Bank of America just agreed to pay another $16 Billion fine for one of its frauds—selling trashy securities to its investors. Another day, another fraud exposed. No surprises there. This is so routine it barely deserves a headline.
According to Bloomberg, that raises the total it has agreed to pay for its mortgage lending frauds to $70 billion.
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-08-06/bank-of-america-s-penalty-misses-the-point. Most of this is related to its purchase of Countrywide, where Mairone oversaw much of the fraud.
See:http://www.economonitor.com/lrwray/2014/08/02/setting-the-record-straight-one-more-time-bofas-rebecca-mairone-fined-1million-bofa-must-pay-1-3billion/.
BofA rewarded Mairone for creating Countrywide’s “Hustle” fraud by hiring her. So far that woman’s criminal expertise contributed toward mounting costs to BofA of $70 billion. Quite an accomplishment!
Her portrait ought to hang right next to CEO Ken Lewis’s at corporate headquarters as among the bank’s most costly mistakes in its history. As CEO, Lewis bought Countrywide for $4 billion, but the $70 billion of fines directly related to that purchase bring the direct cost up to $74 billion and counting.
Economonitor — Great Leap Forward
L. Randall Wray | Professor of Economics, University of Missouri at Kansas City
