paulson and bernanke exposed, page-13

This is now being reported on Bloomberg.

"Bank of America Pressured by Paulson to Buy Merrill

... Lewis and the board of the biggest U.S. bank by assets are under fire for not telling shareholders that New York-based Merrill’s fourth-quarter loss was spiraling toward $15.8 billion before they voted to approve the deal in December...

Paulson kept the Securities and Exchange Commission, which is responsible for making sure companies disclose material information to their investors, in the dark, according to Cuomo...

‘Clear Violation’

The allegations in Cuomo’s letter suggest Paulson and other policymakers may have resorted to breaking securities laws in order to protect a fragile financial system, according to Peter Sorrentino, a senior portfolio manager at Cincinnati-based Huntington Asset Advisors, which has about $13.3 billion under management and doesn’t own Bank of America Corp. stock.

“Everyone involved knew that was a clear violation, that’s material non-public information, so basically we just closed the rule book during the crisis and said we don’t care, we need to keep the lights on, and we’ll deal with that manana,” Sorrentino said. “Logic went out the window and they were just acting out of fear,” he said. It was “completely panic mode.”

Full article at

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aVnL7XywRK1A&refer=home