If you got a big, fat bonus from failed investment bank Merrill Lynch, you’ve just gotta love bailed-out Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis.
He flies the corporate jet to New York to answer to New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. No commercial coach seat for him. It’s not like he’s an washed-up auto exec or something.
The AG wanted to know who got the $3.6 billion in bonuses doled out to Merrill Lynch managers just before that foundering firm was forced to merge with BOA – which, by the way, has kept its bag open for taxpayer money like a pre-teen sugar addict on Halloween.
Lewis wouldn’t divulge the names.
BOA has said it wants assurances that the AG will keep those names confidential before it discloses them.
Hey, just because the taxpayers are pumping billions of dollars into a bank, doesn’t mean they get to know where their money is going.
Gotta love that Ken if you came from Merrill Lynch.
Maybe you can keep the bonus money. And keep your names away from that pesky media, and those wacky taxpayers - who just too simple to understand the bonus system on Wall Street.
(PHOTO: Ken Lewis, from Bank of America’s website.)
