Honestly the banks loosing this much money gives them MORE leverage to try and squeeze consumers and escape regulation.

@tankertodd:Yeh because they did so great with no help all the bad is the goverments fault before and after.

So, actually BofA is being forced to take public money.

Yeah, that totally has no bias in it at all. Totally. Obviously, there's just no way this article could have been written by simply saying "The bank has posted a loss..."

@morlo: Then why don't the customers, um, leave the bank for another bank? No one is forcing them to use BoA.

A bank being big, or making profit, or having customers feel it's a bad bank, is not a sufficient condition to wish those workers were out of a job, especially in the current situation.

Why do you guys assume people are just powerless to get screwed by corporations they chose to do business with in the first place?

F*** BofA.

If they took my money (taxpayer) to survive, I should certainly have a voice in their pay, policies and decisions.

The World bank does this with countries they lend money to. You want money? You will cut your spending, raise interest rates, check your inflation, reduce your deficit etc.

Ooh, I love it when the beans squish between my toes!

I have no problem at all with conditioning the receipt of federal funds on just about anything; however, I believe those conditions should be made clear prior to the agreement.

@tankertodd: If they didn't want or need the funds, why did they take them? While I am not an expert on the bailouts, I don't recall there being any time where the government said 'You MUST take this money."

And I have an incredibly hard time believing that the federal government could do a -worse- job, since... BoA wouldn't exist now if they had been left alone. From the people who brought you $54 million payoffs for doing nothing, capricious adjustments of credit card rates on steady paying customers, and over a billion dollars in dividend payments when posting a LOSS, it's... OUR BANK (now).

You're now rooting for the failure of an American institution that employs over 150,000 workers. Ignoring the force that the government used against BoA to put them in this situation, you only want to celebrate the fact that they lost billions of dollars because of it.

This is about as good taste as the people that celebrated when Chicago didn't get the Olympics bid because Obama supported it.

Stay classy, Consumerist.

The bank bailout not impacting this corporate gravy train (and blocking reform to prevent future occurrences) are simply more of the same, writ large.

That impulse has always been present in the United States. It's just that before, they were called Royalists & Tories. Now they're called Free Market Fundamentalists, Libertarians or Conservatives.

Have to admire the consistency, no?

They should be grateful that they all still have jobs - the bank really shouldn't exist anymore.

All I have to say is YAY, KARMA! Sure you guys don't want to reconsider those OD fees now?

@Japheaux: ...forced to accept the TARP money, which is a loan, and not allowed to pay it back yet. BAC doesn't need that money, but the gov wanted to make sure they had the reserves in case more financial institutions started caving.

@Oranges w/ Cheese wants it to be winter already:

It would only be better if he was crying tiny, tiny tears...

"Always bet on black"

-Wesley Snipes, Passenger 57.

@Oranges w/ Cheese wants it to be winter already: Don't read the news much, do you?

Shouldn't the gov't do the same that a private investor would? Nothing disturbing about that, just business 101.

Of course, if BofA didn't want the gov't control, they didn't have to take the money.

@Esquire99: You know, I keep seeing this kind of comment more and more with stories related to the banks, where there's all this outrage about how DARE the government step in and interfere with private business. So let me just say this:

THEY TOOK FEDERAL FUNDS.

They took -twenty billion-, in fact. As far as I'm concerned, they are no longer private businesses. They stopped being that when THEY relied on taxpayers bailing them out from their OWN bad decisions. They have placed themselves in their own mess. And yet still, somehow, their CEO is walking away with a $53 million pension, still pays their executive board obscene amounts, and still managed to pay $1.24 billion in dividend payments to 'preferred shareholders'.

Not only do they have no right to complain about not getting a salary, but they should be thanking their lucky stars that the government hasn't taken MORE control. I think that as long as BoA hasn't paid back the federal bailout, there are wonderful public policy arguments to be made for eliminating pensions of executives, eliminating dividend payouts, and taking greater control over the bank in general.

That is kind of disturbing...then again...most of these idiots are making about 10,000% more than they should. Million dollar performance bonuses for putting your company out of business (except for a gov. bailout saving your rear)?

We'll see if I get declined when I go to buy gas today. Also I was told if I return a purchase made with the old card the retailer may decline the return, so they gave me a special number to call while I am at the check-out in case this happens so they can put the return on the new card.

Of course, I only found all this out by calling and going through three levels of people.

So yes, BofA, who until yesterday I had no problem with, is on my naughty list. And not naughty in a good way.