Sam's Insane Ravings

Bank of America's purcahse of Merrill made no sense at the time, then again they'd also bought Countrywide which made even less sense. It seemed pretty obvious at the time that there was some sort of under the table "you buy Merrill and countrywide and we will bail you out" deal with Treasury. But apparently not, a back room shakedown instead.

I won't get the words exactly right -- and he said, "I'm going to be very blunt, we're very supportive of Bank of America and we want to be of help, but" -- I recall him saying "the government," but that may or may not be the case -- "does not feel it's in your best interest for you to call a MAC, and that we feel strongly," -- I can't recall if he said "we would remove the board and management if you called it" or if he said "we would do it if you intended to."

...

And Hank said two things: He said, "First, it would be so watered down, it wouldn't be as strong as what we were going to say to you verbally, and secondly this would be a disclosable event and we do not want a disclosable event."

'It Wasn't Up to Me': Excerpts From Ken Lewis's Testimony - The Wall Street Journal

So the CEO of BoA is, while under oath, is saying that Paulson and Bernanke committed extortion and also confessing to committing securities fraud himself. I was expecting backroom deals and securities fraud, but not blatant extortion.

Those are all Federal crimes, what's the bet that none of them ever see the inside of the jail cell they belong in.

Extortion and Securities Fraud are both RICO offenses, so if Paulson is committing Securities Fraud by telling the CEO of BoA to do so then we have "2 in 10 years" and racketeering can be added to the list of offenses.