{"id":7344,"date":"2009-03-06T00:30:07","date_gmt":"2009-03-06T07:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/?p=7344"},"modified":"2009-03-06T00:30:07","modified_gmt":"2009-03-06T07:30:07","slug":"the-subprime-bank-of-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/7344\/the-subprime-bank-of-america\/","title":{"rendered":"The Subprime Bank of America"},"content":{"rendered":"

Remember those impetuous, ne’er do well subprime borrowers and those greedy subprime lenders?\u00a0 Writing about them is sooo… 2007 but I’m happy to report that both greed and reckless abandon are alive and well today….<\/p>\n

…at Bank of America.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Remember Ken Lewis?\u00a0 He’s that sober-faced, bespectacled CEO of the Charlotte-based behemoth that started out as North Carolina National Bank<\/a> and the Bank of Italy<\/a> in San Francisco.\u00a0 Ken has presided over Bank of America since 2001.\u00a0 Since then, he’s been binging on banks<\/a> like a subprime borrower stripped equity out of the old ranch:\u00a0 He bought Fleet Bank in 2004, MBNA in 2005, and ABN-AMRO, LaSalle Bank, and US Trust Company in 2007.<\/p>\n

That wasn’t enough.\u00a0 Like a subprime borrower addicted to Vegas, strippers, and shiny new Hummers,\u00a0 he was having too much fun to see the market turn.\u00a0 What did Ken do while the house of cards was a-tumblin’?<\/p>\n

He bought Countrywide Financial, America’s largest mortgage originator.<\/p>\n

Still, that wasn’t enough.\u00a0 Like a crack-addict jonesin’ for a last hit on the pipe, Ken absorbed America’s largest securities brokerage, Merrill Lynch.\u00a0 Just like the crack addict who spent his welfare check on that last hit, Ken took money from the government to cure his fix for power.<\/p>\n

Wall Street doesn’t like what Ken’s done.\u00a0 Since the bailout binge, BAC has dropped from $37 to about three bucks as it became America’s largest subprime lender\/servicer (Countrywide originated a boatload of subprime, option ARMs, and Alt-A paper while Merrill’s First Franklin was in the top three of subprime lenders).\u00a0 A guy that eschewed the whole “subprime” lending market<\/a> jumped into the deep end, drunk with power.<\/p>\n

Now, it’s not just Wall Street that’s calling for Ken’s head.\u00a0 It seems that the unions’ pension fund managers are pissed off, too<\/a>:<\/p>\n

CtW Investment Group, which said its affiliated funds own 116 million Bank of America shares, faulted Lewis for not backing out of the merger or revealing Merrill’s losses in a timely manner, and letting Merrill pay $3.6 billion in executive bonuses just before the merger closed.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

It said Lewis’ actions have contributed to a 90 percent drop in Bank of America’s share price Read more<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Remember those impetuous, ne’er do well subprime borrowers and those greedy subprime lenders?\u00a0 Writing about them is sooo… 2007 but I’m happy to report that both greed and reckless abandon are alive and well today…. …at Bank of America. Remember Ken Lewis?\u00a0 He’s that sober-faced, bespectacled CEO of the Charlotte-based behemoth that started out as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,26],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-7344","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-investment","7":"category-lending","9":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1555,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1555\/subprime-lending-fallout-goes-upstream-to-take-down-two-major-hedge-funds-what-does-this-mean-to-real-estate-investors\/","url_meta":{"origin":7344,"position":0},"title":"Subprime Lending Fallout Goes Upstream to Take Down Two Major Hedge Funds: What does this Mean To Real Estate Investors?","author":"Cooksquared","date":"June 20, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Two major Bear Stearns Hedge Funds face foreclosure due to their significant exposure to the subprime lending market. While this does not fall under the category of real estate investor, I spent last summer working for Bear Stearns and interacting with many of their hedge funds. Based on the very\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10965,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/10965\/why-stop-with-the-bath-water-when-you-can-throw-out-the-baby-at-no-additional-charge\/","url_meta":{"origin":7344,"position":1},"title":"Why Stop With the Bath Water When You Can Throw Out the Baby At No Additional Charge?","author":"Mark Green","date":"January 23, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Full disclosure: I'm neither Democrat nor Republican. I'm neither Mortgage Broker nor Mortgage Banker. I am a consumer - just like you. I haven't been over here to play as often as I'd like because of some other projects I've been passionately pursuing. \u00a0My bad, because this is still the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Egoism in Action"","block_context":{"text":"Egoism in Action","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/egoism-in-action\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1855,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1855\/the-new-york-times-goes-on-a-countrywide-manhunt\/","url_meta":{"origin":7344,"position":2},"title":"The New York Times goes on a Countrywide manhunt","author":"Greg Swann","date":"August 25, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"The New York Times on the Countrywide mess and how the company got there:ON its way to becoming the nation\u2019s largest mortgage lender, the Countrywide Financial Corporation encouraged its sales force to court customers over the telephone with a seductive pitch that seldom varied. \u201cI want to be sure you\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Lending"","block_context":{"text":"Lending","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/lending\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2153,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/2153\/hr-3915-exploring-the-minds-of-the-enablers\/","url_meta":{"origin":7344,"position":3},"title":"HR 3915: Exploring the Minds of the Enablers","author":"Brian Brady","date":"November 3, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"HR 3915 is referred to as the Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act of 2007. It was introduced by Congressman Barney Frank of Massachusetts. I explored some libertarian thought about the bill here. I spent the last few days, perusing supporting messages, to discover if I might be mistaken. This\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Investment"","block_context":{"text":"Investment","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/investment\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2543,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/2543\/which-candidate-gets-subprime\/","url_meta":{"origin":7344,"position":4},"title":"Which Candidate “gets” Subprime?","author":"Jim Duncan","date":"January 28, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Stimulus programs.\u00a0 Health care.\u00a0 Subprime.\u00a0 Which candidate \"gets\" the subprime fix in which we find ourselves?60 Minutes did quite the story this evening on the subprime problem, summed up with this quote:If it sounds like a shell game or Ponzi scheme, it was in a way.Ron Paul says:\u201cIf you believe\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Real Estate"","block_context":{"text":"Real Estate","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/real-estate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3754,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/3754\/a-realtors-life-deeply-spiritual-and-cheesier\/","url_meta":{"origin":7344,"position":5},"title":"A Realtor’s Life: Deeply Spiritual and Cheesier","author":"Thomas Hall","date":"August 4, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I admit my mind works a little differently than most - I like to write and talk about things that are current - so, in light of the past week's recent events, I decided that I wanted to correlate last week's LA earthquake, the current credit crunch and my recent\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Lending"","block_context":{"text":"Lending","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/lending\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7344"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7344\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7354,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7344\/revisions\/7354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}