For many months now, people have been asking why Ken Lewis still had his job as chairman and CEO of Bank of America, and for many months the answer has been “Because,” but now we have a new answer: as of last night he is only the CEO, and who knows how much longer he’ll have that gig.
History will remember Ken Lewis as the guy who acquired Countrywide Financial and Merrill Lynch, the 2008 Banker of the Year, and the poor loser who became a lightning rod for the wrath of B of A shareholders, Maxine Waters, and whatever Americans can be bothered to watch House Banking Committee hearings on CSPAN.
Lewis will probably not stay on very long as CEO, because all of the fun
“executive perks,” such as trays of petits-fours at every meal and squadrons of well-oiled cabana boys bearing golden iPhones on private jets, only come with being chairman.
Soon the board will oust Lewis as CEO and replace him with, hmm, probably Robert Rubin, Larry Summers, Andrea Mitchell’s 400-year-old husband, or some other moneysack who was equally and intimately involved in ruining our nation’s financial sector.
Ken Lewis: Halfway out [Reuters]
Bank of America Chief Ousted as Chairman [New York Times]
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{ 29 comments }
“Ken Lewis: Halfway Out” brings up the question: So is there still time for a partial-birth abortion?
What do you call lining up the CEOs & chairmen of the Fortune 500 companies & shooting them. At dawn?
A good start toward our new socialist economy!!
Oh, ha ha ha. That is not funny, though the thought of it sustains me when the revolution seems more distant than near.
Well now, it’s good to know my angry email about the level of service at my local BOA branch got some results, bet all the other CEO’s are scared me me now….
The BofA needs to take some more Ex-Lax.
STFU Admiral Ackbar.
laughing, lots. older coworkers not getting joke.
Can’t remember her name, but there was a woman who went bonkers
on Wonkette when Obama forced Rick Wagoner’s resignation at GM.
I agreed with her at the time, that forcing Wagoner out, while
allowing all those banksters to remain in place was hypocritical.
Now I realize it’s like Vegas or Atlantic City casinos hiring smart
cheats and card counters to catch others of their ilk — only, the
casino cheats are forced to ADMIT to being cheats.
Maybe we were too harsh on that poor lady from Michigan after all.
[re=304516]SayItWithWookies[/re]: Or mebbe he’s a bi-secksual?
[re=304525]NunnaTheSOBs[/re]: No, they still bought Saab, Hummer, etc on his watch. But yes he served as an example. Losing fitty billion over a few years, someone’s gonna notice.
A chief executive officer who gets to preside over his own execution. Sweet. Makes the 21% interest rate BOA will start charging tomorrow on my substantially unsecured loan almost worth it. Almost. Maybe if I get to hold the sword he falls on I’ll feel better. No. I won’t. Maybe if I get to twist it… no, that won’t do, either. Sayonara, Ken, it’s seppuku time. I’ll sell tickets to the show, with a 40% commission coming to me off the top. There. Now I feel better.
perhaps he can help out with the GOP’s “re-branding” effort.
Ok Ken, pack up your desk and leave the stapler. Don’t forget your check for $250,000,000 on the way out. Buh bye.
It’s too bad. Under Ken Lewis, I went into my branch and complained about the fees on my business checking account. They said – oh – we can just waive those fees for you.
That’s a business I could appreciate – one that gives their services away without an argument.
If there was ever a candidate for serial anal crucifixion it would have to be old Halfway Out.
Any replacement like this by usually rubberstampers is pretty significant and humiliating. Good for him.
I have to break for an hour so happy Wonketeering. Email me at tommyjugdishAT yahoo.com if SKS and Newell got ghey married or Custerwolf and Nerdalicious got into a pillowfight.
[re=304543]Johnny Zhivago[/re]: Uh…I had the opposite experience w/BoA and a business account. It had a debit card, which I mistakenly used in a socialist state liquor store in Virginia. Two weeks later a charge for a $4,000 pair of diamond earrings showed up on the account. Called BoA, they said they’d rejected the charge twice and then said WTF and approved it. Yes they made me whole (or rather, their insurance company did) but they still didn’t give a shit. Moved it all to a local bank, and never looked back. Suck it, Ken!
[re=304543]Johnny Zhivago[/re]: I had to do that about 3 times on overdraft charges because their idiot online banking system (ca. Y2K) kept losing all my savings-to-checking transfers.
I think maybe the logic of my “WHY THE FUCK DO YOU EVEN HAVE A GODDAM FUCKING ONLINE BANKING SYSTEM IF YOU CAN’T FUCKING GET THE GODDAM FUCKING THING TO MAKE A GODDAM FUCKING SAVINGS TO CHECKING FUCKING TRANSFER?!” rants finally got through to them, ’cause it works as advertised, now.
Whoops, my bad. It was US Bank I was ranting at. Not good ol’ BofA.
um, the only thing i saw was cabana boys and golden iphones. huzzah!! sign me up for this ceo thing.
Ol’ Ken doesn’t have any problems a personal rebranding couldn’t fix. Everybody’s doing it.
Halfway out? That’s a lousy way to do it…
Does dividing the role of Chairman and CEO count as “new job creation” because that would be good job to have. Where can I fill out an application?
Ken Lewis CEO….Ken Layne CEO of Wonkette….eerie.
If he’s half way out, he’s still half way in. That’s what an ex-girlfriend said.*
*Disclaimer. No ex girlfriend said this, but it makes the story funnier, adds a frisson of sexual naughtiness (anal crucifixion is way more than a “frisson”), and is still better journalism than you’ll find on Faux News/the WSJ editorial page, also.
He could get gilt iPhones, but did they still have to use AT&T?
Just wondering, if you make gazillions of dollars in your career and then get a gazillion dollars and more for your severance, are you then eligible for unemployment or would the fact he got fired make him illegible. Just wondering because I won’t be totally satisfied until one of these fuckers are forced into a situation where they’re at the Unemployment Office waiting in line for hours trying to get some help like the rest of us.
[re=304610]DangerousLiberal[/re]: frisson of sexual naughtiness
Sexcellent.
I read that as “Ken Layne Thrown Halfway Under Bus” and I thought okay, okay, he had to mind the store almost all by himself for two days, WE GET IT ALREADY!!
Oh, here we go, America. Obama has begun the replacement of Regular American corporate chairmen with Negro American ones. Don’t say Rush Limbaugh didn’t warn you.
Lewis was not the worst of the CEO’s, by far. The acquisition of Merril was a bad call, but Countrywide was a good buy for BAC, strategically- they bought the single largest originator of home loans in the US for a song, when they were probably the smallest originator of all interstate banks. I won’t be sorry to see him go, but they’ll just replace him with another overpaid douchebag who isn’t nearly as closely scrutinized. It’s not a victory.
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