By God,they'll stop stonewalling now. Refusing to obey a subpoena is a SERIOUS offense. Doubt ol' Kenny Boy will want to be somebody's bitch to protect the pirates at Merrill.

We are about to see if the well connected and powerful are above the law.

@Snarkysnake: No Bush to step in give them a free pass this time around.

They're stalling while everyone puts the money in offshore accounts and buries it their back yards ("feed the hole").

Eventually the AG will the information and they hang their heads in shame....and due to the weight of all that bling around their necks from the bonus

@Snarkysnake: About to?

These people should burn in hell. How in the world do these execs say that their workers deserve a bonus when they company as a whole needs to be bailed out just to survive another month! Every employee higher up should have been fired before they received any money.

Hello, lengthy litigation process. Anybody know the precedent for forcing companies to publicly disclose payroll records?

Also, taking bets on which newspaper will be the first to discover and publish that list. My dollar's on the Post.

Note to Elliot Spitzer: This is how you do things. Go after the big dogs, not radio stations and payola.

I'd vote for Cuomo.

@hypnotik_jello: Uh, you mean Barney Frank, right?

@Snarkysnake: "We are about to see if the well connected and powerful are above the law." Maybe BoA should ask for a list of whores that the former NY atty general ordered? Above the law is right

This is grandstanding by the current atty general. BoA attorneys know what they are doing

@Snarkysnake: Karl Rove has gotten away with ignoring them for years; why not the bankers, too?

@Snarkysnake: they could get the subpoena quashed, so don't necessarily expect that this means anything at all.

it could result in an interesting precedent in business law though - does the state have the right to know information like this that is normally not required to be disclosed by companies?

Did BofA break any law? Or is this just public outrage?

@BuddyGuyMontag: well, spitzer did take on the largest insurance co. in the world, so i don't think your characterization is entirely fair.

@edebaby: How many people has Barney Frank used Exeutive Privilege to exempt from prosecution? I can't remember the number, something like a billion? Billion six?

@t-r0y: Mostly the latter (though I won't fault a legal team for wanting to investigate for the former if they feel they have cause).

I nearly threw something at the (new) TV this morning when GMA -- which 15 years ago at least had a cheap veneer of respectability on its news coverage -- was going ON and ON and ON about "HOW DARE HE USE A PRIVATE JET OBAMA SAID NO MORE PRIVATE JETS AND LOOK BOA WENT AND GOA A PRIVATE JET." The outrages they claim, and the sequence in which they claim them, have pretty much nothing to do with the last six months of reality.

Is there much to be angry about? Oh hells yes. But the media have gone so far away from genuine fact-based reporting and so far into outrage for outrage's sake that I keep the TV on mute except for the weather and traffic updates.

I'm a bit of a moron here when it comes to litigation. Even if the attorney general get this info, what do they plan to do with it or CAN they even do anything with it? Is this part of that whole "oversight" thing about where the bailout money should go?

Sorry for asking what is (probably) a question with an obvious answer.

Mr. Lewis complained that he had no idea that the bonuses were paid, that Merrill Lynch put one over on him, that he did not want to go through the deal to buy Merrill.

Now he is refusing to help investigators?
It only makes sense if he knew about it all along.

@Custodial_Ninja: Not a stupid question as the AG has yet to state why they want the info. I think they want to see what the top brass got at the bank so they can bring them in and question them as to why when they knew they had such a huge loss and tax payer money they still accepted their bonus.

I doubt they can make anyone pay it back.

Hmmmm, how is BofA responsible for payments made out to people of ML BEFORE BofA brought out ML???

That is what GMA had on this morning, the payments were made BEFORE BofA brought out ML...

Problem being, that when they track the people down, the money is *gone*. It's in some offshore un-traceable account and we can't touch it.

@Etoiles: Bet those GMA personalities don't hop-scotch around the country on commercial aircraft either. I saw the same thing and had the same reaction: "enough already, we get it."

@Hoss:

Elliot Spitzer is gone. Disgraced. History. AMF.
(justifiably so,btw)

This has nothing that I am aware of to do with him.Nothing.

Without this "grandstanding" by SOMEONE,these people would wipe their feet on the public even more than they already do.The AG in NY was duly elected.He's doing his job.Let the chips fall where they may.

@Snarkysnake: The annoyance that I have is that the state department is not located in albany NY. NY important, but it's not our gov't. I don't know if there was wrong-doing. I agree generally with your statements. BoA is not my favorite enterprise either

@GrandizerGo:

*Wild ass conjecture alert*

I would not be surprised if the AG was trying to determine if the Merril people were involved in a "fraudulent conveyance" of assets from Merrill to um, their own pockets. IF ML was insolvent before the takeover (on a strict accounting basis BAC/ML almost certainly is now), then taking that kind of money could be a crime. If it rendered the entity insolvent or was taken with knowledge that it would bust the new company,that's a big problem for the sticky fingers at the old ML.The new owners could claim that that money should have been awarded by them if they chose.

A crude description of Fraudulent Conveyance :

You're rich. You screw somebody over and they sue you. Too late,(after a verdict),you transfer EVERYTHING into your wife's name.Too late,bro. You've just committed a fraudulent conveyance. You have denied creditors or (reasonably foreseeable)potential creditors assets for recovery.

*End wild ass conjecture*

Either way,it was incredibly stupid and self serving to accelerate their bonuses at ML.

@Custodial_Ninja: i think he's trying to make a case for criminal prosecution since the bonuses were based on fake numbers. the acceleration of the payments certainly points to the possibility of fraud (bonuses were paid ~1 month in advance).

no, they probably won't get any money back, but if they succeed in proving fraud, the feds could use SARBOX to go after the big boys' fortunes.

@Oranges w/ Cheese: Or spent on hookers and booze.

and people seriously believe we shouldn't tax the $%@# out of these people?

i would love it if the irs hired some of their folks and just audited all of the ceos, coos, and various other acronyms of all these banks. and the members of congress, too, for good measure.

bet we'd find enough to fund part of this bailout.

i hate these people.

@Snarkysnake:

This list will not be provided until secrecy is guaranteed and a reasonable basis for knowing the names is provided. Employees of banks receive pay based on the compensation committee's decision and knowing their names is a callow, crude effort by the AG to satify public bloodlust. Lewis and BOA's attorneys have a responsibility to his employees to keep those names from being posted on the fucking city gates like a wanted notice.

After all, what's the basis for the claim? Banks can pay whatever they want, because pay constraints weren't a condition of the original bailout. He perceives "the people's" interest as getting those names in the media - the subpeona isn't intended to produce allegations of wrongdoing. That's the argument of the lawyers, and I believe it will win out.

@Hoss: Maybe not YOUR government, but they are the government of New York. Federal law isn't the only one that matters. The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

@mac-phisto:

That's the public basis for wanting this to take place, but what are the reasons for the investigation? How does a list of bonus recipients make the case for allegations of wrongdoing if we don't know what those allegations are? Furthermore, those recipients of pay are public citizens. What are their rights to privacy? The AG can't just tack their names up in the media - like he plans to - and walk away from the case. That's abusive. Cuomo needs to say why he needs this information, what purpose he intends to use it for, and how he plans to treat those affected. Until he provides good answers to those crucial points he deserves to get shot down.

@Hoss:

I couldn't care less about someone going to whores, but using my taxpayer money to fund these idiots...yeah, thats where I draw the line.

@mac-phisto:

Hmm after accepting taxpayer money... I say yes. The state and federal government have a stake in the business now.

@Oranges w/ Cheese:

Yes, but we have this thing these days called garnishing wages...if they ever intend on working again, we can touch that!

@FrankGrimesJr: While not necessarily the same, A newspaper made a Freedom of Information Act to the Federal Government and created a database of the salary for every federal employee (except FBI, Secret Service, CIA and others whose life or job functions may be conprimised if it became public knowledge that they were federal employees). They have done this for a couple years now and will presumably do it again for 2008.

[php.app.com]

@Etoiles: I think the outrage needs to be directed at Washington (Obama, Senate, House, Democrats, Republicans, Lobbyists, etc). We're in a economic slow down and they keep spending money. OUR MONEY! The hypocrisy is UNBELIEVABLE! What's next? Will I be blasted for saving my extra $13/wk? Will they take it away?

@katieoh:
These people make enough $$ that they can hire expert accountants and tax lawyers who know how to dot every i and cross every t. The tax code is so Byzantine and has so many loopholes and ways to 'hide' income that the richest people will pay very little in taxes.

You'll waste more $$ in an audit then you'll ever recover from them.

Want to get more from them? Simplify the tax code.

@Rachacha: It's pretty easy to figure out the salaries of Fed, State, County and City employees. These are public records, technically.

My mom is a state employee in a county office- she knows what her coworkers and boss make. It's odd, as at a lot of jobs it can be a punishable offense to discuss your salary with your coworkers.

@Oranges w/ Cheese: That's why we should do it collection agency style. Find out the number and just debit it all out of the account at 3am.

@GrandizerGo: I believe it was buried somewhere in the agreement between ML and BoA that ML would be allowed to pay the bonuses and accelerate the schedule of payment.

@ADismalScience:

I can't speak for the AG here,but the public policy issues (including rendering a state and federally regulated entity insolvent) are pretty large ,wouldn't you think ?

Look,Merrill almost certainly held assets belonging to state and local governmnets that were NOT covered by SIPC insurance.The AG has every right to make sure that a bankrupt or insolvent company will not dissipate those assets and deprive their rightful owners of their use.And yes,handing out bonus money when a company is broke is dissipating assets. Make no mistake,BAC and Merrill are giant federal savings bonds. They are busted.It is not "blood lust" to call for some accountability here.

And yes- wanted notices are still around. They are placed by legal authorities in the performance of their jobs.(But TV is much more effective)

And to one other point.Banks cannot pay whatever they want.If they pay an amount that would render the bank insolvent,the friendly local office of the FDIC might want to have a little chat with them. Just because you have plenty of insurance ,you dont have the right to drive at any speed you choose or on the wrong side of the road.

You fools, this is just all part of Cuomo's campaign for governor.

@Snarkysnake: Well said.

@t-r0y: Well, that's a separate issue, and you can choose your economists of choice to believe on the correctness of those actions. (My economists of choice say that government spending is a necessity, and I am inclined to agree with them in large part. Where and on what is another separate issue.)

But the point of the comment thread is that public-anger-based legal investigations rarely serve anyone well.

@BuddyGuyMontag:
Before you vote for Cuomo for anything, take a quick gander at this:

[www.liveleak.com]

and remember that his use of the CRA created the housing bubble and sub-prime crisis. This makes Andrew Cuomo, by several orders of magnitude, more responsible for our current economic woes than the entire gang at Merrill Lynch.

Now, before anyone goes and accuses me of being a Merrill Lynch apologist, let me just say that anyone who allocated bonus for Merrill Lynch after they dove headlong into insolvency, and anyone who has accepted them without returning the bonus money should hang.

Just be aware that Andrew Cuomo is doing his damndest to appear as though he's part of the solution, when he was in fact, a massive part of the problem.

@torgonius: Agree, a easir tax code will make it much harder to hide income.

Taxing the "$%@# out of these people", do you mean just the people at the banks or everyone who happens to earn a good wage? There are lots of people who do earn over 250k who spent most if not all of their 20s in school, who spent their 30s working their asses off for what they have now.

@SynMonger: If the atty general of Louisiana did the same subpeona maybe we'd both see the irony. NY didn't bail out BoA -- NY had no funds to do so. Just because BoA has a few ATMs or such in a state doesn't give some atty general the authority to audit every transaction. Banking is today no a beloved industry -- govt is enjoying the upward move in status (temporarily).

Ed.: Sorry for multiple responsess

@bloatboy:

"and anyone who has accepted them without returning the bonus money should hang."

Sorry, but that was good for a chuckle.

I can't see that happening on anything but a national Opposite Day, except maybe if a few very top execs did it as part of a PR-related mia culpa.

@ADismalScience:

I want you to show me where the constitution says that you have a right to privacy.

You have a right to be secure in your person,house papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures.The right to privacy is right up there with the right to be heard-doesn't exist.

And the AG doesn't have to justify his actions in the court of public opinion. He would have to answer in a court of law if he abuses his power or authority.Conversely, the accused has the presumption of innocence until convicted. Let's try that...

@Etoiles:

They're just giving the "average 'merican" something to wrap their heads (and outrage) around. Airing a detailed audit of the companies finances would just bore the hell out of most people (most especially between 5 and 7 in the morning or whenever the hell GMA is on).

But everyone can get behind "PRIVATE JETS ARE ASSHOLE-TRANSPORT".

IMO the jets are completely irrelevant to the point where they shouldn't even be mentioned. So a flight for an exec and their assistants, underlings, etc. costs $25,000. It's a drop in the bucket, and in no way the cause of the problems we face.

I guess what I'm saying is "agreed".