Uh-oh...Is Bank of America Getting Cold Feet?

From the tabloid New York Post, I bring you, without comment, Merrill Flinch.

The Ballad of Wachovia - R.I.P.

There once was a man name of Ken
For banking he had quite a yen
Big talker he was
And seldom did pause
To think prior to sharing his spin

He gobbled up firms right and left
Employees from those were bereft
Their jobs were all gone
Possessions they pawned
And Ken told them "Sorry you're miffed"

Ken's star was still rising so fast
And Wachovia's stock unsurpassed
Near 60 it rose
In awe were his foes
But then he acquired Golden West

At top of the bubble he bought
Dissenting opinion he fought
The deal came to past
The stock fell so fast
And havoc on us Ken did wrought

The board finally gave Ken the boot
And Lanty would say "Well now shoot"
"Things ain't all that bad"
"I'll find us a lad"
"To turn things around"
... What a hoot!

So Steel took the offer to come
And told us "Hey don't look so glum"
"I'm from Goldman Sachs"
"Know Treasury's hacks"
"Just watch as I pull out a plum!"

Yet share price continued to fall
And Steel brazened unforeseen gall
On TV Steel went
To Cramer did vent
And said "We can manage it all"

Two weeks later all became clear
As hope quickly turned into fear
Feds said "Sell or seize"
"We ain't saying please"
While Steel played the role of King Lear*

Amidst somber tolling of bells
Steel first sold to C, then to Wells
Shareholders perplexed
Employees quite vexed
Above all were heard screams and yells

We ask, "How can all of this be"
"Misled by Ken, Steel and Lanty"
The deal seems all Donne
This ain't been much fun
We now know the bell tolls for thee**

by blogger Gus with apologies to Wm. Shakespeare and John Donne

* Meantime we shall express our darker purpose.Give me the map there. Know that we have dividedIn three our kingdom: and 'tis our fast intentTo shake all cares and business from our age;Conferring them on younger strengths, while weUnburdened crawl toward death. ... "King Lear" (Act I, Sc I)

**Therefore, send not to know For whom the bell tolls, It tolls for thee. ... "For Whom the Bell Tolls"

Congress to Probe Former-Goldman, Former-Treasury,Former -Wachovia Executive Steel?

Is Robert Steel feeling any heat? Perhaps, sez The Financial Times in "Call for Probe Into Ex-Goldman Executives."

Chuck Grassley, the most senior Republican on the Senate finance committee, asked Eric Thorson, inspector-general of the Treasury, to investigate the "independence" of several Treasury officials who formerly worked at Goldman Sachs and serve as advisers to Treasury secretary Hank Paulson, the former chief executive of the Wall Street bank. (snip)

Mr Grassley singled out Robert Steel, a former Goldman official who worked under Mr Paulson at the Treasury before he became chief executive of Wachovia. (my emphasis, snip)

Mr Grassley is specifically concerned with a change in the tax code the Treasury initiated in late September that saved some institutions tens of billions of dollars and paved the way for Wells Fargo's acquisition of Wachovia.

See my 9/30 post, "Robert Steel: Iron Man or 'Irony Man'"

Tabloid Thursday - Charlotte Gone Wild

Local scandals made for the national tabloids. Charlottetowne, you're all growed up.

• Teachers Disciplined for Facebook Postings (Charlotte Observer)
• Southpark Madam: Saxon's Powerful Clients (MSNBC multi-part expose)

Charlotte Playas

Charlotte magazine publishes its "Power 50" list of this year's Most Influential Charlotteans. No surprise - Ken Lewis is king of the heap.

Take the playa quiz to see how you rank.

Obama Declared Unofficial Winner in NC!

Is it over? Is it really, really, over? "Almost," says the Raleigh News & Observer:

Democrat Barack Obama is the unofficial winner in North Carolina, but the victory over Sen. John McCain won't be sealed until provisional ballots are counted and certified next month.

Unofficial returns show Obama ahead by 13,746 votes.

"Our law allows us to say who the unofficial winner is," Gary Bartlett [NC State Board of Elections] said, "but you know we have a formal process in which we audit records." The county canvasses are Nov. 14, and the state is scheduled to certify the results Dec. 1.

Thank You Bush for Giving Us Obama

If we didn't have Bush, we migh not have gotten Obama. I loved this snarky thank you note from blogger marky367's diary. :: ::

Dear Bush Administration,

I received your gift of President Obama yesterday, and LOVE IT!

Now don't act shy.

You've been too modest in the past. Why, I remember when that Valerie Plame thing showed up on the front steps one day. You were all like, "Where did that come from?"

But I knew it was you!

Not this time. You're going to take a turn in the spotlight even if I have to shackle your legs and frog march you out there! ;-)

Because I want everyone to know that we owe the outcome of this election entirely to you.

You see, some people would say this election proves that America has changed. That we're ready to acknowledge that complicated problems require nuanced solutions. That courage is trumping fear. That we're finally stepping into a post-racial future.

Bzzzzt! Wrong!

What's remarkable about this election is the mind-boggling amount of coercion, brow-beating, and finally the all-encompassing catastrophe that it took for America to even consider changing course!

What administration but yours could have kept its eyes on the prize and made it happen? The storm warnings of your first term elicited yawns. The rising waters of the second term, shrugs. And even in the week before the election, polls showed that 12% of the bloated corpses bobbing on the flood you caused were still not sure how to vote!

It's not for lack of effort on your part. You've been trying to give this gift since the moment you came to power. You tortured people, denied habeas corpus, committed election fraud, wallowed in corruption, and spied on your own citizens. You wasted hundreds of billions on a pointless war. You bungled attempts to get Osama Bin Laden. You sat on your hands while an entire city was washed away.

Any ONE of these things ought to have been sufficient to assure the election of ten Barack Obamas. And yet, at the end of the primary season, he was running no better than even with McCain. A candidate barely palatable to his own party!

You must have been wondering, "Christ! What is this going to take?!" I know I was.

A better administration would have thrown in the towel. But you didn't give up!

So there were only two options left: to have the House Republican caucus drink the blood of babies on prime time national television, or to hurl the country into a depression. Personally, I think the former option would have shown a lot of style.

But that's quibbling.

So, sure, special gratitude has to go out to all the politically-appointed heads of regulatory agencies who were supposed to be patrolling the financial sector, but instead, with a knowing wink, kept a protective vigil at the front door while a circle jerk of hedge fund CEO's did belly shots from the navels of trashy mortgage derivatives.

You know who you are. I love you guys.

But ultimately, this was a team effort. And while the contributors were too numerous to mention here, I've got to give a special shout out to the committed few that did more than just break our laws and betray our trust. They made that extra effort required to rub America's face in it, just to be sure we'd notice.

To Larry Craig, David Vitter and Mark Foley. You knew that anybody can get themselves busted with their pants down. So you were sure to be moralizing, holier-than-thou crusaders right up until the moment they snapped the cuffs on you. Way to dazzle 'em with the depravity, then send 'em to the canvas with the hypocrisy!

Take a bow!

To Karl Rove and his corps of political assassins. You could have just played dirty when the score was close. But you went for the groin again and again and again--cold-cocking Don Siegelman in Alabama, canning U.S. attorneys, outing covert operatives--even when you had the game in hand! Talk about dedication!

Take a bow!

To Dick Cheney--there just are no words. You are the ultimate bureaucratic ninja. You could have quietly dismantled our democracy and no one would have even noticed until the unopened mail at the Rayburn House Office Building started piling up. But you played out of your head for eight straight years! It was like you were everywhere at the same time! The overreaching, the surliness, the swagger. You lied us into a war. You tortured innocents. You crapped on the Constitution. And then, like some kind of geriatric James Dean, you looked us in the eye and dared us to do anything about it.

Take a bow.

And last but not least, to you George. For exhausting America's seemingly-limitless reserve of cowardice by pressing the fear button over and over, so that when John McCain went to that well to warn of a black man named Hussein, the bucket came up empty.

For valuing intuition over intellect. We watched you thrust your arm into one political wood chipper after another. And each time you'd regard your mangled digits with bewilderment, and then commit the same boneheaded mistake again! What less-numbing display could have driven the great unwashed into the arms of some brainiac college professor to be drearily lectured on economics?

And finally, thanks for exhorting us to aspire only to our basest instincts. For urging us to shop for trinkets, to suspect our neighbors, to get all we could get while the gettin' was good. By offering not a scrap to quell our pangs for more wholesome fare, you ensured that an ethereal menu of hope, change and unity would be welcomed as the starving welcome biscuits and gravy. When I think about the effort you made. The commitment. I just...

I promised myself I wouldn't cry. I will not cry. ...

But no sir! I can't wait for Barack Obama to reverse every policy and repeal every law you've supported in the last eight years. And each time he does something smart, something competent, something Constitutional--or even when he commits mere misdemeanors in the places where the felonies used to go--I will think of you. And smile.

There may come a time when the destruction you've caused ill seem no more than a bad dream. When agencies are run by skilled professionals rather than political hacks. When other countries laugh with us, not at us. And when, with the wiser eyes of a Jimmy Stewart saved by an angel, we delight in the modest charms of our old, exasperating, imperfect, break-down prone jalopy of a government as it chugs unsteadily into the future.

Indeed, there may come a time when Barack Obama has erased virtually every trace of the mess you've made.

But there's one thing he'll never erase: my gratitude.

Sincerely,
Me

Obama Wins and U.S. Rejoins the World; NC Counts Votes

Obama wins an historic U.S. Presidential election. See today's newspaper front pages - US and Worldwide Edition.

As of 11 am, Nov. 5, results from North Carolina are still too close to call.

Final PPP Poll - Photo Finish Expected in NC

From Political Wire, PPP Poll - Photo Finish Expected in North Carolina

The final Public Policy Polling survey in North Carolina barely gives the lead to Sen. Barack Obama as he edges Sen. John McCain by one point, 50% to 49%.

Key finding: "Barack Obama's chances in North Carolina on Tuesday really could depend on the weather. PPP projects that he racked up a lead of a little over 250,000 voters during early voting. He led 55-45 among those who said they had already voted in our poll, and a little over 2.5 million North Carolinians have already cast their ballots."

In the U.S. Senate race, Kay Hagan (D) leads Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R-NC), 51% to 44%.

My comment - I expected Obama's early voting lead margin to be wider than 250,000. Hmmm.