Bank of America Is Breaking Itself In Half

By tote     Thu Sep 08, 2011   

That's right. BofA will be forming two separate entities. They will also be closing 600 local branches. This news comes on top of the 10,000 job cuts announced just a couple of weeks ago.

According to WCNC of Charlotte, North Carolina [!], (via the huffpo), America's biggest bank will be going back to a Glass-Steagal model with separate commercial and financial wings. This news would bode well, but for two reasons: first, BofA's commercial wing has been in real trouble since the takeover of countrywide and the numerous troubled mortgages on countrywide's books. I smell an excuse to let the financial wing start leveraging again without knowing what the commercial wing is doing, which may not bode well for most of its commerical customers (which I would guess is most of us).

Second, the closing of 600 branches does not bode well for the US jobs market, and is unlikely to do much to improve the decline in BofA's shares either. I don't see any way that this move improves investor confidence in America's largest Bank. This story is still developing, though. I'll have more analysis throughout the day, but for now I wanted to get it out there. More from the intrepid folks at WCNC on some of the internal shakeup:

This announcement comes just days after Bank of America shook up its management ranks on Tuesday, announcing that two key officers will leave and promoting two others to share the chief operating officer role.

Sallie Krawcheck, head of global wealth and investment management, is leaving. A Citigroup veteran, she was hired in late 2009 toward the end of Lewis' tenure.

Joe Price, president of the consumer bank, will also leave. He was the chief financial officer under Lewis.

Moynihan moved him to run the retail bank, Moynihan's old job, in 2010, and Moynihan at the time said the change represented his confidence in Price.

David Darnell, a longtime Bank of America veteran who was elevated to the top ranks by Lewis, will become co-chief operating officer.

He will share the newly created position with Tom Montag, who joined Bank of America when it bought his employer, Merrill Lynch, at the start of 2009

If BofA was on deathwatch already, I don't see how this does anything but decrease their chances, but I'm more interested in what you think!

8:34 AM PT: The link seems to have gone down. Here's another story from doc2, making slightly milder claims about the division: http://www.thestreet.com/...

8:45 AM PT: h/t jimstaro, apparently BofA is vehemently denying that anything has changed (short of the shakeups and previously announced 10% of branches closing, with the attendant 10,000 estimated jobs)

Technorati Tags: BofA,Bank of America,Glass-Steagal,Current Events,Finance

The GOP War On Voting Is In Full Swing

News Corpse   Media Watch   Sat Sep 03, 2011

Rolling Stone just published an enlightening, albeit disturbing, article detailing the coordinated effort on the part of the Republican Party to roll back voting rights for millions of Americans. With the help of the American Legislative Exchange Council [ALEC], the billionaire Koch brothers, and other rightist allies, the GOP has already succeeded in passing legislation that inhibits and/or prohibits voting by students, seniors, minorities, and the poor.

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The article goes into great depth describing the GOP assault on democracy and the potential for disenfranchisement and electoral chaos. Some groups, including the ACLU, are challenging the new laws in court. But if these laws can't be overturned in time for 2012, citizens will need to more aggressively pursue registration and get-out-the-vote campaigns than ever before.

The movement to Block the Vote has become such a critical part of the Republican agenda that they are casting aside the pretense of voter fraud as a justification for their efforts. They were never able to provide evidence of that anyway. Now, Matthew Vadum, a conservative columnist associated with WorldNetDaily, American Spectator, and BigGovernment, wrote an article for the ultra-conservative American Thinker provocatively titled, "Registering the Poor to Vote is Un-American." Here's an excerpt:

"Registering [the poor] to vote is like handing out burglary tools to criminals.  It is profoundly antisocial and un-American to empower the nonproductive segments of the population to destroy the country -- which is precisely why Barack Obama zealously supports registering welfare recipients to vote. [...] Encouraging those who burden society to participate in elections isn't about helping the poor.  It's about helping the poor to help themselves to others' money."

When the right is this comfortable openly expressing their hostility toward both democracy and working-class Americans, either the wheels are about to come off that wagon, or we have an epic battle on our hands. It's all out in the open now. The conservative view is one that would permit only landowners (and preferably just the male, white ones) to vote. Any American that does not represent the elite class is somehow invested in the nation's ruin and is only concerned with narrow, self-interests. And of course, the rich are never so selfish. They never vote for their own interests. All they want is what's best for everyone, even the little people who shouldn't be allowed to vote. Whatever would we do without these benevolent guardians of virtue watching over us and voting on our behalf?

It's hard to imagine a more repulsive philosophy. These are the same people that align themselves with the Founding Fathers and a return to Constitutional rule. These are the same people that have deceived a small, gullible segment of the electorate, that calls itself the Tea Party, and has manipulated theme into advocating policies that are harmful to themselves. And these are the same people who now want to take away the most fundamental right of every American - the right to vote.

Whatever we do, we cannot permit this cynical agenda to succeed. This is a fight that will determine the outcome of every other fight we undertake. It is imperative that real patriots commit themselves to ensuring that everyone who wants to vote has an opportunity to do so. The more people who participate in the electoral process, the more representative our political institutions will be. And it's about time that they represent the people and not corporations and wealthy special interests.

Some additional resources:
ThinkProgress
People for the American Way

 

Technorati Tags: ALEC,Republican Party,GOP,Koch Brothers,2012 Elections,Voters Rights,Rolling Stone,Current Events,Political News,American Taliban