<p>I think the best financial writer is a guy who writes for The Rolling Stone.</p>
<p>Pretty sad state of affairs.</p>
<p>Anyway BofA…sucks taxpayer money…and is another scummy company. The subsidies this company gets are pretty mindboggling.</p>
<p>This company must have really lost an incredible amount of money.</p>
<p>“Bank of America: Too Crooked to Fail The bank has defrauded everyone from investors and insurers to homeowners and the unemployed. So why does the government keep bailing it out?”</p>
<p>“Oh, and one more thing, since we’re talking about avoiding bills: Bank of America didn’t pay a dime in federal taxes last year. Or the year before. In fact, they got a $1 billion refund last year. They claimed it was because they had pretax losses of $5.4 billion in 2010. They paid out $35 billion in bonuses and compensation that year. You do the math.”</p>
<p>I hate dealing with BOA. I have an estate account there and due to the out of state estate, I thought it was easier to keep the account there. But, they are painful to deal with and I can’t wait to close the estate and pull the money out.</p>
<p>Before I opened the link, I thought it would be a Matt Taibi story. I like his stuff. Now I need to find time to read this one. </p>
<p>BoA just sold our mortgage a few months ago. I was shocked; I thought BoA bought mortgages. Anyway, the new one, Nationstar, is not winning many points with me. No online account access. Hellloooo. It’s 2012. Get with the program. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>When the housing market crashed, everyone suffer. Its the greed of everyone of us that did the economy in. No question, the big insitutions show the most “greed”, but how about those home owners upgarde their homes on OPM frequently and spend the loot lavishly?</p>
<p>Can you tell me which bank in America did differently from BOA? And was the savier of homeowners that defaulted? This article throwed out lots of accusations without any facts. He could not because he does not know. He only infered to the wrong doings based on several law suits that is publically known without any details.</p>
<p>I think the worst mistake of BOA was to takeover Countrywide.</p>
<p>“The Fed didn’t tell anyone which banks were in trouble so deep they required a combined $1.2 trillion on Dec. 5, 2008, their single neediest day. Bankers didn’t mention that they took tens of billions of dollars in emergency loans at the same time they were assuring investors their firms were healthy. And no one calculated until now that banks reaped an estimated $13 billion of income by taking advantage of the Fed’s below-market rates, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its January issue.”</p>
<p>These ARE articles written by reporters, if you want to know the details, you need to live in th Congress or the Fed Courts to study the filings, which no one will do. The reporters want to sell their story, in many cases, they pick the infor they want to report and “exagurated” a little.</p>
<p>But you have not answered my question: Which bank(s) are Better than BOA?</p>
<p>yup, the fed has rescued the banks, so what do you want? to see all the banking systems failure? if so what would that put YOU in? will you be able to get loans for your new house?</p>
<p>"Some of the biggest names on Wall Street are lining up to become landlords to cash-strapped Americans by bidding on pools of foreclosed properties being sold by Fannie Mae.</p>
<p>The idea is that the new owners would rent out the homes at first rather than reselling—potentially aiding a housing-market recovery by reducing the number of properties clogging the market. The fact that big-name investors are interested also suggests they anticipate sizable future profits in housing.</p>
<p>Bulk sales, however, pose a trade-off. While the current approach of selling homes one-by-one has its own high costs and is sometimes inefficient, selling properties …"</p>
<p>You can point out all the problems you wanted. But what can you do about? That is the more important. Occpation Wall Street? To me it is crying baby, just like the riots in Greece. Be constructive, tell everyone your positive thinkings, not dwelling on the past.</p>
<p>Acutcally I think American is heeling from the wonds and I stiil have faith in America.</p>
<p>This economy is so far from a free market economy…</p>
<p>What should be done?</p>
<p>The large banks should be broken up.
Off exchange derivatives should be regulated…
If we are going to subzidize old banks…we should subsidize new banks…
Separate investment banking from commercial banking…and let investment banks fail.
If banks are subsidized…then the pay is regulated.</p>
<p>Hedge funds and PE are going to buy houses en masse. There are pluses and minuses to this…but this isn’t free market America.</p>
<p>You criticized the author of the BofA piece because he criticized a bank…and the system that allows this bank to blow up the system…</p>
<p>And then you give the argument that other institutions did what Bank Of America did…so you are apologizing for the bank’s actions. Everybody did it…so it is ok.
And then you say you are pro- America?</p>
<p>I don’'t find apologists for a broken system more “Pro-America” than people who criticize the system</p>
<p>Apologists don’t move us forward.</p>
<p>People who criticize might want a better America and can be more pro-America
than those that say…shhhhhh…be quiet…</p>
<p>If you don’t have faith in America, you should leave.</p>
<p>I did not appology to anyone. I cannot fix the system, so I am living with it. There are lots of ways to fix the system but I personally have no way to do it. However, I have a vote, I will try to vote for the person who might be able to do it.</p>
<p>Our business tried B of A. Not entirely happy, so tried Wells Fargo. Even worse. Now we’re trying Chase. Hope that’s an improvement but I’m not that optimistic.</p>
<p>From a personal point of view: I’ve never had a problem with B of A. I find my local branch quite responsive.</p>
<p>When we moved here we opened a checking account at the bank in our local downtown, BayBank, because they also happened to have an ATM in H’s office building. BayBank got bought by Fleet Bank, which was in turn bought by Bank of America. We still have our checking account at that same branch. Never had a problem with them, and never had a problem finding an ATM anywhere in the USA. As dmd77 said, our local branch employees are quite helpful and responsive. That and the ability to find an ATM ANYWHERE why we are still checking acct customers. They are starting to nickel-and-dime us on fees though.</p>
<p>Our mortgage is held by a small local bank that does all their own servicing. I may pay a little bit more but its so worth being able to talk to a human being on the phone - or in person.</p>