PEC DAS BONDADES / LDO – 3 EM 1 – 13/07/2022

What is really behind the AIG bonus rage is the suspicion that there is a group of people in this country who are laughing their way to the bank. It is that old idiom that ninety seven percent of the money is given to three percent of the people and the remaining ninety seven percent must split the remaining three percent. AIG bears this out. But what is really behind our collective outrage is that this group of people who seem to have it all don’t work for their money. They don’t. Ivy League schools dump out business graduates and they are snapped up by companies like AIG who put them in positions that require six figure retention bonuses. Normal people do not get hundreds of thousands of dollars for staying on the job.

In January of 2008, Bank of America purchased Countrywide for some $4 billion. For B of A, the acquisition might generate some large gains if, in the near future, the mortgage markets begin to stabilize, according to analysts. The bank remains a leader in retail deposit accounts, and is a huge commercial lender as well as credit-card issuer. Until the Countrywide move, it had not expanded quite so much into mortgages.