Unfucking believable!

Bank of America's latest stunt is shifting derivatives in its Merrill investment-banking unit to its depository arm, which has access to the Fed discount window and is protected by the FDIC.

Why is B of A being allowed to shift these derivatives to it's depository arm? The is precisely the very thing Glass-Steagall was written to prevent.

And why would we want to prevent banks from doing so? Derivatives have a potential to blow up financial institutions and cause a hell of a lot of havoc. To allow BoA, or any other institution, to use it's depository arm as a vehicle to gamble trillions of dollars with is simply irresponsible at best.

Why now? how about probably because BoA's credit rating was just lowered another 2 points and the investors were worried and aksed them to safeguard their money.

So, what does this mean to you? It means that BoA's European derivatives are now going to be "backstopped" (i.e. supported) by U.S. taxpayers.

Just what I always wanted: to be the insurance company underwriting bad banking investments.

Link to Bloomberg Article