Andrew Cuomo

Ahead of tomorrow's Committee of Oversight and Congressional Reform hearing on the Bank Of America - Merrill Lynch strong-arming by the Fed, entitled "Bank of America and Merrill Lynch: How Did a Private Deal Turn Into a Federal Bailout? Part IV" (which may or may not happen), Dylan Ratigan discusses some salient points with California Republican Darrell Issa. As a reminder, prominent witnesses tomorrow will be BofA GC Tim Mayopolous and Directors Charles Gifford and Thomas May.

All U.S., Canadian and global public pension plans should disclose dealings with placement agents on their websites. Moreover, regulators should ban firms from using middlemen. For every one good placement agent, there are a hundred corrupt fools looking to line their pockets.

Hot on the heels of realizing that the money you have now is getting close to worthless in order to bail out the Wall Street oligarchy, courtesy of the Chairman, Alan Grayson is taking his initiative to delay Bernanke's nomination direct to the people, and here is your chance to be heard. A new website Unmask the Fed is soliciting Americans' endorsement in getting to the bottom of the following question:

Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, is up for confirmation
to his second term, but he has still refused to disclose where he sent
$2 trillion in taxpayers' money. Send a message to your Senators and ask them to make Bernanke come clean before his confirmation moves forward!

I have found evidence that this bank has $32 billion of naked (as in apparently unhedged) swaps on its books - just like AIG. The difference is this bank is bigger, probably has more exposure, and has already been bailed out - several times. Oh, did I mention the insured collateral is nearly half BBB rated or lower??? How about extreme management issues at the top, and I mean all the way to the top. A trunk full of junk, surrounded by drama! It should be an interesting conference call tomorrow when they report, that is if anybody decides to ask the right questions...

Heads up!

Tsy Pay Czar Wants $198M In AIG Retention Pay Reduced -Report

Tsy Pay Czar Wants $45M In Pledged AIG Repayments

Tsy Didn't Take Broad Look AIG Pay Packages

AIG Execs Only Returned $19M Of $45M In Pledged Repayments -Report

A month ago Zero Hedge speculated that the SEC was preparing to throw Wachtell Lipton and Ed Herlihy at the wolves, in case its planned settlement to indemnify Ken Lewis of all sins failed. Well, it failed, now that a jury trial is in the works to determine just how guilty Ken Lewis et al have been of shareholder fraud. And, as expected, Wachtell Lipton is about to be run over by a 200 ton freight train.

Dear Chairman Dodd and members of the Banking Committee,

We are writing to ask you to postpone the confirmation of Ben Bernanke until the Federal Reserve releases documentation that will allow the public and the Senate to have a full understanding of the commitments that the Federal Reserve has made on our behalf. Without such an understanding, it is impossible to know whether Chairman Bernanke is fit to serve another term and fulfill the Federal Reserve’s dual mandate to ensure price stability and full employment. A list of said documentation is enumerated below.

- Alan Grayson and Ron Paul

• Everyone buying HFT platforms: chip sales rise 5% in August (WSJ)
• Geithner says "Strong dollar is very important" to US (Bloomberg) too bad he is lying
• IMF chief renews call for currency reform (FT)
• Banks with 20% unpaid loans at 18 year high amid recovery doubt (Bloomberg)
• Glorious is fifth flop in Hong Kong IPO "Massacre" (Bloomberg)
• Wall Street wizardry reworks mortgages (WSJ, h/t Geoffrey)
• For sale, cheap: "Old GM" peddles a bankrupt empire's remains (WSJ)

Not a bad move by the man about to be raided by the Fed, the AG, the SEC, the Tooth Fairy and who knows who else. In other news, the Chairman wins again.

Project Mayhem reviews the most important financial and geopolitical news of the past week and takes a look at the week ahead.

There is blood in the water... that of Ken Lewis, and the sharks are all over it. The latest to join the dismemberment party of one Bank Of America Chief Executive Officer, is New York Representative, and Chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Edolphus Towns. And while the traditional defense provided by Lewis, BofA, and respective lawyers, has been one which delegates any wrongdoing to the attorney-client privilege gray area, Towns has told the bank it "cannot use attorney-client privilege when dealing with Congress." The last piece of armor that Lewis had has just been torn off. From a strategic point of view, the question now becomes whether Ken Lewis, soon to be faced with the traditional prisoner's dilemma, will out his "dealer" Hank Paulson, in exchange for a slap on the wrist, as the alternative could be a much more gruesome fate easily involving an 8x10 cell.

Is a major political scandal brewing in New York? A year and a half after taking over for a disgraced Spitzer, Paterson is now at war with everyone, but most notable the New York State Budget, and now, the President. The motive, one can speculate, is to get Cuomo into the governor's post immediately if not sooner, so the AG never files any criminal charges against Ken Lewis.

In a developing story reported by the AP, Cuomo has allegedly subpoenaed five relevant Bank Of America directors who had presumably been briefed on actions taken by the bank in its Merrill merger prior to the public disclosure, and is seeking their sworn testimony.

As set forth above, we cannot simply accept Bank of America's officers' bald assertions that their decisions to keep each of these material events from Bank of America's shareholders were based on a full review of all the relevant information by their inside and outside counsel. The law is clear that Bank of America and its officers cannot assert an advice of counsel defense for their decisions, and at the same time persist in refusing to disclose the substance of the conversations with counsel. Accordingly, we request that Bank of America reconsider its decision to prevent this Office from adequately probing these crucial issues. We provide you with this final opportunity to reconsider. Otherwise, we will proceed with our charging decisions without giving credit to the advice of counsel defenses that Bank of America has not permitted us to test.

- From The Office Of NY Attorney General, Andrew Cuomo