America (B of A).  The issue was so subtle that of the three articles about the lawsuit that I choose to review the night after the suit was filed, only the NYT article mentioned one of the most important aspects of the suit – the key role that the whistleblower played in making the action possible.  The AP and the WSJ articles ignored the fact.

Continue reading

How “Brazen” does a Bankster’s Fraud have to be before he’s Prosecuted?

By William K. Black

I’ll get the obvious out of the way first and then turn in future columns to the aspects of the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) civil suit against Bank of America (B of A)/Countrywide that are vital to understand but are more subtle.  The obvious issue arises from the facts that the DOJ alleges that its investigation has found.  The complaint and the DOJ press release state that elite financial criminals committed tens of thousands of “brazen” frauds targeting U.S. government funds.  Continue reading